This weekend, a three-day holiday in the U.S., is also the unofficial kickoff of summer. We’re looking forward to longer daylight hours and vacations.
And everyone I’ve spoken with recently has talked about how busy they are, how they really needed this holiday weekend to catch their breath. I’m certainly in a similar mindset. A national holiday gives us a break. We’ve spent time over the past few days with our families, time in our communities and we had unscheduled time on our calendars for at least a few hours.
But if I ask you “Do you wait for someone else to give you this kind of time?” you’d probably say no. We are, after all, in control of our schedules and our time.
Except when we are not. Which is often. We mindlessly cede control to others when we don’t book time for the things that are non-urgent. When we fill up our calendars. It can take a government action for us to even schedule a 3 day weekend!
We set New Year’s resolutions – how about summer resolutions this year? Taking out our calendars, right now, and scheduling time for the things we’ve done the last three days. Time for self. Time for family. Time for community.
And time to think, not just react.
If we could bottle how we feel at the end of a holiday and the resulting productivity boost, we could pull out the bottle occasionally and remember why this type of time is vital to our success and well being.
And then we’d create more of it.
Since we can’t bottle it, what can we do? As with many things, what we can do is set an intention, reinforced by action, to create more of it.
Start by blocking time on your calendars for non-urgent items. Frequently.
Follow-up by listing what you will gain from following through and keeping this commitment. Recognize that unstructured time for yourself is equally as important as time for the daily urgencies.
Surely we can tame our schedules!
Karen Walker | One Team Consulting