Warwick Life Strategies

Welcome back PJ! For more thoughts on life's distractions and taking time for yourself, keep reading (guest author) PJ's post below! Moving you forward, WLS. 

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Greetings and hope things are well with you. I hope you’ve been productive…but, as my previous entry suggests, I also hope you were productive by not being productive. I hope you were able to find some time to relax, sit back and do nothing…proper ‘nothing time’, if you will.

I’d like to share a quick story with you for this entry, which helped me define and appreciate my own ‘nothing time’.

The other day, I got up rather late in the morning, a bit of a shock to me as I fell asleep a little earlier the night before. My day pretty much runs on clockwork during the week, for the most part: I’ve been blessed (though some may say ‘cursed’) being able to wake up at a certain time during the day, regardless of the previous night. I did wake up that usual early time, but I decided to stay laying down for a bit and think about the activities in my life the past few days: the victories, the defeats, the stalemates…the laughter, the frustration…the worries, both personal and professional…how I had plans during the previous few days and upcoming few days and whether I’ve pulled them or whether I’ll be able to…

Essentially, I was awake…but I didn’t actually get up from bed, distracted by 1001 thoughts fluttering in my head. It wasn’t until I checked the time minutes later that I realized I had been laying there, wasting precious time engrossed in my thoughts.

I sat up, frustrated, as waking up a bit later was a loss of sorts for me, costing me a precious few minutes for which to do activities through the day. “Great, I’ll have to have breakfast right away, then shower, then get to work and I won’t even have time to check my work emails and deal with a few other things , bah”, is what I told myself (well, I didn’t tell myself that exactly…well, you know).

As I went into the kitchen to toast my bagel, a smile crept onto my face as the reality of the situation finally dawned on me: I didn’t lose time on checking emails before work, necessarily, but I gained some time to actually rest, think and reflect. I pretty much had a smile across my face as I finished preparing my breakfast, appreciating the fact that I was actually able to pull off some genuine, reflective ‘nothing time’. I felt great; relaxed, refreshed and more motivated than ever to go ahead with my day.

The reality of the situation is that I won’t be able to do this every morning; there really are going to be mornings when I should wake up a bit early and deal with the ‘now’: there are some emails and work that I’d really like to tackle when I wake up before my actual day begins, if for no other reason than to give myself an opportunity to plan my day. There are going to be instances where I’ll have to get up early for other, legitimate reasons.

Which is exactly why it makes it all the more important for me to appreciate these precious moments where I can take myself away from my present self, and think about the past and future, if only for a little while.