We live our lives in a sprint. Our agendas are chock-full of family and work activities that have blended into a dizzying slurry of stuff. Unlike our parents, we have “careers” not “jobs,” which means we are on the clock whenever it is ticking. Our personal lives have grown in complexity as well, as we shuffle through a dense schedule of activities for ourselves and our kids, the latter of who’s playtime looks a lot like our work time.
Thank goodness for the handy electronic assistance of our cell phones which enable us to stay in continual contact with our ever changing, black hole dense schedules and ensure that we never miss out on those critically important e-mails, for which we are one of 50 people on the distribution list. Please.
At the risk of dating myself and quoting a 15 minute celebrity, we need to stop the insanity. And get a real life.
The biggest problem with the insanely dense schedules that most of us keep is how detrimental they are to one of our greatest differentiators- our ability to think deeply, contemplatively and strategically. The busier we are, the more we depend on our lower cognitive functions which govern our ability to react and survive. It’s as if we tell our frontal lobes “chill-out, I’ll let you know when I need you.”
Lest you think I’m exaggerating, take a look around you. See how many people are multi-tasking, signified by that weird cellphone earpiece that makes them look like some star trek wanna be. How strategic can you be when you are talking on your phone (usually too loudly) while in a bank queue, drinking a Starbucks. By the way (and at the risk of sounding rude), have you ever listened to one of those discussions? I promise you if you have, you were not impressed with the quality of thinking.
Which brings me to my point. We need to slow down and take a hard look at how we are conducting our lives. What we really need is some quality down time to recharge our battery (not the one on our cell phone) and make a clear headed assessment of how we spend our time. Vacations used to provide our down time venue, but that was before “e-mail in the morning, conference call at night and vacation in between” vacations.
There is not an aspect of your life that can not benefit from the perspective of some quality down time to reflect, think and plan. I know that it is counter intuitive in our go-go lives to think that anything that begins with “down” can build you up. But you have little to lose and a richer life to gain. Slow down, dust off the frontal lobes and give it a shot.