A Time Out, Practical Idling Number 1: A Tea Break

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I have been going on about de-cluttering your mind all week and fancied a bit of a time out. It’s always nice to have a tea break isn’t it?

Tea is really the drink of choice for the Idler, coffee is too edgy, too “go getting” (not that I don’t like a good cup of coffee occasionally).

Incidentally, I am sure you have noticed (and I think I have said it before) I use idle and slow interchangeably. The Idle Philosophy and the Slow Philosophy are, although different in places, almost identical and cross over, intertwine and complement each other.

I discovered the Idler, just before I discovered the Slow Philosophy and the Slow Coaching principles that I have developed come from both of these ideas.

Anyway enough of that, this is meant to be a bit of a break. The idea of these irregular entires will be to look at Practical Idling or Idle Pursuits that you can do to take a break and chill out for a few minutes and gather your thoughts.

And in this first one I thought I would discuss how to make a good cup of tea.

Idea’s vary per person you ask, but the common consensus seems to be:

  1. Ensure kettle is clean and de-scaled
  2. Fill kettle with freshly drawn cold water
  3. Boil the kettle
  4. Allow 1 heaped teaspoon of loose tea, or 1 tea bag per person
  5. Infuse in cup, mug or teapot with boiling water (only ever use the water once and always use freshly boiled, preferably pour whilst still bubbling)
  6. Stand for 3-5 mins (important for correct flavour development and to get the full benefits of tea antioxidants)
  7. Stir, add milk and sugar to taste

Anyway must go, the kettles just boiled.

Matt

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De-clutter your mind to give you space to slow down. Part 3: Lets Get Creative!

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Right then. You have your goals, your categories of things you want or need to get done and you have your why, you have abandoned the “shoulds” for now.

So, lets get creative about how are going to achieve those goals. Abandon the capture list you wrote at the start of this process as we are now going to generate better process (obviously there may be things on there like paying the bills, those are essentials – but we will come back to them).

You see, there are probably much better ways to get to where you want to go other than the things you think you should be doing to get there. These thoughts are just results of old habits that we are now going to get rid of.

Sound good?

So, you need to now start thinking of ways that are “slower”, less stressful and more fun. Because it is all about the journey really. Imagine having a goal you are heading towards, slogging you guts out to get to it, hating every minute of it and getting hit by a bus just before you achieve it (I have talked about this a lot on previous posts).

The key questions you need to ask are these:

1. How will I know when it is done? Seems an obvious answer, but is it really?  How do you know? We all need to know where we are going. Think about it for a minute.

2. What ABSOLUTELY has to be there to get this done? Strip away the unnecessary tasks the irrelevant ideas and break it down the most basic needs and requirements.

And finally (and most importantly if you ask me)

3. What is the most fun way? Life is a journey, enjoy it! It may not be the fastest way or the most obvious way or the cheapest way, but it is the most fun way. Which means you will remain motivated and ironically probably do it quicker as you are enjoying thr process so much!

Want to Slow Down But Don’t Know Where to Start? Maybe one to one slow coaching is the answer for you? See the coaching page for details, I have worked with people from all over the world via Skype and telephone, we can arrange a time to suite you. Get in touch to find out more. Call +44 7711 204013 or email me.

Matt

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg etc (you can use the links below). I’d really appreciate it. :-)

De-clutter your mind to give you space to slow down. Part 2: Chunking

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Chunking is one of the most powerful tools to de-clutter and slow your life down.

Chunking is very simple to understand, it is about levels of detail. Let me give you an example to make it clearer.

If we picked something like a car.

If we wanted to chunk that up (go to the next level of vagueness, the “big picture”) we could ask ourselves, “what is this an example of?”, in this case you may think, “transport” or “vehicle”, both would be right (there is no real right or wrong answers here).

If we chunked down, ie went to the next level of detail, you could say something like “make or model”, “colour” or “seat” (component parts), get the idea?

Often when people have become overwhelmed, they have chunked down too far and are going into far too much detail, making it seem like they have far too much to do! This leads to stress and that feeling of being out of control.

So the way to deal with this is to take your capture list from yesterday and organise it into bigger chunks.

Let me give you a quick example, say your capture list was something like this:

1. hoover 2. the washing up 3. pay the credit card bills 4. Cook dinner 5. Call my sister 6. Do some yoga 7. Walk the dogs 8. Sort my tax bill 9. buy a card for Simons birthday

OK, so we have 9 things there, not a lot, but still quite a lot to get done, So, to help us organise it we chunk them, we ask ourselves how some of these can be grouped together.

For example, you could go 1, 2, and 4 could be grouped together has “housework” or “chores”.

3 and 8 could be grouped as “finances”.

Get the idea? You may have grouped them differently, that is fine, remember there is no right or wrong answer.

So get you capture list and see what can be grouped together and next time we will take the next step to help you de-clutter you mind and get more organised!

Matt

De-clutter your mind to give you space to slow down. Part 1: Capture.

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I am going to start a new mini-thread over the next few posts about how you can start to organise your mind to move from being “Hare-Brained” to “Tortoise-Minded”.

(I have just realised, in all the excitement about moving to this new site that I never finished up the series about “How to Be Slow In A Fast Environment”! I will get back to that next week – or may finish it up as a podcast if I am feeling adventurous!)

The reason for this mini-thread is that often people give me the excuse (and it is an excuse) that they have FAR TOO MUCH TO DO to be able to slow down (as I have already started to mention here).

However, it is not how much they have to do that causes them to be think they are far too busy, but the way they think about what they have to do!

The major thing that I have noticed is that they don’t record, write down or capture what they are thinking they need to do. So it just runs round and round and round and round in their heads. They repeat the same list over and over again (often in a different order each time) giving the impression that they have much more to do than they actually have!!

So, the first thing you need to do is just write everything down. But let me just stress one thing: This isn’t about writing a “to do list”, at this stage all it is about capturing what you think you need to do.

Often, when I get clients to do this they cannot list anywhere near as much as they think they should be able to and will say thing like “I am sure I have more to do than that, I must have forgotten some stuff…”. This is rarely true and often you will find you have much less to do than you think you  need to.

Next time I will tell you what to do with that capture list!

Matt

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Twittering Nonsense

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twitter-logoI got an invite to join twitter by a friend of mine today.

For those of you not in the know twitter is the latest online “social networking” site that (rather pretentiously) calls itself a  “micro-blogging service” that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

Twitter is the latest trend in communication and is starting to be used by all sorts of people (even Barack Obama has an account!).

You won’t find me on there though.

Why?

Because twitter is the latest step in the ever-increasing pace of life, of the tsunami of information we have to keep up with.

Just 10 years ago, we would phone someone or write a letter to keep in touch. Mobile phones were only just becoming common place and texting was in its infancy, even email was only just starting to walk.

10 years before that is was landline phone or letter. To keep in touch with world you would read a daily paper or watch the news at 10.

Do we really need this constant barrage of information? I think not. Yes, I write this journal, yes I have a mobile phone and email. But do I constantly check it? No! I don’t even know where my mobile is right now and often go out and forget to take it with me. Does my world end? Nope!

Now we are obsessed with being constantly “on” and are constantly bombarded with information. We feel the ever increase need to be always be “in touch” with everyone and everything.

It is like we are no one unless we are telling everyone what we are doing every second of the day. We are turning into a bunch of egomaniacs!

Twitter is the latest symptom of this. Where will we go next?!

Does it really matter what someone is up to at that very second? If it is that is that important can’t they call you or drop you text?!

Can’t you wait to find that out? Do you need the constant banal updates?!

We get so much information all we have time to do is process it. Information is pointless if we don’t have the time to act on it, all it does is make us stressed and worried and feel out of control…

We don’t need all this information, in fact I would argue that it is bad for us, physically, psychologically and socially.

Relax, chill out, delete your twitter account, close your web browser, go and buy a newspaper.  Phone a friend and have a proper chat. Why not arrange to pop round for a cup of tea? Too far away? Why not write them a letter and let them now what you are up to? Or even an email (it comes to something when an email seems a “slow” form of communication doesn’t it?!)

I prefer the quieter life:

The little retreat is to hide

Among wooded hills;

The great retreat is to vanish

In the capital.

- Kanzan

Tomorrow you will here my thoughts on other social networking online. Brace yourself…

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How to Be Slow in a Fast Environment Part 3 – Breathe!

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draft_lens1635638module9356724photo_1209664181breathe_stoneWhen we get stressed or flustered we have a tendency of holding our breath or breathing shallowly from the top 3rd of our lungs. This often causes the side effects of panting, tight shoulders and that high pitched voice you get when you are nervous.

Breath is the most important thing in life.

You can survive around 18 days without food, 3 days without water, but only 3 minutes without breath (the time it takes for your brain to be starved of oxygen).

When you get stressed out or flustered and stop breathing it starves your brain and muscles of oxygen, meaning you will not be able to think as clearly or be as physically or mentally relaxed as you need to be to act in an unflustered way.

So you start to get more stressed and flustered, meaning you tense up more and breathe less and it is all a vicious downward cycle!

The very best way to break this cycle is to, when you notice yourself getting flustered, stop and take some deep breaths.

Practice when you are not stressed or flustered and it will soon become second nature.

You need to take a full diaphragmatic breath. So move your attention to you centre (see Part 1 to find out how to do this), imagine you are breathing from there (like you nose is in your belly button. As you breath in your want your belly to expand, then the lower sides of your rib cage (your “floating” ribs) then your chest and finally you will feel the back of your shoulders expand. When breathing out, it is the reverse process.

You want to breath in slowly for the count of 7, hold for a second and then breathe out even slower, to the count of 11. And then repeat, but never hold it for a second after the out breath, when your lungs are empty.

It is best to practice lying down to begin with.

If you are feeling all adventurous, you can add a little psychological command to the breath to get your mind in the right place. When you breathe in, focus on the word “relaxed” or “calm” or whatever word seems appropriate to you. On the out breath you can focus on the word “stress” (or whatever seems appropriate), so as you breath in you are breathing in relaxation and breathing out (expelling, getting rid of) stress.

Next I will talk about the power of posture and how when theses three (centring, breathing and posture) are combined you will be well on your way to being a true Slow Person in a Fast Environment!

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Slow Odes Part 1 – An Ode to Public Transport

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public-transportI know an Ode is meant to be a lyrical poem telling you how much I like something. But I am rubbish at poetry (I bang out the odd haiku, but that is about it), so I am going to stick to prose.

I had this idea to do an infrequent series of “odes” to things I find particularly Slow. Things that, if we did it more, would slow us all down.

And, inspired by travelling around London on the Tube I thought I would start with public transport.

Which is in an odd one for me. I have a love hate relationship with public transport. At rush hour, it is hell on toast. All that pushing and shoving and shuffling along, and being stuck with your head in someone else’s armpit.

I also have “issues” with public transport (especially buses) mainly because I don’t understand it, I have never been able to figure out those timetable things, I dunno what bus to get to go where, how to pay, when to get off, that sort of thing. So new journeys on any public transport system are often fraught with stress for me as I am panicking about whether I am on the right bus/train/tube/plane, when I need to get off. That sort of thing.

But there are other times, when I know what I am doing, or don’t mind if I am on the wrong bus/train/tube/plane (when it is all a bit of an adventure! Working out how to get around a city you haven’t been to before, for example), outside of rush hour when travelling on public transport is just great.

It is cheap, easy and like having your own chauffer (sort off) you get to gaze out of the window, people watch, nap, drink coffee. All those things that are hard to do when you are driving.

I find something incredibly relaxing about a journey on public transport, you are getting to where your need to go, but once your journey has started you have nothing to do until you get there. It is Idling on the move!

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Cleanliness is next to Slowliness

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messy20officeMy office is a total pigsty.

I haven’t tidied it for weeks and the big pile of paper at the end of my desk that has all my notes, bills and important paperwork in has just collapsed like a demolished building all over my desk and the floor. Dylan my little Jack Russell puppy thinks this great and is doing a very good impression of a shredder. Which would be OK if he wasn’t shredding things I really need.

My filing system of putting everything under “S” for “Stuff” really isn’t working. I really need to develop a better system…

You see, Disorganisation and mess really is the anathema to an Idler. It causes more work than necessary, creates stress and panic and a total waste of energy.

Being Slow or being an Idler (some people argue that they are 2 different things, but that is a subject for another post) requires a certain amount of self-discipline. It is, after all, about taking responsibility for your life, rather than letting someone else telling you what you should do.

The Slow Life is not about being lazy or slothful or ignoring things that need to be done, it is about doing things in the most appropriate way (for you) using the exact amount of energy and the right pace. In fact I would argue that being “fast” is really being lazy and slothful as you are being dragged along with the frantic pace of things rather than making a stand.

Incidentally, you don’t need to spend a lot of money on one of those time management systems. I have spent a fortune on them in the past and found them often much more hassle and work than they need to be. In my experience all you need is

  • A diary – I like paper ones, but if you want to use an electrical one that’s fine. Moleskine do a very nice range. Or you can get the Idlers Diary from their website. Just something to jot important notes, reminders and appointments.
  • An IN tray to put all the stuff in you get through the post
  • A place to file stuff – sorted into relevant sections: Bank, Bills, etc. Whatever suites you best.
  • A time you allot to sit down and sort it. As often as you want. But probably no longer than every month, because bills do need to be paid on time
  • And finally – a bit of discipline to actually do it (which is actually the easy bit once you are all sorted)

Anyway, I better go and tidy up.

Have a good weekend.

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A little bit about the current economic condition

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Well, hello. How are you? Stressed? Worried? Concerned about the state of the economy and how it will effect you?

Thought so. Even I am a bit worried. Although, without seeming to sound smug, I saw this coming a long time ago and did expect a crash (not that I actually prepared for it. So who is the bigger fool?). We had created a society based solely on debt. We had all been suckered into it, or had no choice (you have to live somewhere, which means you probably had to accept that huge mortgage, as it was the only way you could afford that massively overpriced house!)

But I am not here to analyse, find blame or say “I told you so” (even though I didn’t), as the rest of the media of the world seem to be doing a very good job of doing that.

What I am wondering is; is the end of the world as we know it? Only time will tell. But I guess only one thing is certain, that is everything is going to change. We cannot, as a society, continue the way we were going, which means we, as individuals are going to have to change our lifestyles, manage our expectations and “downsize”. We have got used to the abundant, the immediate and the easy. Now we are going to have to go back some steps.

Some people (maybe you) will be thinking this is going to be really hard, and you are stressed and worried about how you are going to manage.

But I actually see it as an unprecedented opportunity to start incorporating the slow philosophy into your life.

A lot of work I do is with helping people who had been forced into the situation where thy have had to suddenly slow down and don’t know how to cope. People who’s lifestyles have suddenly changed; maybe through illness, redundancy, relocation, loss of a spouse etc. And I am guessing that there is a lot more people now who are in that bracket.

(Incidentally, I also work with a lot of people who just want to slow down. They are unhappy with their frantic lives and are sure there must be another way to live. It is not all doom and gloom here at Tortoise HQ)

So, over the next few entries here at the Notes from a Deckchair, I am going to give you a framework to help you start slowing down, and reducing.

It will be hard work, but it will be interesting, life changing and most importantly, it will be fun! I promise…

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