The Overflowing Teacup

THIS IS A SLOW BLOG. It is updated when I have something to say, rather than trying to say something just to update the blog. Learn more about Slow Blogging here. Since this is a Slow Blog, may I suggest you subscribe by RSS by clicking here, or subscribe to receive email updates by clicking here (to learn more about RSS click here for an FAQ).

“Once, a university professor went to visit a Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked continuously about Zen, his thoughts, his ideas, his understands and his questions… As he spoke the master poured the visitor’s cup to the brim, but then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself “It’s full! No more will go in!” the professor blurted. “You are like this cup,” the master replied, “How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup.”"

I am, I have to admit, a terrible “grass is greener” sort of person. I have always been afraid I am missing out on something…

And, I have very broad interests, because of this I am easily (very easily) distracted, and can spend hours thinking about or researching (the internet can really be a curse) something completely irrelevant that I will forget about almost as soon as I have learned it.

I often feel like my teacup is flowing over and I can’t fit any more in. So I end up scattered and, to quote Bilbo Baggins “I feel… thin. Sort of stretched, like… butter scraped over too much bread…”

Which is not really the “Slow Way” (or if you are trying to sound all pretentious, you could be all faux Eastern, mystic and say the “Tao of Slow…”).

In fact, one of the things that first attracted me to the Slow movement and the Idle philosophy was the idea that I could reduce my field of interest. It showed me that I don’t need to know, do or try everything. That I am not really missing out on something if I am not at the forefront of it, if I don’t know everything about it with five minutes.

(I tell you, I am marketers dreams…)

But how do you practically stop yourself from doing this? How do you start to cut back on your fields of interest, of reducing your desire (addiction?) to the new, the fresh, the exciting, the smell of the grass over the fence?

How do you start limiting yourself?

The ‘Not Reading’ List

Ironically, I started limiting myself many years ago, before I had even heard of the Slow movement or before I even realised that I really, really needed to.

When I was at school I was told I was “word blind” (whatever that is?) and that I wouldn’t able to read very well (nothing like a nice positive suggestion is there??), so I hated reading, I was slow and it would take me weeks to read something that other people would read in a day.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, when I left school and thought “Stuff ‘em, if I want to read, I will read!” and started devouring books (I was – and still am – a slow reader, but at least I was motivated to try and read).

I fell in love with books, but soon found that (because I read slowly), if I just rushed to read a book just for the sake of reading that book, I wouldn’t retain any information and it was a pointless waste of time.

I realised I was probably not going to be able to read every book I wanted (or felt I should) and that I needed some form of plan.

At that point I started a ‘NOT Reading’ list and listed books I had no intention of ever reading:

Number one on the list was Gulliver’s Travels.

Number two was anything by Stephen King.

It was of course a dynamic list and I have since read some of the books I had placed on that list (I put “3 Men and Boat” on there as a bit of a knee jerk reaction, because someone kept pestering me that I should read it…), but the sense of relief I got from the decision not to read a book (and stopping beating myself up about having not got round to it) outweighed the gnawing sensation that I was missing out on something…

I still buy too many books. But there you go…

Anyway, I used this same principle to begin a ‘NOT to Do’ list…

The ‘NOT To Do’ List

Since getting into Slow and embracing its philosophy I have expanded this idea to write a ‘NOT To Do List’, things I never intend to do. Ever.

Number one on the list was “Extreme Sports”. There seems to be an odd belief that to “live life to the full” you need to have bungee jumped off a high bridge in Africa or other such pastimes. I spent most of my teens hanging around with these extreme sports guys, doing climbing and white water canoeing and such. And I hated every minute of it (other than the climbing – see my obituary of John Bachar here). It just scared me silly (it was only years later that I discovered the principle of high and low acting arousal systems and found out why I was so scared when everyone else seemed to love it.)

So when I decided to develop my NOT to do list that went straight at number one.

Number Two was backpacking (or “travelling” if you are more of a pretentious ilk). For years I felt like I had missed out on something because I didn’t go travelling when I was younger (it was besides the point I didn’t fancy the idea of cheap flights and fleapit hostels), and always thought I should do it.

Once I added those two to the list I felt an immense sense of relief. I managed to shrug off 2 massive hang-ups that I had.

Then I was on a role!

(Not that I am saying you shouldn’t be doing those, I am just using them as an illustration of things I have added to my not to do list and why. You may love extreme sports and backpacking. In which case, go for your like!).

Recently I have added Internet Forums to the list  (I just can’t cope with all the bickering) and I am seriously thinking about adding Twitter. I don’t get it and I can’t be bothered and it stresses me out because I feel I should be on twitter (because everyone else is, right? See, how this works?).

Tim Ferriss calls this “selective ignorance”, he uses it mainly in the context of information overload and doesn’t read papers and only checks his email once a week (I am still developing my slow email strategy – I will write about it once I have it sorted-ish).

Sherlock Holmes, that famous fictional detective, was well known for having very little “general knowledge” and avoided anything that didn’t directly effect (or is that ‘affect’? I am never sure) what he is currently working on. Although he knew a lot (he is often considered a polymath), he only knew it in the context of what he needed it for (I am not suggesting you be this strict with yourself!)

How do you start your ‘NOT To Do’ List?

Easy. But it does take a bit soul searching and discipline; you have to be honest with yourself.

I highly recommend you treat your ‘Not To Do’ list in the exactly the same way as a ‘To Do’ list: Write it down. Not on a scrap of paper, but in a decent notebook (so you won’t lose it). I also add a date and a reason why (some things I have added to my list I have come back to years later and can’t remember why I added them in the first place).

So, what do you put your list?

Well, listing things you never intended to do in the first place can act as catalyst to get you going, but it does seem a bit pointless if you have already, resolutely, made up your mind you are not going to do it. I could add “join the BNP” to my list if I wanted, but that seems rather daft…

So, begin with things that you feel you should do (see the “dreaded shoulds” here), these are often the things we struggle with in a our daily lives, never really get round to doing (because you don’t really want to do it), but they seem to gnaw await at you, you get a nagging feeling you ought do them…

Then start listing things you are doing now just for the sake of. You probably have lots of habits that have just developed over the years that no longer really have any reasonable function, you just do them because you have always done them.

Not sure if it should be on the list? Put it on for a week and see if you miss it, if you last a week, leave it there for a month, if after a month you still haven’t needed to do or missed it, put it on forever.

You see, the idea of a good ‘NOT To Do’ list, is to start cutting back on what you are doing now as well as resolving not to do new (irrelevant) things.

Then of course, it frees up time and energy (and, often, money too) to do the things you actually want to do, but we will talk about that next time…

Matt

SlowCast Episode 9: Muses and Saint Monday

You can here the news SlowCast here, or subscribe in iTunes here.

Below is a transcript:

Once again a month seems to have passed since I last produced a Slow cast, it is certainly not because I have been being tardy. Far from it. I wish I had!

I have been busy, busy, busy (and those of you that have been reading my most recent blog entries will know that being busy is very different to being productive).

This is no way for an idler to behave!

Between this post and last I have been on a very steep learning curve. I have been teaching myself a lot of techie stuff so that I can take much more of my online activity into my own hands without relying on other people. I have done this for a couple of reasons, but mainly to save money…

I have never made an excuse or avoiding stating the fact that I do this for a living. I am a full time coach and trainer who has turned to helping people slow down. So, please, just for a moment excuse a quick advert for my upcoming stuff.

I have decided to bite the bullet and put on some seminars this autumn, they will be held in Birmingham in the UK and are £55 per seminar (which are a whole day.

Welcome to the Slow Life on the 10th October is a general introduction to the history, principles and philosophy of the Slow Movement including practical advice and tips to help you start (or continue to Slow Down)

Finding time to be Slow on the 7th November is about Time management, the Slow Way! The biggest excuse I find from people is that they don’t have the time to slow down. This day will talk you through a tried and tested process to get everything you need get done more easily and quickly so you can find the time to be slow.

And finally…

“Zen and the Art of Going Slowly” – A Day of Mindfulness on the 21st November. Which is exactly what it says! Slow is about savouring the minutes not counting them. But how much attention do you really pay to the present moment?

Present moment awareness is at the core to the Slow philosophy and in this day you will learn ways to be more mindful in your day-to-day life (without needing to spend hours contemplating your navel – unless you want to of course!)

And talking of work and money. One of the reasons I have been working on a lot of web stuff is to set up some “muses”. I was inspired by 2 things: Tim Ferriss’s excellent book “The 4-hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich” and by the “Afterward” in the recent Edition of the New Escapologist (also inspired by the The 4-hour Work Week) (If you don’t read the New Escapologist I highly recommend it).

And whilst I am on the subject, a new Idler is out: Issue 42 Smash the System. It has changed and matured a bit in this incarnation and now is an annual rather than biannual publication that concentrates on being a collection of thought provoking essays rather than the lighter hearted magazine it used to be.

Anyway back to what I was talking about, inspired by the “The 4-hour Work Week” and the New Escapologist I have been setting up a Muse.

A Muse is essentially automated small business capable of generating a desired level of income. With a muse you set things in motion and then the business should be able to run itself with minimum input from you (hence the “4 hour work week”) freeing up your time to concentrate on higher pursuits (remember being Slow is not about being Lazy, it is about pursuing what you want to do).

This is where the Internet has really come into it’s own, It would have been very difficult to create muse even 10 years ago!

The New Escapologist suggests creating a muse that delivers £356 per week because, according to them, in his book “Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More”, John Naish suggests that the secret to material contentment is to earn on or slightly above the average earning-level of your country of residents (in the UK that is £18,000 or £355 a week and the New Escapologist has added a pound to be nice).

It doesn’t mean you need to give up work all together, but it creates that safety net of a regular income that will allow you to do what you want, whether that is travel, do volunteer work, go back to college, set up your own business, re-train, change job/career, go part time, move, write, craft, paint, become a lord or lady of leisure and take long strolls in the country. It gives you that freedom (but also security) to finally slow down!

So, that is what I have been working on, my Muses! I have set up 2 so far, an audio programme “Welcome to the Slow Life” giving more details of how you can start slowing down. You can have a look at www.WelcomeToTheSlowLife.com and an ebook for people who want to set up their own coaching or therapy practice (something I have been “unofficially” doing for some time), called (originally) “The Professional Practice Builders Handbook” which you can find at www.ThePracticeBuilderHandbook.com

I am currently struggling putting together a couple of new programmes, and been suffering a little bit of creative block.

But it hasn’t all been work, work, work….
Oh no.

I have also been out and about a lot: a couple of trip to sunny London, and a trip to Bristol to see the Banksy exhibition, which is just fantastic and I urge you to go and see it before it closes…

But talking of working. I have long been a great believer of a Four Day Working Week, being a bit of an Idler at heart, long before I formalised it by coming across The Idler and Carl Honore’s excellent book “In Praise of Slow: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed“, in fact, I recall conversations with my boss Charles at my second Proper Job at the age of 19 as junior accounts clerk in a carpet factory (that was fun, fun, fun) discussing exactly such a thing (Charles was somewhat of an Idler himself and considered a job a necessary evil and treated it that way!)

So, when I first came across Saint Monday in Tom Hodgkinson’s book “How to be Idle” I was astounded that this idea of a 4-day workweek had been around for centuries in an almost formal way. So much so it had a name (and has it’s own Wikipedia Entry! Don’t believe me? Check it out!)

Since then I have campaigned for a return of Saint Monday and each week on my blog, place a holding post on Monday stating I am celebrating Saint Monday and don’t do any “work” that day, although I will often write or read or research.

I have a short post on the blog I link back to that explains Saint Monday in more detail but thought, for you non-blog reading podcasters out there and to those blog readers who want a little but more detail I would dedicate this SlowCast to a little bit more of a detailed history and description of Saint Monday.

The thing that really got me when I found out about Saint Monday was that there have been a number of academic papers written on it! I had to PAY to get hold of them!

So, for this SlowCast I draw on “The Decline of Saint Monday 1766 -1876” by Douglas A Reid, as well as Tom Hodgkinson’s “In defence of skiving” article in the New Statesman.

Saint Monday is the tradition of absenteeism on a Monday (Saint Tuesday is the less common extension of this to a Tuesday)

The tradition of taking Monday (unofficially) off has been common among craft workers since at least the seventeenth century.

To understand Saint Monday you have to understand the context in which it came about. During the industrial revolution there came greater pressure on workers to adhere to a timetable, whereas before they would work as and when they wanted to get the work they needed to get done, done. But as the industrial revolution rolled on they were expected more and more to work to shifts.

Of course the old habits of working as when they wanted was hard to break and, especially in Birmingham (my adopted home city I was very pleased to find out) the workers rarely paid attention to shift hours and continued to work as and when they pleased. The demands of the clock were yet often subordinated to the desire for sociability:

“…the industry of the people was considered extraordinary, their peculiarity
of life remarkable. They lived like the inhabitants of Spain, or after the custom of the Orientals. Three or four o’clock in the morning found them at work. At noon they rested; many enjoyed their siesta; others spent their time in the workshops eating and drinking, these places being often turned into taprooms and the apprentices into pot boys; others again enjoyed themselves at marbles or in the skittle alley. Three or four hours were thus devoted to “play”; and then came work again till eight or nine, and sometimes ten, the whole year through.”

(Birmingham Journal 26 Sept. 1855, “Hints for a History of Birmingham”)

It was on this custom and working practices that Saint Monday was born.

The prime supporters of Saint Monday were often the higher skilled and therefore, better paid craftsmen and artisans. High piece-rates could provide good wages for skilled men, but they more often elected to take a moderate wage and extensive leisure.

But even the lowest paid workers would try and support the custom and as late as 1842 it was said of factory owners “that they often have great difficulty in getting their men to work on Mondays, unless by that time they have expended the earnings of the previous week”

At it’s peak at around 1840, business owners in some industries had become accustomed to workers not arriving on Monday, and were willing to tolerate it, even putting on provisions for entertainment including rail journeys, plays and games such as cricket. Entrepreneurial-minded leisure facilities such as the railways and botanical gardens would offer special prices on admission on Mondays and noticed swelling working class visitors.

Not surprisingly, business leaders found Saint Monday (and all it represented in irregularity and insobriety) an irksome, not to say, a ruinous characteristic of the labour force! And undertook a programme of publicly denouncing Saint Monday, bribery, coercion (offering half holidays on Saturday  – which were slowly eroded after the eradication of Saint Monday) and threats (locking workers out on Tuesday who did not come in on Monday, stopping them from working, thereby earning) by business owners. But…

“Astonishingly, even the cultural attitudes which had sustained the Saint Monday of the eighteenth century survived in some measure into the 1860’s and beyond. It seemed that the “inward notation of time” of heavy steel-toy workers of the 1860’s was still oriented to the task (or to leisure) rather more than to the clock. These piece-workers would come “what time they please”; perhaps in summer they will come at 5 and leave by dinnertime”. On Mondays very few went at all.”

Eventually though, Saint Monday waned to nothing during by the mid nineteenth century.

I am very great believer that in these days of the modern technology we have, it could finally live up to the promise of it being “a labour saving devise” and free us from some of our work, meaning a 4 day working week is totally possible! OK, it only gives you one extra day a week, but 1 day is better than nothing.

So, join the Saint Monday celebration, skive off on a Monday, petition you boss for an extra day off, if you are business owner, give your workers that time off and let then enjoy themselves! Why not even take them somewhere nice? Promote the 4-day work week!

Or am I being too idealistic? I dunno. Maybe Saint Monday is somewhat unattainable (in the short term) but we have to do something to reverse the growing trend of longer working hours, which are not productive and are damaging to our physical, mental and social health…

Thanks for listening, until next time try and celebrate Saint Monday in some way!

Slow Blogging Part 2: A Rejection of Immediacy

As I am sure some of you may have noticed I have not had the opportunity to update this blog as regularly as usual over the last few weeks (I usually endeavour to update it 3-4 times a week, I don’t “do” weekends and I always celebrate Saint Monday!), some weeks I will have a theme that I develop over a series of blogs and therefore plan ahead and other weeks I just write whatever comes into my mind. Some weeks I prep ahead and write several entries in one go to post at later date, other weeks I just sit down each morning and after I have checked my emails etc, write down whatever comes into my mind. Some days I will have some idea straight away, other days I will not have a clue and have to refer to some notes or ideas I have scrawled in the past. Some times it can take me 5 minutes to write an entry, other days it can take all day. I am rubbish at proof reading and will often post entries with stupid mistakes!

As you can see, I am not what you call a “problogger”. I am “sloblogger” (thanks to Todd Sieling, who I got the term from, although after doing a bit of digging there are a lot of other “slobloggers” out there).

So what is the difference between a problogger and Slow Blogger?  Well, number one, is that Slow Bloggers reject the idea of immediacy as Tom Sieling dsays “It happenes when it happens”, rather than trying to write a blog entry each day, just for the sake of writing a blog entry. Carl Honore recently wrote in his blog about how most bloggers are usually a pretty fast bunch (click here to read it). We slobloggers write only when we have something to say, reflect on our writing and avoid the kneejerk reaction to post for the sake of posting or because we are expected to post, or because that is what we have been told we should do. We don’t “chase the news” and try and be the first to write about something, but consider, ponder, contemplate, research and offer (hopefully) a more measured (and interesting) entry.

(Not that I am saying traditional bloggers are in anyway substandard or that sloblogging is better than traditional blogging, it is just a different way of doing things! Some probloggers out there write excellent posts on a very regular basis! Can I stop digging now?!)

To illustrate how posting on a less regular basis works incredibly well, Tim Ferris, author of the “The 4-hour Work Week: Escape the 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich” (I highly recommend it, if you haven’t read it already) writes a very successful blog and he does not update it regularly at all! See this entry of his to see his blogging strategy and listen to how he blows apart common myths about the need to blog regularly to be successful.

Remember Slow, in all its forms, is about Quality NOT Quantity.

I am working on a couple of themes that I started a while ago, but got waylaid on the that I will be running on here over the next few weeks: Slow Work and Mindfulness. Stay tuned!

SC

The Idler and The New Escapologist: 2 Publications of Interest.

I apologies, I don’t have time to write a proper entry today, so I just wanted to draw your attention to 2 periodicals that I read regularly and highly recommend:

The Idler

I have been reading the Idler for 2 years now, it was the first inspirations for me to take up the idle or slow life.

The Idler is a yearly publication devoted to promoting its ethos of ‘idle living’ and all that entail, founded in 1993 by Tom Hodgkinson and Gavin Pretor-Pinney. Following in the footsteps of Samuel Johnson’s collection of essays and Jerome K. Jerome’s popular periodical, the concept behind The Idler is intended as a riposte to the idea of the ‘work ethic’.

Idler 42: Smash the System has just been released. The new cloth-bound 350 page annual Idler, a collection of radical essays with contributions from Alain De Botton, Penny Rimbaud, John Mitchinson, Jay Griffiths, Paul Kingsnorth, Oliver James.

For more details and to buy go to www.idler.co.uk

The New Escapologist

I have only recently come across this new publication, it is only on issue 2.

It is produced by the Robert Wringham and its purpose is to help its readers “to flee the humdrum spreadsheet of prescribed reality into an exciting world of one’s own invention.” The second issue (out now) is titled “The War Against Cliché” and offers tips for cultivating your own unique self and shedding received opinion and humbug. A nice practical final page invites readers to send in ideas for businesses that would create a median £356 a week income on just four hours’ work a week (inspired by Tim Ferriss’ excellent book). Go to newescapologist.wordpress.com for more details.

I will be back tomorrow.

SC
—
If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Twitter, etc. I’d really appreciate it!