{As the Equinox approaches, what are you letting go of and leaning into? What’s your relationship with balance?}
I’ll go first! In this season I’m leaning into community and creative projects with Bryan, and it’s very exciting. I’m working my way through the book, Designing Your Life, and it’s helping me figure out the big nuggets of life that I want to prioritize, which is making it more clear what I can and should say no to.
As a Type-A productivity lover I embrace every possible opportunity to rethink/rebalance my life and yet I had not considered the Equinoxes as a twice a year additional chance... but that's changed now! Love it.
I have a really reliable task management system that contains my Entire Life, so I know my balance is out of whack when I have more things on my "due today / overdue" dashboard than I can realistically get done today. Part of my 2022 balance was limiting meetings to Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving my other days for thinking/deep work. (Paul Graham's Maker vs Manager schedule blog really changed my life in this respect.) So I'm striving to keep this balance of days open for "real" work and not be consumed by meetings every other hour. This also leaves time open for things that are ultimately way more important than meetings: quality time with friends, girls' happy hour, seeing my godson compete at Ninja Warrior, etc!
I like this idea of "meeting days" Marina. I can't control when my "work" meetings are scheduled, but I can control which days I give away to others (whether that's through meetings, consuming their thoughts through a blog/post, or chatting via text or phone) and make sure I'm leaving time for myself.
Can you block time on your work calendar for "focus time"? That's how I got around the lack of control I had over a lot of my work meeting schedules. They can't schedule a meeting with me if that entire afternoon is already booked!
I’m fortunate that I don’t have too many meetings on my work calendar, but I do sometimes block out focus time. Perhaps I should make that a regular habit with regular days! :)
Okay...so I just read the Paul Graham post--brilliant. I realized about a decade ago that I hated meetings (there's even a book--I think--called Death by Meeting, and I had a photo of it hanging on the outside wall of my cubicle). So what did I do? I stopped trying to climb the ladder.
I realized I hated the world manager's lived in and decided my goal was to enjoy my job at a title that didn't wow anyone. I am a mere IT security analyst. I have told my boss and his boss and HIS boss that I don't want any position that ends in "-er" or "-or." Now I mostly get to do my work with few meetings on the calendar. And I work remotely, from my home, in my stretchy pants and flip-flops most days. Bliss.
"Nature is always leaning, always in motion, undulating between dark and light, inward and outward, inviting in and letting go."
Thank you for reminding me of the VERY IDEA I try to evoke with the title of my little space here. Release and Gather. It's been a rough season (a kid in rehab; donating stem cells and helping as a caregiver to a brother with leukemia; plumbing issues over and over at our event venue...ugh!), but I can see the light. Especially with the smell of Fall just eluding me. Fall has always been a period of reset for me--a time to slow down and reevaluate what's important, what's not, and to kick some of that crap to the curb!
This year I'm letting go of all those community things--the town meetings, helping with community clean-up day, and even spreading the word about events on social media. In fact, I've kind of broken up with social media these last few months, and I've never felt freer.
I'm leaning in to my tribe--my husband, my kids (all adults, and empty nesting is EVERYTHING because you have more money!), the grandkids, my best friends. I'm a people person, so I have alllll kind of acquaintances, but right now I'm focusing on the ones I hold dearest.
Yes, these are the things I've been letting go of too. The community I've been leaning into has been the deep relationships that are mutually enriching.
I’m in the process of letting go what doesn’t serve me (relationships, activities, thought patterns, etc). I’m doing more things that being me joy. AND I’ve realized that everything can happen, but not all at once and it usually takes longer than I want it to ... so I just accept that reality
{As the Equinox approaches, what are you letting go of and leaning into? What’s your relationship with balance?}
I’ll go first! In this season I’m leaning into community and creative projects with Bryan, and it’s very exciting. I’m working my way through the book, Designing Your Life, and it’s helping me figure out the big nuggets of life that I want to prioritize, which is making it more clear what I can and should say no to.
As a Type-A productivity lover I embrace every possible opportunity to rethink/rebalance my life and yet I had not considered the Equinoxes as a twice a year additional chance... but that's changed now! Love it.
I have a really reliable task management system that contains my Entire Life, so I know my balance is out of whack when I have more things on my "due today / overdue" dashboard than I can realistically get done today. Part of my 2022 balance was limiting meetings to Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving my other days for thinking/deep work. (Paul Graham's Maker vs Manager schedule blog really changed my life in this respect.) So I'm striving to keep this balance of days open for "real" work and not be consumed by meetings every other hour. This also leaves time open for things that are ultimately way more important than meetings: quality time with friends, girls' happy hour, seeing my godson compete at Ninja Warrior, etc!
I like this idea of "meeting days" Marina. I can't control when my "work" meetings are scheduled, but I can control which days I give away to others (whether that's through meetings, consuming their thoughts through a blog/post, or chatting via text or phone) and make sure I'm leaving time for myself.
Can you block time on your work calendar for "focus time"? That's how I got around the lack of control I had over a lot of my work meeting schedules. They can't schedule a meeting with me if that entire afternoon is already booked!
I’m fortunate that I don’t have too many meetings on my work calendar, but I do sometimes block out focus time. Perhaps I should make that a regular habit with regular days! :)
omg Marina! I have an upcoming newsletter already drafted about how that Paul Graham post changed my life!
Okay...so I just read the Paul Graham post--brilliant. I realized about a decade ago that I hated meetings (there's even a book--I think--called Death by Meeting, and I had a photo of it hanging on the outside wall of my cubicle). So what did I do? I stopped trying to climb the ladder.
I realized I hated the world manager's lived in and decided my goal was to enjoy my job at a title that didn't wow anyone. I am a mere IT security analyst. I have told my boss and his boss and HIS boss that I don't want any position that ends in "-er" or "-or." Now I mostly get to do my work with few meetings on the calendar. And I work remotely, from my home, in my stretchy pants and flip-flops most days. Bliss.
"Nature is always leaning, always in motion, undulating between dark and light, inward and outward, inviting in and letting go."
Thank you for reminding me of the VERY IDEA I try to evoke with the title of my little space here. Release and Gather. It's been a rough season (a kid in rehab; donating stem cells and helping as a caregiver to a brother with leukemia; plumbing issues over and over at our event venue...ugh!), but I can see the light. Especially with the smell of Fall just eluding me. Fall has always been a period of reset for me--a time to slow down and reevaluate what's important, what's not, and to kick some of that crap to the curb!
This year I'm letting go of all those community things--the town meetings, helping with community clean-up day, and even spreading the word about events on social media. In fact, I've kind of broken up with social media these last few months, and I've never felt freer.
I'm leaning in to my tribe--my husband, my kids (all adults, and empty nesting is EVERYTHING because you have more money!), the grandkids, my best friends. I'm a people person, so I have alllll kind of acquaintances, but right now I'm focusing on the ones I hold dearest.
Yes, these are the things I've been letting go of too. The community I've been leaning into has been the deep relationships that are mutually enriching.
I’m in the process of letting go what doesn’t serve me (relationships, activities, thought patterns, etc). I’m doing more things that being me joy. AND I’ve realized that everything can happen, but not all at once and it usually takes longer than I want it to ... so I just accept that reality