Alexandersmap

    Category: Productivity

    • All the Bees

      It’s all I have to bring today—
      This, and my heart beside—
      This, and my heart, and all the fields—
      And all the meadows wide—
      Be sure you count—should I forget
      Some one the sum could tell—
      This, and my heart, and all the Bees
      Which in the Clover dwell
      — Emily Dickinson, It’s all I have to bring today

      We are more than the best we can muster up in a day. The world is more. Surely, the universe too. And we are a part of it. Some days the magic finds us, some days it flows elsewhere. If we aren’t frivolous with our ration of magic, we might make it last just long enough to make something of the day.

      There is only so much magic to spread around on some rainy Mondays. And anyway, I wonder about all the bees. Who’s job is it to count them anyway? Maybe the same crew tasked with counting the number of coffee beans necessary for a pound of coffee. Measured just so, a proper ration of beans makes all the difference on mornings such as this one.

      It seems magic is all around us, and it’s not about finding it, the trick is to simply see it. It lingers in the clover, whispers in the rain, and gently nudges a nose at us when we aren’t paying enough attention. Be present, it reminds us, and the ration is yours. Be sure to share it.

    • Serving Joy

      “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” — Rabindranath Tagore

      As spring usually goes this time of year in recent years, we seemingly went right from winter to summer, fooling the daffodils and hyacinth into blooming quickly, lest they miss their moment with the sun. There’s something to be said for rising to meet the fragile moment. Flowers know this instinctively. What of us?

      Traveling all week, I almost missed the fragrant offering altogether. This was a long week full of work and follow-up and more than one’s fair share of absence from those one loves. We each have our dues to pay in this transactional lifetime, but there ought to be joy in the work too. What are we here for but to serve our compelling why? Life is service to others, or it is nothing at all.

      We know it when we find our joyful service. It’s work that matters a great deal to us. It’s stirring words together just so, words that stir something deep inside of us, words better shared than jealously sheltered. And it’s doing the quiet daily offering that mundane chores represent, moving us forward in our progression through life.

      Talking quietly in the early evening hours, shedding myself of road weariness, talk moved to the garden and work still to be done. There’s always work to be done in a garden, isn’t there? What mattered wasn’t the weariness of the work week, or the prospect of more chores ahead. What mattered was the why: growing something more, together. Serving our fragile moment with joy.

    • Routines

      “You need to create a routine. Motivation only gets someone going for a little while, a routine lasts forever. Write down three things you’ll do each day. Start small. Walk, only eat real food, stretch. Mark them off every day, no matter what. After a month, make the goals bigger.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

      I’m a morning person, and do my best work early. For this reason I try to jamb as much as possible into the first couple of hours of my day. The rest of the day usually takes care of itself at that point, but the important but not urgent stuff is already checked off. For me, that means writing, reading in earnest, some form of exercise and a review of my priorities for the day and week.

      Some days are upside down, and all the important things you wanted to start with are nagging at you to finish with. It’s very easy to let things slip until tomorrow when you’re tired and ready to turn your brain off for the evening. This is where maintaining streaks becomes the savior. Some things simply cannot slip. Like writing and reading and a nod at fitness and picking up a word or two of French. We are what we repeatedly do, and all that that represents.

      There’s nothing more satisfying than following through on the things you promised yourself you’d follow through on. Every day offers us an opportunity to improve or slide backwards. As we reach the evening hours feeling a bit tired and worn, we get to tell that backwards slide, “not today”.

    • Orange and Order

      “Rejoice! The purpose of life is joy. Rejoice at the sky, the sun, the stars, the grass, the trees, animals, people. If this joy is disturbed it means that you’ve made a mistake somewhere. Find your mistake and correct it. Most often this joy is disturbed by money and ambition.”
      — Leo Tolstoy (via Poetic Outlaws)

      “No one is singular, that no argument will change the course, that one’s time is more gone than not, and what is left waits to be spent gracefully and attentively, if not quite so actively.” — Mary Oliver, Winter Hours

      Productivity and bold action have their place in this world, for progress depends on it. Progress for humanity, surely, but also for the individual. But we must remember too that we skate a line between Yin and Yang, and balance is the key. If Yang represents boldness and action, Yin represents temperance and reflection. It’s quite figuratively day and night, which may be why some of us find the orange hour in between to be our happiest place.

      Our best life is found in balance, and we feel the urge to lean in to both extremes now and then when our body and soul remind us of our imbalance. This disturbance of the Force (if you will) creates restlessness, which in turn triggers change. We all feel it in our own way. For me, it’s often the nagging question of “what’s next?” wrestling with the emphatic reply of “here and now”. Action calls, joy reminds. What will we listen to today?

      Somewhere along the way I’ve put aside some goals I’d been chasing for a lifetime. Somewhere along the way I’ve leaned into different objectives for the balance of my time. We are each in the process of becoming what’s next, and possibly even savoring what it is we’ve become thus far. Life is balance between the two, represented by orange and order. That balance is where the joy is.

      Orange Hour

    • Between Two Waves

      We shall not cease from exploration
      And the end of all our exploring
      Will be to arrive where we started
      And know the place for the first time.
      Through the unknown, unremembered gate
      When the last of earth left to discover
      Is that which was the beginning;
      At the source of the longest river
      The voice of the hidden waterfall
      And the children in the apple-tree

      Not known, because not looked for
      But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
      Between two waves of the sea.
      Quick now, here, now, always–
      A condition of complete simplicity
      (Costing not less than everything)
      And all shall be well and
      All manner of thing shall be well
      When the tongues of flames are in-folded
      Into the crowned knot of fire
      And the fire and the rose are one.
      — T. S. Eliot, Little Gidding

      Writing actively, it follows that I actively think of writing more than the norm, but really, I’m just a student of life making up for lost time, before I awakened. I’m always on the lookout for a phrase or sentence that resonates with me on a deeper level. Partly this is admiration for the turn of a particular stack of words, and partly because it offers a train of thought I’d love to explore more in the future. Like an engaged conversation between two people, words prompt. Our engagement with others draws us out of ourselves and places our thoughts into the universe. The ripple that results may transcend space and time, as Eliot’s ripple surely has.

      Eliot observed in Little Gidding that “every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, every poem an epitaph”. Being actively aware of what is being said is a talent of the truly engaged. I’m still a work in progress, as my bride would remind me (funny that I don’t always seem to hear what she swears she just told me—A sign of a wandering mind, or is it a mind slowly slipping into the abyss? Perhaps it’s simply what is heard but half-heard?).

      When I do drift off into the abyss one day, I’d like to leave behind a few cogent thoughts before I go. We ought to feel the urgency in the moment, knowing we are but billion-year-old carbon making a weekend of it in our present form. This present mix will soon reshuffle, as sure as the sun rises. There’s a resounding call for us to pay attention in such moments. Eliot, himself reshuffled, capture my jumble of words better with his own: “the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living”.

      My bride would add that I ought to pay more attention to the living as well, but my occasional Walter Mitty moments aside, I’ll make a case that I pay attention to the important details. Every moment matters, but some resonate a bit more. If we focused on everything we’d focus on nothing, after all. Playing the long game, and with a lens focused on infinity, is it any wonder that every sentence both matters a great deal and sometimes gets lost in the surf?

      The trick is knowing what to pay attention to in any given moment. We’re all works in progress on our march towards excellence. Knowing that we’ll never quite reach it doesn’t mean we should quit. Our imperfections are a sign of our untapped potential. At least that’s the promise in our present condition.

    • A Dash of Flavor

      If most of life is lived in a steady state of routine, we have the opportunity to add micro-bursts of exceptional living now and then to spice up this dish. Some people take that opportunity whenever a free moment comes along, some embrace routine for their entire journey. Bursts of unique experiences can be quite thrilling. Conversely, routine can be quite fulfilling. Who are we to judge which is best? Maybe the answer is a wee bit of both.

      A couple of senior sisters I know recently took an epic roadtrip from New England to Florida, stopping at bucket list historic sites along the way. These were places they’d always wanted to visit, but kept putting off to prioritize the routine things that came up in their lives. This trip was a burst of adventure that they’ll talk about for years to come. I hope they’re already planning their next adventure.

      I’ve come to terms with not selling everything and sailing around the world. Simply put, I have a lot to do right here and now that compels me to embrace some level of routine that reinforces the productive, creative soul I’ve decided to be. That doesn’t mean I’ve accepted blandness in my life diet. Every day offers the opportunity for more flavor than we’d otherwise consider. Add a dash.

      The rower in me knows how this goes. Most of the race is intense steady state, with a few bursts of all-out effort to pull ahead. You don’t win the race rowing steady state the entire way, nor can you sustain all-out effort for 2000 meters. You must be strategic in where you use your energy, ensuring that you don’t run out of gas before the finish (“fly and die”), while also reaching the end with an empty tank (thus, doing your best). A productive life has similar cadence.

      “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle (or was it Will Durant?)

      Surely, we can do more than we believe is possible in a day, let alone a lifetime. Another lesson from rowing was to just focus on the next stroke, and then the one after that. Dwelling on what is sustainable is a sure way of talking yourself out of doing anything at all. Still, we must use our power budget wisely. Micro-bursts of activity teach us what is possible, while offering a light at the end of the tunnel. Knowing we only have this brief time to do things, why not maximize the moment?

      We can’t have it all, but we can have a lot more than we give ourselves permission to go after in life. Spice up life with a burst of adventure now and then, for it’s good for the soul. It also informs us of what’s possible. Too much spice can ruin a dish, but not enough and it’s bland. There’s that line between chaos and order again, showing us that balance is the key. Just don’t confuse balance with timidity. Be bold.

    • Time Zone Brevity

      The thing about business travel that is especially challenging is maintaining positive habits in the face of all that comes at you. There is an art to navigating time changes, location changes and routine changes, added to the usual crush of responsibilities, and following through on commitments we’ve made to ourselves. Habits and streaks seem to hold me in line most of the time. This week almost every habit has been turned on its head. Save one.

      The streak remains alive, even in the busiest of weeks. Writing every day is the one habit I promised myself I’ll stick with through thick and thin. There may yet come a day when the internet fails me, my health and wellbeing throw me for a loop or other circumstances remove the opportunity to write. Life is unpredictable after all. In the worst of days, sometimes brevity is the answer. It isn’t about reps or word count, it’s about showing up.

      This isn’t meant to be posturing. I know streaks are made to be broken. One day I won’t write and click publish. Even knowing someday the streak will end, what we choose to be our unbreakable habits matters a great deal in this mad world.

    • Where Love and Need Are One

      My object in living is to unite
      My avocation and my vocation
      As my two eyes make one in sight.
      Only where love and need are one,
      And the work is play for mortal stakes,
      Is the deed ever really done
      For heaven and the future’s sakes.
      — Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time

      When people ask whether I’m traveling for business or pleasure, I sometimes pause a beat to ponder the question. Business travel is a trade-off of obligation and discovery. We can be productive and explore the ripe potential of place. This blog was born of an inclination to wander about during business travel, and I’ve been the better for having closed the gap between work and my curiosity about the world around me.

      And what of the work itself? I hear the laugh of a friend who thinks of work as nothing but a means to an end. It’s called work for a reason, she would tell me. What’s love got to do with it? But looking back on every job I’ve ever had, even the most tedious and miserable of jobs, I still found delight in discovery. Like Robert Frost finding joy in splitting wood, the joy lies in learning new tricks in our trade. We each have our verse to write in this world. There ought to be joy in finding ourselves in it.

    • Later is Too Late

      “Später ist zu spät.“ (Later is too late) — Peter Altenberg

      If there’s one theme we ought to have learned from living in the aftermath of the unexpected, it’s to make the most of the moment we’re currently in. We may never pass this way again, as the song goes. Memento mori. Carpe diem.

      If there’s a theme I’ve worked to embrace this spring, it’s living with urgency. We must do what we can in the time we have. This means prioritizing the important and deferring the trivial to later. There’s simply no other way to get to the most important things.

      This week I surprised myself at what I was able to do with a relatively short burst of creative energy. What might I do with consistent and sustained output? There’s never been a better time to find out than now. For later is indeed too late.

    • Keep It Simple

      “One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” —Jack Kerouac

      Simple seems so complicated some days. Mondays often openly mock the very idea of simplicity. Want to do big things in this lifetime? Meet your wrestling partner, complexity. Complexity usually doesn’t play by the rules.

      Of course, Kerouac danced with eloquent simplicity in his writing through applied effort. For him to point out he too was a work in progress is a generous gift to those of us fighting the same battle. If there’s a takeaway, it’s to do the work anyway. It won’t write itself, no matter how complicated our lives are. Simple isn’t easy, it’s only meant to appear that way.

      My own rulebook states I click publish every day. I always aim for morning, but that’s negotiable, while publishing daily is very much nonnegotiable for as long as life and luck allow. We all have our lines in the sand and our own idea of what simple means. Writing every day, each day becomes an incremental step towards our own version of simple.