There are days when people manage to steal time from my. A ten minute conversation, a drop-in to my office, a request to follow up on some project that isn’t mine to own, an influx of emails to respond to quickly or a task that is handed over to me because I can find answers more quickly. All those minutes add up. Stolen time.
Today I gave quite a bit of thought to stolen time and moments. I’ve had a couple of days where many moments have been stolen and my plans shifted because of those stolen moments. In some cases, those shifted plans were incredible while other moments caused me to fall behind.
As today unfolded, I realized that it was going to be a day I was crunched for time. And yes, I was hyper aware of the time. With much to do and little time to do it, I was mindful of the fact that today could have quickly ramped up to a stressful day. That’s not to say it wasn’t stressful (it was), but it could have been a lot more so.
Instead of going with the flow and dealing with things as they came to me, I took control. I made it clear to everyone in the office that today my door was not open. Today I was not going to have time stolen from me. I set my boundaries and made sure that the one thing I really needed to get done today was accomplished. And though my interruptions were not entirely eliminated they were greatly minimized. Fortunately, it was enough time stolen back to me that I was able to accomplish my task at hand.
Today’s moment, about stolen time, had me thinking. As my Naturopath told me at my last appointment a few weeks back, being mindful is something I need to do more of. I think today was a big step towards that end. Now, I don’t believe I could do this everyday (for I came back to nearly 75 emails!), but some days, I think I have a new “mindful” process.
This also had me thinking about how I might steal time from other people. Do I linger? Do I ask more questions than I should? Do I ask people to do things that I should be doing myself? Do I take time to listen and not just dump my own tasks/problems on others. Do I steal time from people?
I’m sure I do. I think it’s only natural sometimes. At least now I’m more aware of it. Awareness is good. Do you steal time from people?
I think I’m going to have to steal time for myself! I rather enjoyed that.
Moments of growing.
Moments of giving time back.
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