living

(Reminder: There's still time to take my survey and help make this blog work better for you. Not to mention getting to enter to win an Amazon gift certificate :-) Click here to get started. I'd sure appreciate it! As I continue developing my consulting practice and simultaneously move my Think, Try, Learn (TTL) philosophy ahead, I've seen an important cycle I want to share with you. This comes up because sometimes during projects I'm frustrated when I don't feel like I'm getting traction. Some examples of when this happened/is happening: Writing the TTL book, creating new workshops, building the TTL platform, getting a handle on productivity metrics (see How Do You Measure Personal Productivity?), defining my blog's topics and style, and deciding my consulting market. What was going on?

...ignored people who said "You shouldn't..."?

What if it was new, risky, or uncertain? What if you invited those people out of your life?

...told yourself it's OK you made that embarrassing copy/paste error in an important email?

You might even generate a chuckle or two (at least from yourself). What if you're still ruminating about it on your death bed?

...refused to pay attention to conventional wisdom?

What if you don't want to do it, don't like doing it, or aren't good at it? What if it sounds reasonable. What if it's some "know you should be" advice?

...listened to yourself and did something you believe in?

Even if everyone else warned you off?

...decided not to ever catch up on your RSS backlog?

Would it really matter? Maybe you're probably already reading the important ones?

A few things got me thinking about why we try to be more productive. The first was a stimulating (and emotional) discussion of value, fees, and life purpose in my recent post A conversation with Laura Stack, the Productivity Pro. Toward the end a reader brings up the important of "Why?" The second thing was Laura Stack's post How to Be More Productive: Have you become more productive or just learned how? She's clearly given it some deep thought.

Finally, early on I wrote It's not about productivity..., and I'd like to revisit the idea. So what follows are a few "Is it all about..." thoughts. No answers here, just a some starter possibilities. Your thoughts on this are very welcome.

I think that one aspect of living gracefully is to appreciate the steady stream of events (large and small, positive and negative) that make up a lifetime. At the meditation center I attended years ago they taught that the present is all we have - the future hasn't happened yet, and the past is over, so enjoying what's happening now is a key to being happy [1]. This is a variation on the "stop and smell the roses" theme, and it makes sense to me.

Trouble is, when I'm under stress, I find appreciating what's happening in the moment to be hard. For example, as I'm building my consulting practice I experience a mixture of frightening an exhilarating experiences, and many of the former get in the way. It's the old "journey vs. destination" idea - focus too much on the latter, you forget to live fully [2].