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Project Self Life Coaching

Productivity

The need to be productive, the cousin of achievement, may often be the driver for internal pressure and judgement as it tends to be a measure against which we assess our activity; what we’ve done rather than how we’ve been.

On Being Too Busy - Project Self Life Coaching

On Being Too Busy

Project Self
I am not busy. This sometimes feels like a dirty secret or a guilty confession within today’s social norm. I have only just released myself from the ‘shoulding’ of busyness. A part of me has been telling myself that I should be doing more with my time, with my life. Busy means to be active and engaged, to not be ‘at leisure’.  I believe that being is also a way to be actively engaged with life. I’m one of those people who looks for the spaces between commitments in their calendar, rather than a person who likes to see they…
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On Wasting Time - Project Self Life Coaching

On Wasting Time

Project Self
What’s your relationship with time? This piece is the first part of two explorations into Time: 1) fast time 2) slow time. Time is the back drop, the crucible, the catalyst. The start and stop, the constant duration and the spaces in between. It’s a measure of the past, present and future of our life-time, but also now and the split second moment that has just passed of our living-time. It’s a stream and an interval, preparation, the event and the dissection. How amazing that one concept affects so much of our reality in so many varied ways. It defines existence…
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On Being Into Something - Project Self Life Coaching

On Being Into Something

Project Self
I disappeared this summer. I lost myself in a creative project. I let myself be taken over by it; let it be the most important thing in my life. It became my focus, the source of my energy and the distraction of it. It was a joyful and challenging immersion. It was all I thought about and all I wanted to think about it. There was little space for anything else in my life. This kind of creative immersion is often described as flow (Csikszentmihalyi). It was both exhausting and exhilarating to be so caught up and in something. Invested and…
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On Not Being Productive - Project Self Life Coaching

On Not Being Productive

Project Self
Along with “Have you had a good day”? how often are we asked: “Have you had a productive day” or “What have you done today”? ’Good’ as a measure or description seems open to interpretation since a day can be good for a number of varied and subjective reasons. But productive as a measure holds within it an implicit judgement. Have you done something useful with your life today? Have you been constructive? Applied yourself, achieved? Been energetic, focused? It feels as though a productive day is ‘good’ and related to success. So that if we haven’t been productive somehow…
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ON DOING NOTHING - Project Self Life Coaching

On Doing Nothing

Project Self
Mind the gap is a familiar warning. Mine to you would be make the gap. Find the gap. The interval; the interlude; the break; the empty space.     Create space; find time; in between… Ensure that there is a space between arrival and departure, between one thing and the next, between one zone and another. Be aware of those moments, those transitions and transactions. Find those un-named, ill-defined places without purpose. Relish their vacuum and step into them. They are opportunities for respite, reflection and rest. For being without mission or requirement or determination. Don’t avoid them or rush to…
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