Playing Catch Up

OVERLOADED IN-TRAY

It's been a great summer. Lots of laughs. Lots of partying with lots of late nights. This means work priorities have built up and some of the important jobs have been neglected - or worked on, but poorly and with insufficient brain power to really give the best performance to the duties that are required to get things done.

Summer still has some legs left in it and there'll be some more late nights and fun to be had in this year's summer swan-song closing party. Now it's time to catch up and focus on some of the important tasks that are getting close to crunch time. This coming week not only has a re-sit on an exam, but a re-look at my tax appeal with HMRC, plus this blog has arguably suffered these last couple of months - with less focus on research plus quality/quantity of the words written not as great as I'd like them to be written.

The morning routine has also been off for a while now - and although the yoga has been mostly kept up with, the boxing and weight/fitness training has barely been enough for damage limitation. Also, the language learning and 20 pages a day reading commitments has not always been possible - certainly not at the quality it deserves to be performed at to be able to retain what I'm learning.

Starting from October, I'll be taking on a new course for learning about yoga, the PT qualification will be ready to make use of and there'll be a decision made on finances that could mean no debt and a decent amount of money available for another smart investment. Exciting times ahead - once the in-tray has been reduced down to a manageable level...  

Caught in a Fast Moving Flow

SWIMMING AGAINST THE CURRENT

When the pressure of multiple time-sensitive jobs mount up, like they have done for me today, it takes a quick head up from the tasks at hand to assess the situation if we are to avoid a catastrophe.

These sudden changes in flow can catch us unaware. From a seemingly easy sea of tranquility, I'm now caught in a fast moving rip of important jobs. A rip current in the sea will take you out far away from your safety zone and drown you....unless you know how to deal with it. The same applies in a work dilemma. If we don't assess the situation in time, we'll be swept up in the frantic panic before finally succumbing to the stress of no easy return.

This rip metaphor may seem an odd one but it's symbolic of how we feel when trying to tackle many jobs at the same time. Panic and fear take over. While it might suddenly put a seemingly overwhelming burden of tasks for us to clear from the in-tray of life, like a rip tide, there's always a way to tackle the fiercest current and these flows are rarely that wide. So take action quickly and swim with the most pressing jobs sideways out of the rip. Focussing priorities on getting clear of the most ferocious stream will help us avoid being swept out any further. Once the danger of being swallowed up passes, even though it may seem far away from where we want to be...if we can just stay calm, we should be able to muster enough energy to deal with the slow and steady swim back to the safer waters of tranquility.

Safe Sanctuary

RETREAT, REGROUP & REWARD

It's been a tough start to the year and it's time to pull back the troops from the front line, dress the wounds, heal and recharge the energy levels. 

Self Assessment

The most important thing I've learned about making life changes since starting on this new lifestyle from 1st Jan this year: Self assessment - ie. taking daily checks on any progress....schedules, goals and energy levels for making these good things happen. Without maintaining good mental & physical health - none of these positive achievements would be possible. Checking the status quo every day means any deviations from sleep/diet can be corrected and the energy levels can be kept in the green/amber rather than red zones. It's amazing how seemingly small things like skipping a meal or having one hour less sleep, can affect our productivity. Without regular assessments, we don't really pay proper attention to these energy dips until they manifest in physical/mental drops in performance - ie. injury & illness. 

Know your limits

When you're young, you have an amazing capacity to heal/recover/adjust to deviations from any sleep and energy changes. Your body's natural ability for healing means even sustained periods of general abuse/mistreatment can be corrected easily. This ability to heal, although still possible over longer time periods is not as easy to do and may not be a full recovery as we get older. 

The painful truth

I can remember feeling invincible at 26. I used to push my physical limits, always working and playing hard. I would always bounce back from overdoing it. From the early to mid 30's, there's been a change in appearance - greying hair, lines around the eyes and ailments popping up 'seemingly from nowhere' but I've been living the same lifestyle in my mid to late 30's that I did in my 20's and still thought I was 'bouncing back'. I've repeatedly dropped my energy levels into the red zone and the last few years have thrown up some clear signals that the body isn't 26 anymore. We don't want to face up to the fact, but once we do accept ageing and hatch a plan to manage damage limitation, we can adjust our levels of input/output and allow ourselves more quality healing time. This is essential if we want to keep doing the things we enjoy and stay looking and feeling vital/younger through to old age. 

This is why - although I have some major responsibilities on at the moment, I'm taking time by myself to visit my safe sanctuary in order to get my energy levels back on track. This will see me return fresh and ready for the next battles ahead.