Christina, I enjoyed reading your reflections on Arnold Bennett’s writings compelling us to be wise in how we spend our twenty four hours each day. I, too, had been impacted by his writings and felt like I needed to re-evaluate how I spend my time. However, unlike your struggle with whittling away time on social media (thanks for your very vulnerable reflection), my struggle is the opposite.
Life is very busy and I do what he suggests – budget my time. It is essential for me in order for my life and family to run successfully. I find that when I am busiest I am most productive, and when I am most productive I think that I am most happy. My calendar dictates my day and week and it fills up very quickly with every time slot taken. When I accomplish each day everything I set out to do, I sit back and think that I had a productive and successful day.
However, there is danger in this, and something that I believe leaders need to be wary of (I know I certainly do). We can become so driven and task oriented that although we feel we are stewarding our time carefully, we are not living in our time carefully. Let me explain.
Tasks can overrun us where we begin to lose our sense of humanity. We begin to lose connection with our inner selves and become blinded to how we respond internally to situations or where we are emotionally. We begin to lose true connection with other people. Yes, we may have interactions with them, and lead teams, and instruct people, but we are not truly present. We still have an internal machine propelling us forward and our interactions become mechanistic, not emotionally receptive.
To be truly present means to set aside the agenda or the task of the day. This doesn’t mean stop doing things, or abandoning our responsibilities. It means when interacting with people, stop the mental circus in our brains as we think about the next thing. Actually stop, pause, set aside the task on our desk, look into a person’s eyes, and be truly present with them. Truly listen to them, share space with them, empathize with them, so that a process of healing for both can begin. (Northouse, 2019, 229). Allow ourselves to be spontaneous with people to sit and have a coffee, or pause for a few minutes and laugh at a joke together, or actually abandon a task for the day to engage in a personally replenishing activity, such as going for a walk on a nice day. We need to be truly present even with ourselves in silence so that we can be better people and better leaders.
I find that I need to be so intentional with this during each day and can easily forget. The people I lead need me to be truly present so that I can best serve them during the day. My family needs me to be truly present at the end of the day. I need to just stop my agenda, sit and listen to my kids and share space. Horace Mann says that “Lost: Somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever” (Watson, 1951, pg. 146). Those golden moments with people will disappear. They are precious. We need to take in their beauty every chance we get.
References:
Northouse, P. (2019). Leadership: Theory and practice (8th ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Watson, L.E. (1951). Light from Many Lamps. New York: Simon and Schuster.