CLEAN PLATE, CLEAN SLATE
Friday Jan. 19, 2018
Finish what you start.
Seems simple enough.
If I apply that to everything I start today. I can.
But.
… what about everything I didn’t get finished yesterday, the day before, the day before that?
What about all that?
Which begs the question whether we could start every day with a blank slate – have ‘nothing’ carrying over from yesterday. I’ve known that feeling – memories of how I got to that place, both wonderful and exhausting:
Ingredient #1 – going on long vacations or business trips; requires getting desk clear, piles of ‘things to do or finish’ actually get worked down to ‘last scrap of paper’. We deal with things, delegate things, discard things – when I’ve been in this situation I’ve discarded many things I was hanging onto as though I would actually do something or act on them. They were just dragging …
Ingredient #2 – go on the trip
Ingredient #3 – on that first day away, realizing my slate really was cleaned – today (if we were at work) would really offer that opportunity to start fresh, start things and finish them …
Poof!
We realize quickly that coming back from that trip will be no picnic, everything that ‘shows up’ during our absence leaves us back where we started. Hardly a clean slate …
So, what is my point?
What am I doing about it?
I’m hesitant to make bold commitments I can’t live up to, but I’m trying …
Working through everything on my agenda right now ‘as if I am readying for a trip’, getting my plate clean – I’ll just skip ingredient #2. Target (pretend departure) date is Feb. 15. I’ll report then on the emptiness of my plate …
Obviously we all have ‘daily things to do’ – in our homes, families, jobs and businesses – I’m not ignoring that or expecting to eliminate them.
But, as I survey all that sits on my table, fills my agenda and my ‘calls to make/things to do/decisions on moving something forward v. move to the trashcan’ … they occupy far too much space. In their place I’d like more daily ‘opportunity time’, time for fresh thinking, fresh ideas, fresh meetings, fresh creativity, all of which will feel like the best vacation ever (see ingredient #3 above).
Reader feedback:
DA CAUSE OF IT
At the end of the excellent movie “Darkest Hours” they show a Winston Churchill quote......”Success is not final; Failure is not fatal”, GB, Calgary, AB
