Don't be afraid to ditch your system

Did you hear about what various libraries all over the U.S. have been doing these past few years?

They're eliminating overdue fines and even clearing library patrons' accounts of prior fines.

And in response, materials are being returned in droves.

(From an article in The New York Times: "Since last fall, more than 21,000 overdue or lost items have been returned in Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx, some so old that they were no longer in the library’s systems. About 51,000 items were returned in Brooklyn between Oct. 6 through the end of February. And more than 16,000 were returned in Queens.")

Some of these books were originally checked out in the 60s and 70s!

So, the very thing that the fines were in place to ensure is what happened once the fines were dropped.

MIND BLOWN.

I mean, this isn't entirely surprising.

It makes sense to incentivize the behavior you want. A library wants patrons to borrow books, and it also wants them returned so that others will have access to them. Okay.

But there's a tipping point, right?

Someone's motivated to return their books on time because they don't want to incur fines.

But if a due date is overlooked or a book is misplaced or whatever other scenario unfolds and a fine begins to accumulate, there's some point at which that fine will transform from incentive to barrier.

For various reasons (cost, shame, limited access to services because now there's a hold on the library card, etc.), it will become easier and/or make the most sense to keep the book and avoid the library.

So, the library doesn't get the book back and it loses the patron.

And the patron gets the book (one they probably didn't even want or intend to keep in the first place), but loses all the other services that come with library access.

No one wins.

Anyway, it's not really libraries I want to tell you about today (though I am the daughter of a retired library director/reference librarian, so, you know, #librarypride!).

What I really want to do here is to inspire some fresh thinking for you:

• Where, in your life, might your system (whatever it is, whatever it's for) be precluding your desired outcome?

• Is it possible that the thing you’re after is actually in the opposite direction of your efforts to get it?

• What would happen if you changed tack entirely, scrapped your whole approach, and welcomed the returns in their own time and at their own pace?

Leave a comment below to continue the conversation.

Timer vs. stopwatch

We all know about using a timer to stay on task, but have you ever tried using a stopwatch?

I did recently, and the experience was enlightening.

It was a Saturday afternoon and my husband and daughter were headed to the park.

I wanted to join them, but I also wanted a clean bathroom and to get a load or two of laundry going. Houseplants needed watering. Mail needed sorting. There was a mountain of empty diaper boxes and other recycling ready to find its way out to the garage. The baseboards were fuzzy with dust. All bedding required a refresh.

I didn't have a set window of time, and besides that, I didn't want to race against the clock. So, a timer was out of the question.

But I wanted to stay accountable to myself. I wanted to know how many minutes (or hours!) I was actually using to tick through these tasks before I joined my family at the playground.

As an experiment, I activated the stopwatch feature on my smartphone and got to work.

Doing chores while periodically checking in on a stopwatch is fascinating!

(Well, it is if you're me. I realize I might be in a minority here.)

First of all, I was amazed at how quickly certain tasks were completed (a clean bathroom in under 15 minutes!)—but more than that, I was surprised that the mere fact of the activated stopwatch made me move through my list differently.

How quickly could I knock through the stuff that felt most pressing, the tasks that were just too cumbersome with a toddler underfoot?

What on my list could I let go of—or, at most, give a bare minimum of minutes to?

How much time on a gorgeous Saturday did I really want to spend inside, cleaning, while my family played without me?

Turns out, my limit was just shy of 90 minutes.

Yes, there was more to do. (There's always more to do.)

But using the stopwatch helped me to see that at about the 90-minute mark, I was ready to say GOOD ENOUGH to my list in order to use the rest of my afternoon differently.

This experience got me thinking that I'd like to sing the praises of both these humble tools—timer and stopwatch—in case you hadn't considered how you might use them to your advantage.

To be clear, I advocate for using them less to manage time and more to bring a level of consciousness to our experience of time.

What's the difference?

Well, I'm not really trying to leverage anything. I'm not trying to account for every minute of every day.

I'm simply observing how I tend to use my time and how long I take to do certain things (and how long I take to do certain things when I'm timing myself).

I'm also a big fan of creating containers for myself to do tasks that, if I'm not paying attention, might otherwise consume the entire day (see #2 in this post from the archive).

So, a timer and a stopwatch.

They can be used in the same situations, but tend to provoke different feelings. One or the other might be more useful to you.

A timer

As you know, a timer is a device that counts down from a specified time interval.

Great for pacing yourself, a timer comes in particularly handy when you want to restrict the minutes you spend doing something.

You can base your time interval on the amount of time that's available to you (e.g. you have 15 minutes before you need to be walking out the door), or you can choose to use a timer when you have seemingly unlimited time, but want to chunk it as a matter of strategy (e.g. you have an entire afternoon to clean the house, but you want to spend no more than 30 minutes on the kitchen before moving onto the next room).

A stopwatch

A stopwatch, on the other hand, is designed to measure the amount of time that elapses between its activation and deactivation.

Great for timing yourself, a stopwatch comes in particularly handy when you want to know how long it takes you to do something.

You can activate the stopwatch as a singular exercise (e.g. you want to see how long you actually require to complete your morning routine), or you can start and stop it throughout the day as a means of understanding "where the time goes" (e.g. you use it for each activity, to get a handle on where you spend your time and how much).

When to use one over the other

Simply put, a timer counts down and stopwatch counts up.

It's the difference between watching time disappear and watching it accrue.

Two different approaches to the same understanding, and yet, one might work better for you because it creates a particular relationship to time. A different feeling about the time you have and how you use it.

Are you motivated by steadily chipping away at a set amount of time? Do you enjoy working against a deadline, self-imposed or otherwise?

Or is it more useful for you to observe time as it accumulates? Does it help you to finish up something when you see how long you've already spent working at it?

Different situations call for different methods. Experiment with each and see if and how they change your relationship to the clock. Share your findings below.

The unfilled five minutes

Here's the thing about making a dent in a chore or task, five minutes at a time:

It doesn't have to go the other way, too.

What do I mean?

Not every five-minute window of time needs to—or even should be—filled.

If you've got something that needs doing, it can get done, bit by bit, in just five minutes at a time.

If you've got five empty minutes, sure, you can fill them by knocking out something on your list.

But also: YOU CAN LEAVE THEM UNFILLED.

Not every moment needs to be productive.

I'll say it louder for the folks in the back: NOT EVERY MOMENT NEEDS TO BE PRODUCTIVE.

(And that's if we're understanding "productive" to mean one very narrow thing involving some sort of doing. Because, in fact, doing nothing can be wildly productive.)

Oftentimes I have many things that need to get done. And frequently, it's during those very seasons of long to-do lists that, should an unfilled five-minute window materialize, I'd rather just sit there than take even the smallest step toward striking something off my list.

I need an empty five minutes more than I need a gold star.

I need space to be more than I need a thing to do.

So, understand that, when I suggest using those five minutes in front of you (versus waiting for the 45 unpromised minutes), it's a nudge to move away from perfectionism; from waiting for circumstances to be perfect before doing the thing you want or need to do.

Equally, I'd encourage you to move away from the perfectionism that argues you should use all your time "wisely" or "productively." That's a kind of perfectionism, too.

So, water your plants if they're thirsty. Five minutes at a time.

And, on the other hand, if you find yourself with a spare five minutes, recognize your own thirst (in all its forms) and tend to it.

Don't kill your houseplants

I’m thinking about watering our houseplants.

I don't mean to say I'm considering watering them.

I mean more that I'm thinking about the act of watering our houseplants. And how it's one of many regular, maintenance-type activities that I try to slot into my schedule each week.

We have a lot of houseplants. Like, a lot a lot.

Their sheer number, plus their various locations all over the house means it’s always taken me a good 45 minutes to perform my watering duties every weekend.

Then I had a baby who, in the past two-and-a-half years, has become a toddler. Most of my schedules and routines ran away like a frightened pet when she was born—and they're probably staying scarce until she's old enough to participate a bit more (and in a less destructive way).

Anyway, there have been many weekends in the past couple years when not a single houseplant gets watered.

Not even one.

Not even the little air plants on the windowsill over the kitchen sink, a place where I stand for many, many minutes each and every day.

Why?

Because I'm waiting for the 45 unpromised minutes I know it will take to water all the plants in one go, instead of using the five minutes I have here and there to water a couple plants in-between other activities.

This is silly!

It's also a great way to kill all your houseplants at once!

In all seriousness, though: You have five minutes. I have five minutes.

There's something you want or need to do that you could easily make a dent in (even just a start!) if only you'd use those five minutes you have, right here in the present moment—instead of waiting for the fantasy 45 that might not ever come in one perfectly-formed chunk.

What will you give five minutes to this week? Let me know in the comments.

You don't have a problem

Last week, a client presented me with a conundrum.

She'd been working on a long-term writing project for the better part of a year and was making headway thanks to her understanding of how habits work: Sitting at her desk for 20 minutes every morning, she'd pound out her unfiltered thoughts before getting started with the rest of her day. She'd made it as much a part of her routine as brushing her teeth.

She's completed marathons before—she's even training for one now—and so, she's no stranger to breaking down a goal or project into small steps, super doable tasks, and then making a schedule to move through each of those tasks.

Problem was, even though she'd folded this newer habit into her schedule quite successfully for a few weeks at a time, it would happen, almost inevitably, that she'd skip a morning to sleep in after a late night of work, or her kids would need her in some unforeseen way, and she'd have a string of days (or even weeks) where she wasn't writing at all.

Would she resume the schedule after some time had passed? I was curious to know if her writing project was truly abandoned or not.

Eventually, yes. She told me she always returned to it, picking back up with the daily habit—but it wasn't too long before there were more skipped days or weeks.

What to do about all that squandered time?

What to do about the lapsed discipline?

How could she make this writing habit...stick better?

I told her I wasn't convinced there was a problem here.

This wasn't procrastination (not that that's even a problem—watch this first and then email me if you're still skeptical). This wasn't a matter of discipline. This wasn't indicative of a need for a new system or tool or accountabili-buddy.

This was life.

Going with the (ebb and) flow of life.

And this was thought.

Thinking a whole lot about what was (or wasn't) happening in a given period of time—and what that might mean.

Some weeks are writing weeks, some weeks are not.

She considered all of this for a brief moment and her face relaxed.

"I'm just going with the flow."

What about you?

• Where might you be seeing a problem where there isn't one?

• Is there a situation that you've been quick to diagnose and attempt to treat?

• How does it change when you consider that nothing's actually wrong, nothing needs fixing or improving?

• What if the way it's happening now is exactly the way it should be happening, whether you're in ebb or flow at the moment?

• What if you knew and trusted that it would change...and, like the tide, change again?

Share with me in the comments.