Wasting Time - Day 10

I hate wasting time. The older I get the more I hate it. I’m far too aware that I just don’t have as much of it left as I used to. So to waste it - to not to make the most of each and every moment - to me that’s worse than wasting money on that very expensive hand painted tuxedo shirt I bought in Aspen one winter twenty odd years ago and wore only once. Money you can always figure out a way to make more of. But time. You can’t get that back.

As the author of a book on the subject, It Takes An Egg Timer, A Guide To Creating The Time For Your Life, you might think I never commit this crime. But I do. And when I think over the past five years I admit readily that I have most definitely wasted a bunch of time.

Like when I was waiting for The Book Deal. The one every writer dreams of - or at least used to dream of - back when you didn’t have to commit some obscenely outrageous act or become a reality star, to be deemed worthy of a coveted deal from a Big Six - I mean Big 5 Publisher.

I waited and waited. I was that sure it would happen. I just didn’t know where or when.

But as we know, it didn’t happen. When I knew I couldn’t waste one more minute waiting to get picked, I picked myself and self-published, The Secrets They Kept.

I think sometimes of how much further along I would have been if I had made that decision earlier. If I hadn’t been wasting time waiting for outside validation that I was a good enough writer to be read. 

But of course that is the biggest waste of time of all! 

The truth is alot of really great things happened because of that waiting. 

I would never have started to blog and learn about things like Twitter and Facebook. I wouldn't have self-published which really forced me to take a very deep dive into all things digital. I wouldn't have taken all those courses and attended conferences and discovered people like Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott who reminded me how much I love marketing and left me qualified to teach a class in digital marketing at NYU. I wouldn't be consulting and demystifying digital for individuals and organizations.

So I suppose I was never really wasting time at all. I was just getting prepared for what was next. I just didn't yet know what that was going to look like.


note: This is Day #10 of a 30 Day Experiment. Here are the details on how it all started.

How To Stop Wasting Time Worrying

I come from a long line of worriers. Part genetic (my mother) and part cultural (being Greek). I grew up surrounded by people who considered it an art form, complete with a set of worry beads to hold while performing their craft. My grandfather would sit in his recliner for hours, his thumb moving the beads back and forth while the strand was draped around his hand doing nothing but worrying. I have no idea about what. Like most men of his generation he was not a man of many words. 

My mother inherited his obsession. She tells me that she was born with two worry birds, one sitting on each shoulder. Lucky for her she married my father, who didn't worry about very much. It was a good balance. He tried to get her to stop. He would tell her not to worry so much. She would tell him she couldn't help herself. It was a dance they did their entire marriage. 

I had a front row seat to see how much time could be wasted worrying. The evidence was right in front of me that worrying would not change a thing. You can't stop anything from happening by worrying. Nor can you make anything happen you are worried won't.  You would have thought I would have learned not to worry at all. To be more like my father.

Some days I am. But as I said, this worrying thing is in my blood. It can sneak up when I'm least suspecting. And if it gets me in its claws, well, I can lose a whole day.

So I'm always looking for tools to help when that happens. 

Tools like The God Box.

The God Box is the title of a memoir in which the author shares her mother's gift of faith, love and letting go.  Mary Lou Quinlan's mother kept a God Box for years, a collection of notes to God on behalf of family, friends and strangers in which she would ask for help without expectation. Instead of worrying, she would write it down, drop it in the box and let it go. Or as I like to say surrender to a power greater than herself.

When her mother died, Mary Lou uncovered ten God Boxes stuffed with little pieces of paper that spanned the last twenty years of her mothers life, offering a wealth of insight into her mother as well as herself. It's a wonderful story I highly recommend,  as long as you have a big box of tissues next to you and no where to go until the puffiness from all the crying subsides. 

I had the pleasure of hearing Mary Lou speak the other week. The God Box, it seems, has taken on a life of its own. There is a website, The God Box Project, a play, and yes, even an App if you want to create your own God Box and don't want to kill a tree in the process.

It doesn't surprise me how this has caught on. Whatever your image of a higher power is, God, Goddess, Buddha or Allah, surrendering your worries to them by writing on a slip of paper, asking please and thank you, is a wonderful symbolization of release. By doing this, you feel like you've done something when really all you've done is delegate it. The worry bird is off your shoulder and in the hands of someone who might actually be able to do something about it. I think that's pretty efficient business and what I consider a true time saver. 

Yes, if you are wondering, I have started a God Box of mine own only I call mine my God and Goddess Box. I believe they work better together than alone.


For more about Mary Lou Quinlan and The God Box Project go to:
www.The GodBoxProject.com 

PS. The God Box, like most books, mine included, make great holiday gifts!

The Real Secret

Everyone is searching for it. That secret. The one that will solve all their problems. That magic key that will fix whatever they find lacking in their life.

The only people who seem not to be searching are the ones that tell you they are in possession of it. They know what you don't. They want you to believe the secret lies in their hot little hands. All you need do is sign up for their newsletter and you'll get the free video or PDF that gives it away. The one simple secret to earning a seven figure income and never having to work more than three hours a day. Or buy one of those glossy magazines that still fill the walls of the store where I buy my lottery tickets. The one that promises the secret to a flatter stomach without ever doing a sit-up. You might be encouraged to click on this link and find out the one fool proof secret to making your skin never age.  Or watch tonight's News at Eleven and discover the secrets your airline pilot will never tell you.

We are all so hungry for that secret that we buy into it. We click, we turn on, we scroll Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest. We are so sure someone else has the answers. Someone else knows more than we do that it's hard not to be disappointed when we get to the bottom of the article and find out we knew that already. Or we try what they suggest and it doesn't work.

I googled "Top Ten Secrets" yesterday and came up with 57,900,000 results from great sex to success to mastering your brand to having a happy family! Apparently we are spending a lot of time searching for our secrets of choice.

I know that if I share advice and  include the words tips, tricks, or secrets in the title my post gets more page views and/or is more likely to get picked up by an aggregate website. I openly admit I have done that and probably will again. Even though I know the real secret.

Which is this. There is no secret.

Yes, there is lots of information dancing around. That's why we call this the Information Age. Some of it is very good (my intention is to fall in that category, more often than not) and some of it is just a way to get you sign up for a newsletter or click a link so that website's impressions are increased and the owners can charge someone else more money to run an advertisement.  Or simply get you to plunk down your credit card and buy whatever it is they are selling.

You can read every article. Pay tens of thousands of dollars in course fees. Surf the Internet while you are watching a television show that promises if you just do this, this one secret thing, everything will shift. But nothing will, unless you stop.
And listen.
To you.

If you do, you will discover that the real secret lies within. You have all the answers to whatever is lacking in your life and the direction you need to go to create your change. But only if you dare, dare, dare to get quiet enough to listen. To your heart. To the messages your body offers. To the essence of yourself.

But most of us don't.  Or won't.  The excuse being you just don't have time to do that. To stop. To breathe. To be. To listen. We're too busy wasting time. Searching. For that secret.