More on making peace with time
How does a self-employed leadership coach spend his day? Depends on the day! Monotony is rare. Routines can be scarce.
In a previous post, I explored the feeling of making my time feel more like my time. But what I choose to do with that time, or how it unfolds over the course of a day, is an entirely different story. And it’s a story that began long ago.
Early lessons about time from TV
"In TV news, time waits for no one."I’m pretty punctual, and I have a good sense of how long it takes to do things. (Waze means I no longer need a sense of how long it takes to get places.) Yes, I am often the first one standing in the doorway with my shoes on when it’s time to go. I’ve missed exactly one flight (flat tire) recovered nicely when another got canceled.
An hour-long train commute to high school, complete with many mornings of catching air in my first car while racing the train to the station, probably helped. But my time sense got forged in the crucible of television news as I began my career.
In TV news, time waits for no one. At 5:00, Oprah’s credits would be done rolling, the theme music played and the anchors introduced the first story. If that story was mine, it didn’t matter if I needed a few more minutes to formulate my thoughts. My thoughts went on the air as they were. And if the producer gave me 90 seconds of airtime amid all the other stories, commercial breaks, bumps, teases and anchor crosstalk, it didn’t matter if I could have told the story better in 3 minutes. I had 90 seconds.
Working in front of the camera and later producing a few shows myself, I watched plenty of colleagues with their heads about to explode because technical difficulties or breaking news forced them to abandon their careful plans and think on the fly. But the strongest, least flappable producers were the ones who married their time sense with an openness to fluidity. They knew a technically flawless broadcast was admirable, but one that required serious improvisation was an art.
I left the television business at 24. Pretty sure I never made it into the art stage. But I’m slowly getting there two decades later.
The entirely improvised day
Not long ago, I had a day that was a total departure from the script. It turned out to be one of the best days I’d had in months, perhaps because it was so unplanned.
I was headed downtown to meet a fairly new acquaintance for lunch. That morning, a couple hours before lunchtime, she had to cancel. Bummer. I decided not to wallow in disappointment or stay home and eat leftovers. Instead, I texted an old friend who worked near the canceled lunch spot. This friend has a far tighter calendar than I do. But he was free and had no lunch plans, so we met up in exactly the same place I was planning to go anyway. We caught up over a great meal, and he thanked me for giving him a reason to get out of the office and get some fresh air.
It wasn’t lost on me that we came together because of empty space, newly found in my schedule and already established in his.
After lunch, a coaching client rescheduled our session to another day. It was my last remaining appointment of the day. So I took my time getting home and did some writing instead -- something I find it extremely challenging to schedule the time to do.
I had shredded all of my existing plans for the day and rewritten the script on the fly. And it felt great.
What I’m learning
Like those adaptable TV producers from years ago, I’m learning to roll with it.
I’m learning that I might not make it from Point A to Point B the way I had planned, or even at all. But each day has a beginning and an end just like a newscast. The sun will rise and then set.
I am committed to using my time this year for growth, in service of my family and my clients. And I am committed to remaining curious about what happens in the empty space.
Do your life’s gifts arrive in the space between appointments, or are the appointments themselves the gifts in an otherwise open space?
(This post originally appeared on LinkedIn)