I'm a master planner & organizer but I'm now in the business of helping people. I start each day by giving my self, my day & my life to God to do with as He will, to guide, lead, & direct. He then guides my days & I stay open to that. That truly put me in the flow, since I really mean it & live it. I used to get quite thrown off by interruptions, especially when I was really into a task. I have great powers of concentration & really "get into the zone," especially when writing a business letter, promotional material, the blog, etc. I have the words flowing & my head is ahead of my hands so an interruption makes me lose what I was going to say when I had it just right. I have to go back & recreate when interrupted. Often, the interruption would startle me out of my concentration. I'm just telling you this so you understand what a big deal it is for me to have made this kind of change in my spirit & attitude. But I understand that my life is now about helping people & animals rather than how much I accomplish in a day. It's about being responsive to the needs rather than putting together seminars & promotional materials by a certain date, meeting deadlines. I do have deadlines in my life, like everyone, but it's no longer the motivating force in my days. When interrupted by the cats or others, I'm able to stop what I'm doing with grace & be responsive. Part of how I do that is setting boundaries though. I will stop working for a need but not necessarily for a want. I have certain work times & set tasks for myself. If someone just wants to chat during times I need to get work done, I'll postpone that if it's someone who has frequent access to me. I manage my time well, & multitask when on the phone, for example. I talk hands free & use that time to do things like the dishes or litter boxes, tasks that truly don't require full concentration, rote things. I stay present with the person on the phone but get things accomplished also. My mind multitasks naturally. I've referred to that before. It's a good & bad thing. I've had to learn to organize & quiet my mind & be more mindful when doing certain things to avoid injury or mistakes. It allows me to get so much done every day & to really be a great planner, but is something that requires a lot of control & safeguards.
Part of living in a state of grace is working to my strengths & understanding & managing the pitfalls that are the flip side of every strength. It takes knowing yourself, how you work best, & how to manage yourself. You have to be willing to learn & adapt to the changes in your life & yourself. That ability to adapt helps you attain & stay in a state of grace as much as possible. No one stays in that state constantly, but some of us regularly live there. It's kind of like working from home. You aren't home 24/7 unless you're one of the rare housebound people. You go out & visit with others, shop, attend meetings, etc. But mostly you're home. It's that way with those of us who live in a state of grace. We aren't there all the time even though we live it, but that's usually where we are. And we always find the way back.
As I've said before, my life isn't right for everyone. In fact, not for most people. But some of my ways are. There is great grace in service & if you've chosen a life of service to others you have to stay in the flow & be responsive to interruptions & needs. If you are very Type A, that can be a big adjustment, & it's a gradual one. But it can be learned. Once you understand that as your role, you can look at that as your true work & respond accordingly, with grace. You can come to the place where you actually welcome the "interruptions" as opportunities to do your truest work & help. That's why I don't get ruffled when my days don't go as planned. I only loosely plan them any more, most days. I use my planner & schedule in the classes & things that need to get done but I tend more toward writing what needs to be done for the week in the top section & not assigning things by day. I then work things into my days as time allows, being mindful of deadlines & what needs to get done every day. I've found comfort in doing home maintenance (dishes, litter boxes, etc.) every day & routine tasks that don't require decisions, creativity or concentration. I used to hate such things because they took away from my creative time & "me" time, the things I really wanted to be doing. Now I've learned to enjoy them as mental breaks. I've totally changed my attitude. It helps that I get a lot of them done while taking a break from more difficult mental tasks & while on the phone. That makes them time spacers rather than what I used to consider time takers. Again, it's living in the flow, & managing myself & my time. I also make adjustments all the time. That's part of the flow. What works one day might not work in the next, or the following week. Time is fluid so we also must be. So many people make excuses about time - they never have enough to do the things to improve their lives. But we all have the same amount of time every day, so it's a matter of choice. The hoarder with a home office full of excess does have time to cure the problem despite what he says, & I told him exactly how to get out from under. Once he quits making excuses & working the plan, he'll eventually solve the problem. It won't be overnight because he didn't get there overnight. We never solve our deep seated problems in an instant. But if you don't start it will never change, whatever it is. First, you quit to reduce doing whatever it is that caused the problem in the first place, whether it be excessive papers & possessions or excessive weight. You also work to undo the problem, gradually, a little at a time, 5-6 days a week. You always give yourself "off" time, "down" time. For the hoarder, if he'd just start with his overflowing file cabinet & weed out 3 files a day, 5-6 days a week while no longer adding to the problem with excessive papers, he'd eventually dig out. If only 5 days a week that's 15 files a week! Three files is not an excessive number to assign yourself so it truly is doable. That's a lifecoaching technique. What happens is, if you start doing it & stick with it, it becomes routine. That eventually changes your behavior pattern. Then you begin to see real results & it motives you to do more each day, sometimes devote real time to it for greater results. That principle works with any & every behavior & problem from lack of exercise to overeating to over planning.
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