It’s Just the Way It’s Done
Do you ever find yourself doing things a certain way simply because that's just the way it's done? Maybe it's just the way others do it. Or maybe it's just the way you've always done it, for whatever reason. But in any event, we often get stuck in a certain autopilot groove, for better or worse.
I think about this a lot, especially when I assess my own rhythms of life. My first time thinking about this topic was when I started spending meaningful time in Asia. As expected, their culture is so much different from ours. As I watched closely, I realized some of their cultures, customs, and rituals are awesome. And if that's true, why don't we model some of our behaviors similarly? Probably because we simply do it the way we do it. Over time, I started adopting non-traditional habits and customs into my own life.
My second profound moment was when I left the corporate world after 15 years. I started asking myself questions like, "What is a workday?" "What is a work week?" "What is a vacation?"
After six years of obsessing about these questions, I've landed in some interesting places:
I never start work before I've been able to hang out with my kids and drive them to school.
I never take a meeting before 9 AM.
I work at the office every Thursday night.
If my kids ask me to do something with them during a workday, I’ll try to engineer my day around it.
I typically do my most meaningful work on Saturday afternoons.
I regularly travel during the week for non-work purposes, but find ways to integrate my work into it.
I work in four different offices (sometimes all in the same day), depending on context and situations.
I regularly work at night after Sarah and the kids go to bed.
I regularly have non-work meetings with interesting people about peculiar subjects that seem incongruent with my work.
All this to say, after a lot of intentionality, I've successfully managed to stave off nearly every trope about what a day, week, and trip should look like. I'm NOT suggesting you model your life after mine. Far from it! Actually, you doing that would be counter to my entire point here. What I'm suggesting is that each of us should look in the mirror, ask ourselves if we could rip up the script and redesign our day-to-day and week-to-week lives, what would it look like? Your answer is going to be much different than mine......and that's a good thing!
Try me on this one. Put it to the test. Even just a few small tweaks to "normal" could make a massive difference in your life!
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