Create Peace and Productivity in Your Life with White Space Time!
Do you need less stress or more results? Most women need both! And many of them are finding a little “air pocket” where they can create both peace and productivity.
It’s called White Space Time!
by Michelle Lisenbury Christensen and
Sara Harvey Yao
It’s a special kind of appointment with yourself: you protect it from any pre-set agenda. Crazy as it sounds to block out an hour (or three) when you don’t plan to do anything in particular, it really helps women find equilibrium and get amazing things done.
Your To-Do List Expands to Fill Your Time
Have you noticed that your to-do list expands to fill the time you have? That you feel like you never have a moment free?
Take an open or “white” time on your calendar and block it so it STAYS open! Then when you get to that appointment in your calendar, you will find a gift to yourself…freedom.
You now have time before you, and the opportunity to ask, “What do I really want to do with this time? What do I need right now?” If you’re disciplined enough to give yourself full permission to follow those desires (instead of checking e-mail or ticking off errands that aren’t your deepest desire), surprising things begin to happen.
White Space Makes Time for Amazing Things to Happen
One of our clients needed to get a marketing plan created. What he really wanted to do during his White Space was go to the driving range. Within two days, he got a great idea for the marketing plan, because he’d cleared his head while hitting golf balls.
Another began writing again after a long dry spell, because she used her White Space to daydream about her perfect life and realized she needed a space to write in. Right then – because she had the time – she cleared a spot in her guest room and created a nook where she now writes each morning.
Come Up for Air with White Space
White Space is a place to come up for air during your busy work week. It helps you to not feel so “behind,” the same way a $100 bill in your wallet makes you feel abundant, even if you don’t spend it.
Here’s How You Do It:
1. Find a block of 1-4 hours (more, if you dare!) that’s not already committed, and reserve it. Take it from “blank” on your calendar to an appointment – with yourself.
2. If any other uses for the time come up, deflect them. Tell others you’re committed. Remember that this time is deeply important, even if it feels indulgent.
3. Show up.
4. Give yourself permission not to be productive, not to do it “right,” not to meet any pre-conceived linear notion of what you should do.
5. Ask yourself, “What would I really like to do with this time?”
6. Do THAT.
Take the White Space Challenge
People who’ve committed to taking White Space at least once a week for three weeks have reported phenomenal changes in their energy, focus, and feelings of satisfaction. You can read some of their stories at whitespacetime.com. We hope you’ll join them and let us know what happens when you take the White Space Challenge.
Michele Lisenbury Christensen and Sara Harvey Yao are the authors of “Succeeding without Side Effects: Burnout-Proof Your Leadership and Life” and the “White Space Time” audio program. They help business owners and executives create more success with fewer side effects. Visit their website to learn more at WorkingWithPower.com .
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Category: Work/Life Balance
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Ladies,
I love this idea and have suggested to parents that they do just this. Otherwise they will never find the elusive private time for several years. Great article.