It’s Okay To Breathe

It’s been a bit huh?

Things happen and somehow I just realized that “it’s been a bit” actually relates to today’s note… A note on timing, on your time, on your health and well being.

Timing, response, your time, taking time. All the time things you / we may actually need.

It’s crazy though.

Ding….

Buzz….

Chirp…

Your phone does what your phone does. Texts, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Calls, DMs, IMs, PMs, TikTok, another comment, another like, another email, another….

I think you get where I’m going with all of that. The list goes on and on.

Question is, what’s your next action?

Do you -

• Reach for your phone when you’re done doing what you’re doing?

• Drop everything and run to it?

• Open whatever made the notification because your device is always in hand?

• Let it chime away and when you’re there you’ll take care of it?

• Have notifications off and you don’t even know that anything came in?

• Hear the notification come in, respond 3 days later if at all…

Reality, you’re going to do what’s right for you. Why is it right though? Have you called into the urgency trap that has become life for so many? Must send response to anything that came in right away…???

I remember those days, especially with email. Running a business, my mindset was “email came in, stop what I’m doing, respond. It didn’t matter if it was during a child’s game, dinner, mid activity of just about anything. I would respond. Then I would get a response to my response, then I would respond again. Next thing I knew, 17 emails later, 45 minutes passed, and I hadn’t moved or even present.

Then came the day.

I changed things up because life was more important. I learned a technique through a TED Talk (wish I could find now). In my signature line on my email, it stated I checked and responded to email twice a day Monday through Friday and if someone needed immediate assistance to call me (rarely did anyone actually need that and if they did, I would happily have an actual conversation).

OMG, THE AUDASITY of people and how they handled that!

Actually, you know what, I never got any response that didn’t understand. Actually, I had more people mention that they began using the same method. Imagine how much time you would free up if you checked your email at 9:30 AM and 4:30 PM? Not when you wake up, not when you are in bed, not when you’re eating lunch.

That was an easy one.

Then comes text messages, DM’s, and the sorts. 

Ooof… the non stop urgency to respond. It just sucks.

So here’s a really simple difficult reality.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO IMMEDIATELY RESPOND.

Just because a text or dm came in, does not mean that you need to have an instant back and forth conversation. I get the special people, children, spouses, etc. who may need you to help or answer a question, they may fall into a special category. For everyone else though?

What if though, for everyone else, or simply everyone, you gave yourself space to breathe? What if for your health and mental well being you just responded on your time?

Urgency culture is rapidly creating anxiety, depression, and keeping so many peoples systems in a fight or flight mode. And well, in my opinion, fight or flight mode is not a safe place to be.

It’s time to choose your safe place and safe pace. And for anyone who can’t respect that, it might be time to think about the priority of those relationships / friendships.

Because healthy people will always respect your timing.

You got this!

~Tim