I have never had a client who has not had time issues. I have them myself. Life seems to be going much faster, with more things crowding the day. And there are more and more things waiting in the wings; things we want to get to or hope to get to and some things we will never get to. This seems to be the case whether or not we have taken courses in time management, whether or not we have a PDA, whether or not we are ‘good’ about scheduling.

What do we mean when you say, “I don’t have enough time?” Probably, we mean one of these things:

• I have to spend too much time on things I hate to do
These things range from filing to laundry, from de-cluttering to de-dishes, from bill-paying to bill-collecting.
• I don’t spend enough time on the things that are important
• I don’t have time to do the things I want
• I don’t have time for myself
• I spend too much time reacting

To borrow a phrase from The e-Myth Revisited, we don’t often solve these issues because most of us spend too much time in our lives and not enough time on our lives. This is much too rich a subject to cover here – even if we procrastinate talking about procrastination. I will give you some chicken soup, however. The process by which things spin out of control is called entropy. Entropy is a physical law and as such is inevitable. So the chicken soup is this: Entropy is not a character flaw. Think about it.

But in this article, let’s just look at the very first issue, which can be characterized as, “living a life you hate.” Since most of the things we are averse to are unavoidable, this poses an interesting challenge. What can we do about those things? They won’t go away. At best, it seems we can put them off as long as possible (that is, until they reach a crisis point, like having no clothes to wear, or dishes to eat from, or having the lights turned off,) but that doesn’t really work and has no juice to it. So what can we do?

Here’s a way of looking at life that is both powerful and little known. It’s called, “Context is Decisive.” What is context? Well – it’s analogous to paradigm, but that doesn’t answer the question. It’s also like ‘purpose’ or ‘motivation.’ I often think of it as the ‘background conversation.’ It’s the white paper that makes writing readable, the silence that allows us to hear music. So it is usually invisible, but without it nothing happens.
When we change the background, the perception of the foreground changes. In jazz, the rhythm section provides the context for a piece. Change the rhythm and the music sounds different.

We can often create context just by saying so. In coaching, I always ask permission before giving feedback. That changes the context of how the client will listen to what I say next. So consider the context of chores.

Suppose housework were a spiritual activity? What if bill paying were a game? What if you could change the context of a chore so it’s no longer a chore? Mr. Ed says, “a horse is a horse, of course, of course.” But you might be able to say, “a chore is a chore, no more, no more.”

An hour with a coach can mean new time for you.

Michael Lipp, The Contribution Coach guides people
To create new, exciting futures. He is committed to clients having what they want.
He is also a multi-faceted author. You are invited to explore his blogs
http://michaellipp.wordpress.com and his website http://www.michaellipp.com

Tags: coaching, context, Philosophy, procrstination, stress

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