Wyse thoughts for the end of 2022

Hi , as we approach the end of 2022, I wanted to ask you a question…

When was the last time you took time out to do absolutely nothing? Zip, zilch, zero? If, like me, you’re juggling life and a business, then the answer is likely to be ‘I can’t remember’, swiftly followed by ‘hardly ever’. In today’s frenetic digital world, time is often our most prized commodity and what we do with it a subject of hot debate. With holidays and downtime ahead, now is the perfect opportunity to use your time to good effect – as I said above – think of it as a gift to yourself.

If you are the founder of a relatively new business, the chances are you are working flat out on getting that start-up going. You probably haven’t had a day or even an hour off for what seems like an age and I dare say, your creativity and enthusiasm are missing in action.

“To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world.” Oscar Wilde

However, worry not, for I have the answer and it involves doing, yes you’ve guessed it, nothing. Well, OK, not absolutely nothing, but a few hours of idleness or at worst, procrastination. Oscar Wilde may have considered that doing nothing was the most difficult thing to do, but as superhuman multitaskers, we women know that our brains are never truly turned off and this, it turns out, is a very positive side effect of idleness.

While there are sayings galore about the dangers of being idle, from the Devil makes work for idle hands to idleness being the root of all evil, I’m here to tell you that ‘idleness’ and its best friend ‘procrastination’, can be good for us and therefore good for business, even boosting our powers of creativity, decision-making and purpose. Despite evidence to the contrary these two partners in crime do not equal laziness and as we approach the end of the year, a time when we usually hunker down, here’s why:

Speed, speed, speed – life is jam-packed and fast. We are under constant pressure to achieve and deliver, but this can lead to rushed and sometimes poor decisions. Value should not always be assessed in speed and volume. Quality is also important and if you take time out to really think about what you need and why, you will be able to make better, more efficient decisions going forward. In his blog The Drum creative advertising expert, Andrew Boulton, reinforces this view: Creativity does not, or at least should not, subscribe to doctrine. It should not follow recipes or replicate formulas. And it should absolutely not submit to anyone else’s expectation of how to be creative. In other words, don’t bow to pressure and take your time.

Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow? – if that doesn’t sound like it’s quite the right way around, don’t panic! Once again, tasks do not have to be about speed and just because you are putting off one on your to-do list, does not mean you cannot achieve other things. Procrastination is not necessarily about avoiding the difficult, but allowing our brains to percolate it for a while. Sometimes we just have to park particularly knotty problems while we work on easier ones. You might surprise yourself when you come back to the original problem later on. In his book, The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing, Stanford professor John Perry says: “structured procrastinators get more done. Priorities may not be their focus, but they are still accomplishing things.”

Don’t be a perfectionist – while this might be a sweeping generalisation, we women tend to be notorious perfectionists, but this can also be our downfall. We work over and over a problem until we have over-complicated it. There’s no harm in revisiting ideas or formulae or seeing projects and ‘movable feasts’ that can evolve as they grow. Perfectionism can be a barrier to progress and even Forbes magazine agrees. While setting goals and working towards high standards can be great for your business and your career, “Obsessing about making mistakes or letting others down or holding yourself to impossibly high standards can have negative consequences”.

Be realistic about deadlines – over-promising to deliver in an impossible time frame not only adds unnecessary stress but can stunt your creativity and decision-making process altogether. Yes, there is the argument that a deadline can focus the brain and there is significant evidence that men perform better when they’re up against the clock. In comparison, women are not very good at asking for more time when they need it. So, give yourself some much-needed wriggle room and remember that extra hours or even days does not equal incompetence but commitment to a higher standard.

Take stock – it’s easy to lose track of what you have actually achieved, so take a look back over the past year and assess all that you have accomplished. This will help you to look ahead to 2023 and decide on your key milestones for the next 12 months. Success will seem easier if you have some tangible things to build on.

Time to switch off – the Latin word for procrastinate is procrastinare, which sounds like it should be a seafood pasta dish, and if that is what will transport you to a higher plane in which to ruminate, then who am I to argue? But Italian cuisine aside, there is nothing better for activating your brain than switching it off. An idle brain is an active one, a quiet brain can be one singing with ideas. Take time out to enjoy some golden silence, look at some paintings, go for a run, walk through your streets at dawn and marvel at the sunrise or simply lose yourself in that big bowl of pasta, savouring every mouthful.

As that great sage – Winnie the Pooh – once said: “Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”

You’ll be amazed at where it might take you.

And on that note, I’d like to wish you a very happy end to 2022, and I can’t wait to see what 2023 has in store for us all.

Thank you for your continued support.

Seasons Greetings and speak soon,