Time is funny. It is so elusive and yet sometimes it is not. The more we try to hold onto it, the more we lose it.

Time drags on when we are bored and goes quickly when we are busy

Soon years have gone by and we find that we are in the same situation we were in the first place.

However, I will tell you this although it FEELS like that it is not the case. We have actually grown and it is that we have come FULL circle and are much wiser, patient, forgiving and generous. Usually this is the case.

For us High Performers and High Achievers what we resent is the time we sacrificed NOT enjoying the time we could have had with ourselves,God, and our friends and family.

What we regret is NOT being present to the time we met our partner, dated our partner, our wedding day, the day we got married, we had our first child. We regret not cherishing our first child’s first smile or first  tooth, or first word or set of words, or first step, or first art work at nursery, or first success at primary school and secondary school, or first success at university, or first graduation etc etc. Do you get the picture, in building our career or our business or businesses or both, we did not savour those moments, cherish them, imprint them in our memories and we really regret this… does this resonate with you? Of course it could be if we are lucky enough to have a second or third child or more children, we really savour these moments then, learning from our mistakes the first time. Or if we have married a second or third time we savour the first date, the wedding day etc? 

Most of us learn from the mistakes we made when we were younger. 

Alas some of us find it hard to do this even now, being present to the moment as we are so used to pushing ourselves to achieve the success we have worked hard to build and now we feel we need to maintain.

So we invest in time management courses and productivity courses to help us achieve MORE by doing less. The problem is we are multi-passionate and multi-talented and are actually wanting to achieve so many goals and projects, these courses are usually useless for us and we end up still feeling burnt out and don’t actually notice the few projects we have actually achieved. Our friends and family do not understand this relentless drive we have to achieve but it is precisely this drive that keeps us going. I don’t know who said this but there is a famous saying what burns us out, also fires us up and vice versa, And yes the cost of our workaholism and personal development addiction sometimes keeps us distant from our friends and family. Yet we feel so powerless to stop being this workaholic. And even if we notice the distance we are so good at avoiding noticing this, feeling this, acknowledging this until it is TOO late.

For me the best time management technique to teach us High Performers and High Achievers and especially for those of us who are in LEADERSHIP positions and are HIGH PERFORMING LEADERS and for those of us who are VISIONARY ENTREPRENEURS and VISIONARY CREATIVES is to PACE yourself. I discovered PACEOLOGY the study of PACE, actually the detailed study of PACE in your life in 2018. I found firstly within myself and then with the High achievers and High performers I worked with who hired me as a Coach that when I slowed the pace of my life with some activities that I was really fast in and speeded up the pace of my life in the activities that I was very slow in, that I achieved so much more and noticed the distance between myself and loved ones, God and even within myself.

For instance just slowing down how fast I ate a meal gave me so much JOY. Being present to drinking a cup of tea and chewing slowly a piece of fruit gave me more energy to write. It also helped me deal with extremely stressful situations and lessened my anxiety. Of course this had physical health results aiding to my digestion and sleep but for me the main benefit was that it imprinted some joyous moments to my brain which is not a photograph but a memory I can return to that makes me smile. Previously the memories would have solely been of the hurt, pain and angst I was suffering. However by doing this detailed study of every single activity of my life and how long each took really grounded me and centred me and gave me the courage to deal with very difficult decisions and enabled me to express myself in a way that I had not done before. 

Before I would bury myself in work and try to achieve one of my many projects but instead back in autumn and winter 2017 I did not. I SLOWED down so much. I picked up the pace though in the amount of physical exercise I undertook and increased the times I meditated and stretched doing the warrior position in yoga. 

I am a writer and before I would struggle to write strategically and consistently. However in Autumn 2017 I produced the most amount of writing. This was not to publish but just to record my thoughts and feelings about myself and my relationships. Before these would be written and spread in different notebooks, rambling and random. During this period when I ate so slowly, really chewing and tasting my food and walked so fast, faster than usual, I produced a whole collection of reflections regarding my dreams and meditations which were coherent and consolidated in one place. I found them recently and found this achievement so remarkable as I was surprised at the laser sharp focus and coherence of the writing. As a writer I know being coherent and clear is not easy. Getting started is not easy. It is so easy to procrastinate. 

Yet with this time management technique I produced so much and also was able to become closer to loved ones instead of burying myself in work and distancing myself from them. This technique actually helped me so much with my personal development addiction. 

Why don’t you try this technique, write a list of all your daily activities that you do in a day and time yourself doing each. Then speed up in the activities you do slowly and slow down in the activities that you do quickly. At first charting the time spent may seem very boring but trust me it will give you focus, increase your productivity but also help you be PRESENT  to yourself, God and your friends and family. 

Being present is something you have been seeking to be for very long so why don’t you try this technique?

And if you find you notice some profound changes in your health including mental health, feel free to share this with me by contacting me here using the contact form. If you didn’t know, I am sure you do….I  am The MUSLIM ALCHEMIST, who would love to know the profound transformations that the modality PACEOLOGY, I have invented and discovered has facilitated for you. .