What pace are you traveling as you transition seasons and greet the summer? Are you slowing down and taking time off for vacation? Or are you quickly filling your days to the point of exhaustion and overwhelm? Your pace directly correlates to how well you manage your time and enjoy life.

Whether or not you’re on vacation, you can integrate regular pauses during your week. Without breaks or stops, you become less efficient and productive. With moments to restore and refresh, the quality of your decisions improves. Pacing matters, especially if you want to let go of the extraneous and become more organized. Give yourself the best chance for success. Activate the power of lingering.

How can lingering increase happiness and make you a better time manager? While it may sound counterintuitive, lingering presents an opportunity for a mindful break while focusing on something enjoyable and restorative. Lingering lets you pause, appreciate, and slow down moments. You can then return to your day with a renewed focus on what you’re doing next.

Monthly Meditation and Writing Retreat

Most months, I participate in an inspiring virtual retreat led by my wonderful friend and Clarity Coach, Yota Schneider. She creates a safe, supportive space for women to gather, meditate, write, and share.

Several months ago, the retreat’s theme was “linger.” After our meditation, I wrote this passage during our free-write. It illustrates several ways lingering has had a positive effect on my life.

Thoughts About Lingering

Wet paws, conversations, and gelato. Those probably aren’t the first things that come to mind when you think of linger. However, as I calmed myself in the darkness, the faint sounds of train horns blowing juxtaposed with coyotes howling and the clock ticking. Wet paws, conversations, and gelato lingered in my mind.

Lingering is about time – the stretching, expanding, and slowing down of moments. While lingering can be thought of positively and negatively, happy stories and memories surfaced for me tonight.

Wet Paws

First, the wet paws. Our beautiful black lab, Norton, now long gone, loved going on forest walks with us. We often walked (the five of us – Steve, me, the girls, and Norton) down our block to the path in the woods that led to the Croton River. We’d go to this one spot where we climbed on the big flat rocks – each taking a seat.  We’d sit barefoot with feet dangling in the water as we watched the river flow and heard its thunderous sound. Sun rays coming through the canopy of trees warmed us.

Norton, like us, picked his rock and submerged his front paws in the river. We lingered – each enjoying this beautiful time with no agenda and nowhere to go as if time stood still. And then, for unknown reasons, Norton would get up and decide it was time to leave. So we did. The lingering was over.

Conversations

Second – conversations.  I’ve been missing my mom and two aunts (my mom’s younger sisters) a lot lately. We talked often. Our conversations meandered. Time felt like taffy – stretching and unending. We talked about love, family, and matters of the heart. We laughed, cried, and enjoyed our time together as we lingered leisurely and easily in free-flowing conversations.

The conversations with these three amazing women have ended—at least the out-loud ones have, as they are all gone.

“Lingering has restorative powers when you focus energy on positive moments.”

— Linda Samuels, CPO-CD®, CVOP™

Gelato

Lastly, gelato. I recently had a gelato ice cream cone experience that I didn’t want to end. I tried to linger as long as possible while eating it. But you know how gelato goes—it melts, so my lingering time was limited.

But as I ate this delicious mocha gelato in a cone drenched in freshly dipped warm dark chocolate, I stretched out the enjoyment for as long as possible.

Linger. To linger. Lingering. The precious moments time offers. The beautiful moments I allow myself to savor.

Wet paws, conversations, and gelato.

Lingering has restorative powers when you focus energy on positive moments. Do you linger? If so, have you noticed helpful effects on your well-being or time management? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to join the conversation.

If you want help letting go, organizing, or managing your time better so you can enjoy life more, email me at linda@ohsorganized.com, call 914-271-5673, or schedule a Discovery Call.  Change is possible, especially with support.

This past weekend we time maneuvered and set our clocks ahead. It was the annual ‘spring forward’ in preparation for next. I know there are reasons to change our clocks ahead in the spring and back in the fall. While I’ve been diligently implementing this switch for decades, I still experience some confusion and discomfort. For example, some of our clocks, such as our digital devices, automatically change time. While other ones like our alarm and analog wall clocks have to be manually altered. My husband is great about changing our many clocks. Thank you, Steve! I’m responsible for only a few, such as my watch and car.

Our ‘spring forward’ time-changing ritual made me reflect on the connections it has with next. 

3 Strong Connections Between ‘Spring Forward’ and Next That Will Help You

1. Mindfulness

When the clocks changed, a shift in the daylight did too. With the sun rising earlier and setting later, there was an extended period of light during the waking hours. The increase in sunlight positively affected my mood. With the brighter sun and warmer day, it beckoned me to go outside to walk, notice, feel, and sense. Time and light change also signaled a definite shift. Next had arrived. Something was altered. I felt a nudge to open my attention to the arrival of the new season. What are you noticing?

2. Flexibility

In the same way, that time appears fluid with the bi-annual adjustments we make, I recognized the value of flexibility during a recent emergency. My mom, who has vascular dementia, ended up in the ER last week. Without getting into great detail, I will share that the moment-to-moment situation kept changing. Even as I write this post, there is uncertainty. Having a plan, but being flexible, has been helpful for me emotionally. I know that so much is out of my control, but there are some aspects I can act on. I think of this the same as time. I have no control over what time it is, but I can move the crown on my watch to set the time. In this same way, I move to next with patience, compassion, love, and flexibility as I navigate the mom situation.

3. Gratitude

Time is constant. The sun rises and sets each day as the hands of the clock touch the hours. In these days of chaos and uncertainty, there is comfort in knowing the pattern of time. From this base of consistency and knowing, gratitude flows forward. There is so much to be grateful for. There is the comfort of connecting with friends, family, and community, the smell of spring arriving, the feeling of the warm sun on my skin, noticing the snowdrop flowers emerge from the dirt and hearing the words, “I love you,” softly said by my mom. Time moves on with the tick of the clock. Don’t rush the moments of beauty. Savor and hold them close.

What has ‘spring forward’ sparked for you? Do you see a connection with the time changing and next? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to leave a comment and join our conversation.

The world is on quite the roller coaster ride these days. The financial, health, political climates, and the actual climate are erratic enough to make the most optimistic among us feel anxious.  In this time of turbulence and change, we might wish that next arrives soon so we can move on. Yet there are those quiet, treasured moments. There are times to notice, feel grateful, and engage in the parts of your life that are uplifting and encouraging.

So this week, instead of writing a longer piece, I give you a few moments to enjoy. The next you were waiting for is here. Lean in to notice the magic present in each day. You might find it in a hug from your loved one, a sunny day, a new green plant that pushed up through the earth, or the comfort from a sip of hot tea. Next has arrived. Embrace and enjoy it.

What are you noticing about next? I’d love to hear your thoughts. I invite you to leave a comment and join the conversation. 

With close to a week into the New Year it already feels like time is flying by. Parties, late nights, gift-wrapping, and odd schedules are behind us as we slowly return to our usual patterns. Some of us, including me, are finishing the last of the holiday leftovers, or making promises to eat more healthfully, exercise more regularly, or declutter and organize our interior landscapes.

January is an especially great time to reflect and reset. We get an added boost from the “fresh start effect,” which is even more potent at the start of a New Year. One technique that can enhance your fresh start is the Three Things Reflections, which I created recently. With a small time investment of 20-30 minutes, this series of questions will guide you to reflect about the past year as you set intentions and hopes for this new one. It’s hard to have clarity about the present before taking the time to honor and let go of the past. 

With this in mind, I give you the Three Things Reflections. There are six pairs of questions. Each pair includes a question about the past year and a coordinating one about the current year. Feel free to answer all sets, only the ones that resonate with you, or substitute questions of your choosing. This can be a private or shared experience as you reflect back and future-think. You can write down your responses or have a conversation about them with friends or family. 

Three Things Reflections

1a. What were three things you learned this past year?

1b. What are three things you want to learn in 2020?

2a. What are three memorable moments from this past year?

2b. What three things are you looking forward to in 2020?

3a. What were three challenges you experienced this past year?

3b. What are three strengths you used with those challenges that you will bring to 2020?

4a. What are three places you enjoyed being last year?

4b. What are three places you’re looking forward to going to in 2020?

5a. What three words describe this past year?

5b. What three words do you hope will describe 2020?

6a. What are three things you said “yes” to this past year?

6b. What are three things you hope to have the opportunity to say “yes” to in 2020?

Bonus Questions

7a. Is there anything about the past year that is not reflected in these questions that you want to remember?

7b. Is there anything about the current year that is not reflected in these questions that you want to add?

On New Year’s Eve, we invited a small group of friends over. While we didn’t talk about all of these questions, we did discuss some of them. In the days that followed, I wrote out my responses to all of them. After doing so, I added two bonus questions. They were the icing on the cake and helped me to grasp the last year and the coming in a fuller, more vibrant way.

We each have unique ways of moving through time, setting goals, and intentions. I hope you’ll find the Three Things Reflections a valuable technique to enhance your fresh start. Do you have another approach that you use?. Do you have other questions to add to the ones I shared?  What are you looking forward to this year? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Come join the conversation!