I’ve had to learn how I work best, and it’s not the
cultural ideal of tightly scheduled efficiency. For me, effective and
productive often operate in ways that seem quite “inefficient.” I’m
more “third-world” in my use of time: event-oriented and
person-oriented, rather than time-conscious and to-do-list-conscious. I
operate with an inner gyroscope tuned to whether or not any particular
experience or interaction is complete – not to how long it
takes or whether it fits the schedule. I’m attuned to whether or not
any particular thought is actually finished thinking, rather than
whether the product is done on time. So I tend to take the time it
takes to get something right—whether that “something” is the close
attentiveness of getting fully engaged in this conversation of
consequence, or how to craft this sentence and paragraph, or whether
I’m stopping and actually noticing the hawk flying overhead right now.