Head, Heart, Hands #5

PLUS: How do I become a more patient person?

Welcome to Making Time. Each week, I explore the impact of time on creativity, ways to slow down, and scenes from my own life in rural Oregon. Head, Heart, Hands is a monthly feature full of links that delight me. If you’d like to follow along, you can subscribe for free.

It’s 8:55 AM, and I am standing in my bathroom, attempting to simultaneously brush my teeth with one hand, and my hair with the other.

Needless to say, I’m not successful. I’m not nearly coordinated enough to execute this move, and I wind up with toothpaste down the front of my black sweater, which I now have to wash out.

It’s ticking closer to 9:00, the time I promised myself I’d be sitting down to work, making progress on the enormous to-do list I know awaits me this week.

Just thinking about all the things I promised myself I’d do – not just work tasks, but laundry, hobbies, making plans with friends, calling my mom – I start to feel overwhelmed.

This is nuts, I say to myself. Why do I put all this pressure on myself?

A thought comes to me. It’s because you’re impatient.

I’ll admit, I haven’t given much thought to cultivating patience. I’d always thought of myself as ambitious, enthusiastic, excitable, quick to take action. All of these things are true, but they are also flattering masks for something I’d rather not confront: I am not a patient person.

When I make a list, I want it all done, like… yesterday. Focus is hard, because everything feels important. Nothing can wait. I want to dive in and just get it done and move on and keep going and do more.

This realization that I am impatient and that it causes me a lot of grief seemed to come from nowhere. But it is undeniably true.

So how does one cultivate patience?

According to Eric Barker, one often overlooked step is to simply surround yourself with people who model this behavior. We tend to mimic the actions of the people around us, often unconsciously.

So being around people with a healthy serving of patience in their character can help you build that trait. These can be people in your life, or simply people whose ideas and attitudes you expose yourself to.

But maybe I’ll start by trying to do just one thing at a time. Like taking the 2 measly minutes to brush my teeth.

Here are 10 things that are delighting me this month:

• Growth Means Choosing a Different Kind of Pain. Kenn and I have been discussing those little tasks that seem to take just a few moments, yet never seem to get done because you’ve developed so much weird internal resistance to them. Sometimes, you just have to realize you’re making a terrible deal by not doing them.

• I love the idea of an unproductivity challenge. It’s ridiculous, but I feel like “doing nothing” is a muscle I have to work.

• Why We Worry. “Worrying is about letting your mind dwell on problems without a systematic approach, often leading to anxiety. Problem-solving is about applying creative strategies and mental models to specific problems.”

• This Is Why I Don’t Have Goals (And What To Do Instead), from Ryan Holiday. I want to read and re-read this, because while goals can be very helpful, I do think they have limited usefulness when it actually comes to leading a happy life.

• I loved these October Prompts for Curating Your Own Chaos. I especially like #4.

• How to Overcome Fear of Failure. “Confidence is not the absence of fear. It’s the belief that you’ll be okay despite your fear.”

• Does Hopefulness Outshine Mindfulness? New Study Says Yes. In times of intense stress, it’s important to be able to look forward with optimism.

• New Neuroscience Reveals 5 Secrets That Will Make You Smarter. The most interesting to me was number 4, “emotional differentiation.” Being able to properly name your emotions actually makes you more skilled at recognizing correct intuitions. Huh.

• 8 Ways of Connecting a Smartphone Can't Deliver.

• I made this potato leek soup last night with leeks from our garden and potatoes from the local farm and it was delicious.

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