Give Space to Get Time

A major pain at work today is lack of time. The clock is ticking. Think fast, move fast. You are expected to reach the goals and do great. Don’t slow down. If you snooze, you lose. Faster, smarter, better. The modern version of work is emotionally and mentally draining, with little space to reset the mind and reconfigure the brain.

Note: Continued reading can cause unpleasant feelings of wasting your time. The advice is to relax, take a deep breath, and allow yourself a few minutes to learn about the benefits of spacing. It may give you time to do more in the future.

Space is the total area within which everything exists, and life manifests. When you give space, you allow things to happen. You observe more, and react less. You leave information unnoticed and uninterpreted. It frees time and energy, as you refrain from ruminating over the past or worrying about the future. In Danish, we say "pyt" when we don't want a minor detail to ruin the picture. We let go of the irrelevant to concentrate on the important.  

What you don't let go becomes problems to solve and things to consider. They can pile up and become a real burden. I once had a boss who tried to help me solve this problem. Write down your tasks in a list, prioritize them, and then start from the top, she said. Fine, but my problem was that the available time only covered half the list, which could not be further reduced. I simply had to run faster. What I would not do, which she could not accept — so we parted.

Accelerating is not a sustainable solution to being short of time. It will stress the system and limit your mind. We all know the difference between having a flat and a spacious mind. With a flat mind, you cannot think. Things come too close too quickly, and you have to react without time to think about it. When the mind is spacious, you relax and welcome thoughts with a positive attitude. No press, no stress.

Learning to establish a spacious mind is a step towards a more conscious and considered life, where you have greater influence on what happens. It allows you to study the thoughts you have and carefully select which to invite into your life and unfold the potential in and around you. It enables you to invest your best energy in what is most important.

In 2011, neuro-coach David Rock and psychiatrist Dan Siegel introduced "The Healthy Mind Platter" with seven "dishes": sleep time, physical time, focus time, connecting time, playtime, downtime and time-in. The message was clear, and the science behind strong. To stay on top of your game, you need to include all seven activities daily.

Such activities take time, so where to find it? There is not much left between meetings, and the limited time we have is spent commuting, communicating, and planning. The early hours run late, and we try to keep up the pace. For every chance to relax and rebuild, we skip, the more flat-minded and less healthy we become. The knowing-doing gap in time management steals our energy and threatens to kill us. More time, please.

Here comes the surprise. In most cases, time is not the issue. Space is. The reason we are constantly in lack of time is our failure to establish and hold mental spaces. It is not a new toolset or skillset you need to manage your time and energy better. It’s a change of mindset and shift in balance. From timing to spacing. From directing to attracting. From controlling to containing. The way out is the way in.

Behind closed eyes, you find blackness, an infinite black space that you can only perceive as far as your awareness goes. You can be mindful of the space or focus on the stream of mental content. You can be caught up in thoughts and unaware of the space, or consciously observe the trains of thought arriving and departing, with the opportunity to pick exactly the ones you want to engage with. Better choice-making is the first benefit of spacing.

The second benefit is linked to the learning process. Spacing is the opposite of cramming, the way most of us have learned to learn. Marathon sessions and hyper-intensive repetitions may feel effective, but they are not. You need sufficient spacing between sessions to make learning effective and lasting. It can be an energizing break in a loaded meeting, or a night of good sleep during a longer study period. Problems become clearer and solutions simpler after any spacing. As a bonus, time is saved for better purposes.

The third benefit of spacing is seen during experimentation and creative work. Being inspired and receiving intuitively demands mental space without the disturbance of biased thinking, emotional attachment, and limiting beliefs. Ideas are just ideas. Their destiny depends on the people who have them, and their ability to hold space for the idea to grow. Less time spent fighting ideas is more time left for finding ideas and creating value.

Transperience offers spaces to realize what you want in a complex world. The mindful and brain-friendly approach helps facilitate a balanced decision-making process, develop a noble purpose, and manifest the intentions as easy, fun and rewarding as possible. This gives you more time to enjoy life and do what you find most attractive.

Giving space protects against stressful experiences. You stay cool, calm and collected. Spacing improves your decision-making, learning practice, and ability to go beyond expectation and imagination. Moving from a flat mind to a spacious mind is the first step of spacing. Breathing, mindful pausing, meditation, nature walks, yoga and silent retreats are proven methods. By giving space, you get the time you need to live the life you want.