I have a lot of defining characteristics and one of them, I hate to admit, happens to be laziness. I have the best intentions in the world and it seems approximately 1% of those intentions actually turns into action. If you have hundreds of amazing ideas and don’t follow through on any of them, do any of those ideas really matter? It’s kind of like, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody sees or hears it, did it really ever take place? I mean, seriously, what good is an idea if it doesn’t turn into action?
Anyway, I’m already getting off topic. So, I’m lazy o.k. Whenever I try getting anything done at home, it just doesn’t happen. I get sidetracked and distracted so easily. I’ll say to myself “I should write a book about traveling adventures.” About one minute later I’m on espn.com reading the latest basketball article. I started a website for my kids that I coach and I go about a whole month in between updates. Whenever I get on the internet, I get all discombogulated. It’s like my brain keeps thinking “too much information in one place…no sane person can handle this.” As some sort of defense mechanism, I end up going to the same sites over and over and over again and then all of a sudden it’s been an hour and I’m like I want that hour of my life back!
Sometimes I’m so lazy at home that it may take me a couple hours to straighten the kitchen. I put it off for about 1 hour and 50 minutes and then do it in 10. Same thing goes with something like writing a newsletter article for my swim team or even something I’m doing for myself, like this project I’m working on now where I write personal definitions to a bunch of keywords. When I’m at home, with lots of stuff to get distracted by, I’ll spend more time putting it off then I will actually working on it. You figure it out! I think it makes it harder that I don’t work a traditional job. I don’t have an office. The separation between work and play kind of blends together a little bit. As a swim coach, the only time I’m really responsible to be working is my time I spend on deck. But, I have to stay very organized to be good at my job with workout plans, creative new ideas to make things more fun, ways to create an environment that will keep my team motivated, and educating myself on different ways to teach swimming. When my life is out of balance and I spend an inordinate amount of time doing meaningless things, I think it has an effect on all my interactions and overall influence. It’s hard to be a leader when you can’t lead yourself first.
I first started going to Starbucks because I needed some place to hang before my practices started. You see, I live about 40 minutes to an hour and a half away from where I work in Shoreline, and 2 mornings out the week, I swim over there with a masters group as well. So in between I had no desire to drive all the way home and then drive back in the midst of rush hour traffic. So, I went to Starbucks because they had comfortable chairs. I believe this was also the time when I had like over $100 of Starbucks gift cards. A funny thing happened while sitting there by myself, free of distractions. I began formulating TONS of ideas. They would just come, one after the other. I found clarity. My workouts started getting way more creative. One day I even created a workout tree in which depending on how they did one aspect of the workout, it would lead them down one of two paths. From there the paths diverged and intersected, I think there ended up being like at least 20 different possible scenarios. I wasn’t just writing better, more organized swim workouts. I began pondering more seriously my overall coaching philosophy, I would have random epiphanies on how I wanted to live in my personal life, I began getting a clearer picture of the person that I wanted to become and how to get there. I began bringing books to read to inspire me or to educate. Sometimes I brought my laptop, opened up Microsoft Word, and started typing. I began carrying around a little notebook that I would write random ideas I had as they came to me.
Overall, the days I went to Starbucks and got an hour or two of “me time” away from distractions, I was happier, I coached better, I felt closer to God, and I felt better about myself. Needless to say, I started doing it more and more and it has now become part of my daily routine. My life feels so much more balanced out now and I actually get stuff done that I wouldn’t have before. Now whenever I’m at home, I just succumb to the laziness. I don’t even try to get anything done…well except for the obvious stuff that you kinda need to be at home to get done.
If you’re reading this and you are one of those people that either spend too much time doing meaningless things or are, in general, super busy all the time and have no time to yourself, try this at least one time in the next week. No, I’m not saying go to Starbucks (though you might do that anyway), I’m saying take an hour for yourself completely free of distractions. Just yourself, a journal, a pen, and God if you believe in Him. You will be surprised at the number of good ideas bubbling right beneath the surface of that brain of yours. Stuff that seemed really important will start seeming less important as you get more clarity. Life will become more simple. Solutions to problems that have been bugging you for weeks will just appear out of nowhere. I’m telling you…take the time…it’s totally worth it.
I believe it was Lincoln that said “Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I would spend the first four sharpening the axe.” I think that’s true for us as well. We need to keep that mind sharp in order to efficiently solve the problems each day presents.
Oh, and lastly, I do not have a caffeine addiction! I don’t believe any kind of addiction is healthy so I’m not always ordering caffeinated beverages. In case you were wondering 