How to create quality time with yourself

The difference between being busy doing things and just being

As part of the Time Rebelling method which I am writing up, I am conducting experiments on my life.

A key tenet of being a Time Rebel is unpicking the statement below by putting the concepts to work and feeling the effects in my life every day.

It’s really important for me to get the basics right and clear in my own mind before I start sharing the method with others.

I may appear to fall under the anti-productivity mindset because I am anti-getting your knickers in a twist because of any clock time induced pressure. But this might seem like I am anti being productive, which I am absolutely not. I get just as much done as a Time Rebel as I did not being one and doing everything on the clock. In fact, I may get more done. That’s not the most important thing though. What is the quality of my life whilst I am doing things. And the way I am shifting that is by noticing when I am doing and noticing when I am being.

Part of the Time Rebelling work, as I see it currently, is dividing how we pass our days into qualitative experiences rather than chunks of minutes and hours.

The two key chunks, the top levels I find it helpful to practice first is the difference between doing and being.

I am still playing around with these concepts. I am not yet certain that the words themselves convey the differences in the quality of life I am trying to articulate to the reader, but I’ll go with it for now. If it doesn’t make sense, please let me know!

So let’s take writing this article. Am I doing the writing? Am I being the writing?

I’d say it’s somewhere between the two. But that’s ok for a couple of reasons.

1. Doing is necessary. I define ‘Doing’ in the Time Rebelling method as ‘the activities we seem to have to do that make our world go round’.
2. I’ve done lots of Being already today. Like my Being indicator is registering as full. I define ‘Being as the things that you do that energise, uplift and enlighten you’.

Filling up the Being tank isn’t a chore. It’s not big things. Today it was some fresh air with the dog. Treating my daughter who’s a student to some weird and wonderful frappucino she wanted. Speaking to my mother on the telephone whilst sitting in the garden. Sitting with a daily teaching. Eating a home-made vegetarian lunch (leftovers).

I made a commitment to write this earlier this week, on a call I was definitely doing. Now I come to actually getting it down on the virtual page, the quality of the experience is very similar to when I was doing all that being earlier.

Sitting here, typing away, the cat snoozing. It doesn’t feel effortful. It doesn’t feel forced. It feels gentle and flowing. Maybe when you operate on a full tank of Being, the Doing comes more easily. As if the quality of life that you’ve created from topping up Being just persists into the Doing for long enough to ease the way.

Maybe, just maybe this is an experiment that works. One that’s worth sharing. Let’s see. There’s a lot more to it than just this, but this is what lies at the heart of being a Time Rebel and so far, I’m enjoying the peace it brings.