Effortful Before Effortless (and 8 Other Rules for Tranquility)
Laura Vanderkam is probably tired of being introduced by her friends and colleagues as “one of the most productive people I know,” but I think it comes with the territory.
Every year, in addition to raising a large number of young children, writing books, running, and singing in a choir, she finds time to do things like read Shakespeare and War and Peace. She also blogs about it—every day! 😳
One of the things I appreciate about Laura is that she somehow seems to be both spontaneous and ultra-scheduled. That’s probably not the best way to put it, since she’s much more on the scheduled side of that spectrum, but what I mean is that she has a lot of variance in her life of routine.
Anyway, because she has plenty of time on her hands, Laura has a new book out. This book offers “9 ways to calm the chaos.” It’s called Tranquility By Tuesday, and I figure if anyone knows how to find tranquility in the midst of a busy life, it’s Laura.
From her list of nine, I decided to choose three favorites and add my interpretation. My life is a little different from Laura’s, not having twelve five kids, and I also don’t dutifully track my time on a spreadsheet every week. Nevertheless, I share Laura’s passion for living life purposefully and (generally speaking) doing more, not less.
My three favorites are:
1. Effortful before effortless.
Laura thinks of this rule more in the category of fun, and says there are two kinds of it. As an example, she tries to open her Kindle instead of a social media app whenever she has a few minutes to spare.
For me I don’t tend to separate work from non-work, I just think of everything in blocks of time and “things that need to get done” as well as “things that I just like to do.” So keeping this concept in mind is helpful: I just decide, okay, I’m going to do some effortful stuff now! And then I’ll do something effortless.
Sometimes I reverse the order of those, but that’s a slippery slope because it’s easy to keep doing something effortless and never get to the effortful.
I suppose this is a fairly basic principle, but sometimes you need simple reminders. Ever since I heard the phrase “effortful before effortless,” I’ve thought of it often as I sit down to do something.
2. One big adventure, one little adventure.
It’s just like it sounds: every week, Laura tries to plan “one big adventure and one little adventure.” How does she define them? A big adventure tends to be a weekend project, especially since kids are involved. It might take half a day and require an hour drive each way.
This seems fairly self-explanatory, so let’s move to the little adventure. Here’s how she puts it:
Little adventures might only take an hour or two. In that sense they are easier to pull off, but that also means that they are not so obvious. The major criteria are that the little adventure is:
1) It’s out of the ordinary, and
2) You look forward to it
So this little adventure could be a museum visit, a concert, a trip to a faraway neighborhood, a party—anything that meets those criteria.
I haven’t set up an official “one big and one little” adventure schedule, but I probably should. My life consists of a lot of routines! Especially since I’m not flying off to Montenegro or Montevideo at a moment’s notice these days.
3. Move by 3pm.
This one is also in the simple-yet-powerful category. Laura defines it as “at least 10 minutes of physical activity in the first half of every day.”
I took these notes from a podcast interview Laura gave recently (lightly edited for clarity):
Another rule is to move by 3pm. So you should do 10 minutes of physical activity in the first half of every single day. And it doesn’t have to be crazy, it can be walking up and down the stairs at your office, it can be walking around the block at home, like if you walk your dog that counts. You walk your kids to a bus stop and back briskly that can count. Just something to get yourself up and moving. And doing that consistently, will also massively increase your energy levels too.
But once we’re doing those sort of holistic things, energy is really about the stories we tell ourselves. Oftentimes, when we feel exhausted, it’s not that our bodies necessarily are exhausted. I mean, they may be if we’re not sleeping enough, but you know, if we’ve got that in place, it’s often that our minds need something different. Like we’re doing the same thing all the time. That’s what we’re burnt out on. So can you put things in your life that you are genuinely looking forward to?
I have an Apple Watch streak that’s now been going for more than 1,000 days. Most days of the week, usually five or six, I complete all the activity I need in the morning. Typically it’s a five-mile run, but it could be something else as long as I burn the equivalent amount in calories.
Once in a while, whether because of a recovery day or travel or whatever else, I don’t finish until the end of the day. Long story short, it’s much better to finish earlier!
And not just because of the goal, of course, but also because of Laura’s point about energy levels. Moving early is good. 🙂
Thanks to Laura for continuing to inspire me. Check out her new book! And thanks to you, readers, for being out there. As we approach another holiday season, I’m very grateful to you.
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Images: 1, 2, 3