Adding white space to our lives

I attended the American Dietetic Association’s Leadership Institute this weekend in Dallas. I was sent by my Dietetic Practice Group (DPG) because I am the new Chair-elect of the Nutrition Entrepreneur’s DPG.

Wow, what a wonderful experience! I also have to say I so appreciate how ADA appreciates US! And it further reinforced my opinion that the NE DPG Board is top-notch! Some of the sessions discussed what is WRONG with boards and none applied to ours!

Although those first two paragraphs have nothing to do with ‘white space’, it is part of what will occupy my time, which I also realize I need to keep space open for, in order to really do my job to better help others do theirs!

So, what is white space? If you are used to putting website text or flyers together, you know what it is. It’s space that helps calm the eyes between the text we want our readers to see.

And there’s the definitive word: Calm.

This concept is NOT mine: One of our amazing sessions was by Juliet Funt (remember Candid Camera and Allen Funt? His daughter! http://www.julietfunt.com/), and her specialty is speaking to people who would like to slow down their hectic lives. Hm; sound like you at all??? Yea, I know; me too, it turns out.

As I’m sitting there, listening to her, and doing the exercises she had us do, I was thinking “Oh, I do quite well with this because I don’t work weekends and I stop working by 4pm each night.”

But then it dawned on me that since finishing school, just in March, I HAVE managed to cram 15, 000 things INTO those 5 days and roughly 8 hours.

And I’m huffing and puffing thinking about it!

Sound like you?

So, what can we do about it? Here’s what I’m doing: I’m a big one with lists, but as my lists are growing, I’m doing exactly David Allen said we do – I’m not looking at them as diligently as I used to. But, I’ve turned over a new leaf since last night. I am back to my own roots, which means prioritizing the list (yea, it’s now back to ONE list), and not doing ANYTHING else until 1 is done, 2 is done, 3 is done, etc.

Granted, moving is also on that list, so I’m taking pictures of things to sell and posting them on Craigs List, I’m cleaning out attics and closets and getting ready to put prices on things for our HUGE ‘moving sale’ over the 4th of July.

Oh, and my daughter is getting married in a little over a month.

Ok, I’m tired!

But I am also looking at my schedule and determining that, well, yea, today is full and tomorrow is full, and oh, Wednesday is full and, hm; Thursday is SORT of full, but… oh, well, Friday isn’t too bad. But I have Saturday totally off!

Sounds awful? Not really. And here’s why: Although I’m not canceling the things for THIS week, it is totally in my power to NOT fill in all that white space for NEXT week!

I’ll tell you how I do. How about YOU?????

Margie