In August, I posted an article titled “Life, Plants and Three Principles You Should Know”. In the article I used the experiences of my friend Andy to convey three principles that I’ve discovered between life and plants. Self-Suffice – one of our readers and also an extremely talented hip-hop artist and teacher – shared a great analogy with us in the comments section.
In his analogy, he made an excellent metaphor between our focus and drops of water. He equated each water droplet to one second. After a full day we accumulate a bucket of water that we can use to water our gardens. And did you know that there are 86,400 seconds in our day? Each one of those seconds is an opportunity (drop of water) that can be invested into different areas of our lives (gardens).
It can be a serious challenge to successfully invest in all of the areas of our lives! How many of us have ever gotten overwhelmed trying to focus on everything at once? It can feel like an impossible task and, in fact… it is.
Self-Suffice stated, “If we only pour our focus into 1 or 2 gardens for too long, the others will grow weeds, rotten fruit, and dying flowers.” And he went on to ask a big question …
How can you water all of your gardens?”
It’s such a pertinent question for us all, isn’t it? I came up with four simple ideas on how you can water all of your gardens. Yes… all. Following these four basic steps will help you get everything done at once.
#1 – Eliminate unnecessary gardens
#2 – Expand your time horizon
#3 – Get a team to help you
#4 – Make compost
#1 – Eliminate Unnecessary Gardens
Cease contributing your time and focus to unfruitful activity. We often invest our time in time consuming and unfruitful endeavors that need to be uprooted from our agenda. Bottom line: if it’s not beneficial get rid of it. Check out my post “Winners Quit” for a practical exercise on how to do this.
#2 – Expand Your Time Horizon
Establish the appropriate time horizons when watering your gardens. This will help reduce the pressure to complete tasks in unrealistic timeframes. With only 24 hours in a day, there’s only so much you can do so you may need to expand your timeline to a few days or a week, for example.
Remember: all plants don’t need to be watered every day!
#3 – Get a Team to Help You
Expand your effectiveness by getting others to help you water and plant. There may be tasks you can have other people handle. By delegating tasks to other people you free time up to do the things you do best and to do the things you want to do. Plus, each additional person adds 24 more hours to your day. Getting just one additional teammate adds 24 hours; two teammates will add another 24 hours.
If you’re bad at math, take a look at this: your 24 hours + 1st Teammate’s 24 hours + 2nd Teammate’s 24 hours = 72 hours in one day. Wow! How many teammates would you like to have?
#4 – Make Compost
Turn the negatives into positives. Use the weeds, rotting fruit, and dying flowers to make compost. All of the plants and fruit that withered away can help foster conditions for other (better) things to grow. Try not to worry too much about lost crops and make the best of your current conditions. In the plant world, our failures are biodegradable!
Posted in Intelligence
I’m really honored that you quoted me here, and even continued the metaphor. Let’s continue this…
#1 Eliminating unnecessary gardens: If your lawn is exactly how U want it then nothing’s unnecessary; but if U (like I) have some that are not getting enough attention, realize that every second spent on a trivial task, is a drop of life stolen from your dream garden
Example: If U are $50 in debt, and U use your next pay check for $50 to go out to a restaurant – U must realize that going to that restaurant is keeping U in debt.
#2 Plants are seasonal: If U spend your whole day watering tomato seeds, will U have tomatoes the next day? What if U spend the whole week? Of course not, tomatoes take several weeks to grow from a balanced diet of water, soil, and sunlight. Pouring all your water on them for 24 hours will probably drown and kill them, just like blasting them with extreme light, or consistently covering them in dirt. Some plants only grow during a specific time of year, no matter how well you care for them, and some grow all year round – know the difference.
Example: If U breathe out really hard without ever breathing in again, you’ll die. Conversely if U breathe in for 24 hrs, but never breathe out, you’ll die. If U where snowsuits all year round you’ll probably catch a heat stroke in the summer, but if you wear underwear every day, you’ll be fine – LOL! Some things need to be done every day, some just weekly, and some are useless until other prerequisites have been met. Remember, rest is a garden too! Every gardener needs 6 hrs of daily rest, including the gardeners they rely on for help…
#3 Work with other gardeners: If U work with one other gardener for example, U may get twice the work done in half the time. If U R expert with strawberries and she is expert with grapes, you can each focus on your specialty plants and get the gardening done in even less than half the time. The key is to work in a mutually beneficial way.
Example: If I run back and forth from the microphone to the mixing board while performing, my Hip-Hop performance would suffer. Yet when I focus on performing with the microphone and let the sound person focus on adjusting the mixing board, the performance is even better than if I had time to do both my self. Become expert at something and use it to help other experts in exchange for their skills. Most people won’t work with guilty or overly critical teammates (no matter how skilled they are), and you won’t win by chatting with teammates who don’t get the job done (no matter how friendly they are) – when U find people who U enjoy being around, but also tend to keep you focused on the job at hand, treasure them.
#4 Make compost: If U finished reading the blog, you already know!
Example: Today I was teaching a Hip-Hop workshop to about 20 elementary school students. Amazingly, they were all quietly enjoying the exercises, except for one extremely distracted student. Instead of ignoring or embarrassing him, I asked him to get on stage and show us his dance, while we continued making the beat. Usually what is a problem in our garden, is just something that isn’t in the right place.
Summary: Put the weeds where they will be helpful, water each plant in it’s own season, get 6 to 8 hours of sleep daily (it’s just as important as letting your body inhale and exhale), take time away from trivial tasks and spend it on your priorities, become really good at something and use it to help other people, who will help you with what they are really good at.
Some simple Time Tips I’ve recently come up with:
#1 Do things you have to do early in the morning
(you won’t be distracted by guilty feelings through the day)
#2 After than, spend an hour on one really big personal goal
(you won’t feel like serving others is keeping you from helping yourself)
#3 Work only up until the agreed upon / paid time when serving others
(you won’t take time away from other clients, friends, family, or your health)
#4 Block out time in advance, even up to 2 years
(you won’t be stressed about when you’ll get to work on other projects, you won’t be stressed about double-booking yourself, you’ll start to enjoy your spread out progress just as much as achieving the final goal, and you can always change future plans – you can’t plan the present or the past, it’s over)
#5 Finally, show that you care about people, don’t just say it – help them get what they want faster. People who know you care about their success will do anything in their power to help you succeed as well.
Peace,
Self Suffice
Self Suffice,
Those are excellent ideas to build upon! Your ideas help illustrate everything one step further. Man, I’m impressed lol Your response could have been another article in itelf! And underneath your “#3 Working with other gardeners”… your analogy of performing on stage trying rap and work the mixing board was a perfect illustration of why delegation is important. Let other teammates focus on their expertise while you focus on yours. That helps you put your best foot forward each opportunity!
You’re welcome, it was my honor to quote you!