Apart from changing my sleeping habits and daily routines to increase my productivity and get the most out of my day possible, I've also had to alter my thinking patterns somewhat. I used to be very good at discounting small efforts and only focused on the bigger picture and at other times I would get so caught up in the minutia of a project that I wouldn't be able to see the forest for the trees. Both of those tend to be on the extremes and I found they just led to heightened levels of frustration.
I've embarked on trying to reframe how I devote my time, energy and effort. I'm now thinking of them as bubbles.
Bubbles come in a range of sizes. Some can be smaller than others but they aren't discounted as bubbles based on their size. So each bubble represents effort that I'm putting into a particular project whether it is in my personal life or in a work setting.
Bubbles sometimes start off as many small things but then link together and sometimes pop into each other creating a bigger bubble. If I can do many little things well that have potential to link up in the future then I reckon that's still worth classifying as effort injected into the bigger landscape.
Some bubbles might remain small and on their own and never be linked to others and some bubbles may even burst entirely leaving me with nothing to show for the effort other than possibly a few lessons on how to make better, more sustainable bubbles further down the line. The saying "sorry to burst your bubble" is actually very appropriate.
My life is pretty jam-packed with bubbles at the moment and while I don't know how many might pop, I do believe that many of them will amalgamate into bigger things which is what I'm striving for.
My personal life up to this point has been rather chaotic and I sometimes handle chaos well, and sometimes I get overwhelmed by it. It's often because I feel like I can't see all the moving parts. I want to be able to have a visual representation in my mind of the things I'm busy working on and I quite like using this analogy.
I used to use mindmaps and graphs quite a bit but I don't feel like they are helping me all that much these days. Maybe my mind just got sick of the same thing over and over again. A fresh perspective can often change the trajectory of a project; the same way that they say if you are getting bogged down with not finding a solution to a problem, you should cast a set of fresh eyes over it.
I have found that collaboration of that kind can really help you to get past any preconceived ideas or misconceptions you may have on something or help you to overcome stumbling blocks. It's also one of the keystones of why teams can take on and accomplish massive tasks if they consist of the right people for each part.
So now it doesn't matter so much if the glass is half full or half empty, as long as it's full of bubbles.
Image and design is mine
