I attended a leadership seminar recently - one that actually yielded interesting and compelling ideas and information. One of the most jarring realizations I had was my lack of personal or professional "white space" - and my own compulsion to rebel, run, flee, from the very idea of white space. Especially personal white space.
So what is white space? My understanding is that it is time, either during professional or personal hours, that is devoid of planned activities. It is a calendared day or chunk of minutes and hours that is totally free of obligations, meetings, grocery lists, soccer games, volunteering and to-do's.
A few weeks ago, I blog-sneered at people who are "just so very busy." But the realization came that so-very-busy allows us to excise thinking time from our lives.
Think of your tomorrow. What does it look like? Is there a free chunk of time during which you can simply unplug, take a walk, stare out the window, and just BE? Not for me. I tend to run from such things. But I've begun to realize it's really, really important.
Bud Selig served as the commissioner of major league baseball for years, during which he took on the use of steroids in the game, was instrumental in building diversity among players, and helped with the construction of new ballparks. I had the honor of spending a couple of hours with him in his spectacular, 20th-floor office overlooking Lake Michigan. Somehow this question escaped my lips: "Bud, how much time do you spend looking out the window?"
His response: "A lot more time than you would think. But up here (points to his temple), I'm always thinking."
Bud was taking advantage of the glorious view to facilitate some necessary whitespace in his own career and life. We don't all have those views, but I am beginning to think we need those extended moments of thinkin' time.
It's hard. It may be scary. It is unplanned and unscripted. White space is a giant whiteboard in your brain. Tons of potential, But where the heck is the marker? And what if your ideas just plain suck?
The remnants of Hurricane Harvey are reaching North Alabama. So a few minutes ago, I stepped out onto the back porch to check out the current weather conditions. I shut my eyes, listened for the wind, felt the dribble of early raindrops.
I think many of us grab tiny moments of whitespace when we don't even realize it.
It's that moment on the back porch when you inhale and realize it smells of fall. It's staring into the flicker of a fire, and wondering how the flames dance so beautifully. It's a child wobbling on a bicycle for the first time. It's daydreaming to the chords of your favorite song.
An empty moment is unique: it is filled with possibility. Anything can happen. The great new strategic plan at work. An invention. The best kid's birthday party ever. Or, possibly, a moment in which you simply appreciate life and that amazing fact that instead of being born a mayfly, we are blessed with sentience.
I don't have Labor Day weekend plans yet. Habit drives me to the social calendars online to start filling the family's hours with stuff. Movies, pooltime, maybe a playdate or two. I want to break that habit and simply let the weekend slide by with the gentle laziness the end of summer deserves. I need to develop that personal - and professional - whitespace.
Like the joy of my daughter twirling in a new princess dress in the kitchen, without a care on earth, I yearn to JUST BE.
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