As people spend more and more time working virtually or online we’ve noticed the apparent helplessness some of them feel in the face of the opportunity to work all day, every day. Back-to-back meetings and overcommitting seem to have become the norm for many. People have noticed the negative impact on their lives, their productivity and often on their well-being but don’t seem able to act to make a correction?

What’s going on?

In trying to get insight, fresh thought or understanding it’s often helpful to look to the nature of something. To look upstream. To its point of creation.

And if we did that here, we might see that the creation, this thing, this process, tool or way of being originated as a human thought.

So, let’s follow an example back upstream.

A diary or schedule. Started on paper and now for many of us has developed to a calendar system that integrates our work and home diaries – maybe our partner’s, kids, possibly the phases of the moon and our favourite sporting fixtures etc. Useful? Helpful? Delightful even – many of us think so.

What’s the nature of a diary? In common with so many of our human creations the diary was created to take things off our minds, to free us up, to give us less to think about and thereby to create more time and headspace/bandwidth for (re)creation.

But then…. the creation gets out into the wild and it often seems to us that it suddenly has a life of its own. And in taking that life our creation, that we designed to serve us, suddenly appears to us as the master. We innocently enslave ourselves to the schedule it produces and then suddenly it's back-to-back and overload.

And our response? We try multi-tasking, switch off the video so we can eat secretly – oh and maybe do our emails at the same time, and check on the kids, pay some bills…. You get the idea! Maybe you even recognise yourself or someone you know.

All this activity without respite is grim for our mental hygiene and ultimately our well-being. As an alternative perhaps we might consider some new creations (or ‘discreate’ some stuff) that might help?

Some time ago I realised that my electronic calendars has a setting that defaults an ‘hour’ meeting to 50 mins. That realisation gifted me a whole 10 minutes to breathe, relax, or just simply to stop doing and be a human being.

What would you do with 10 spare minutes? You might find time to check out what the kids have created on the walls of the living room or perhaps to settle your mind, reclaim your bandwidth and maybe have an insight on how to handle your commitments in a more creative and productive manner.

If we can see our creations as our servants or playthings, which is, in fact, their true nature then we can re-establish our mastery over them and reclaim our well-being.

Sorry I have to go now, my phone is alerting me….