Artwork for podcast PowerPivot
A Spacious Life
Episode 51st April 2022 • PowerPivot • Leela Sinha
00:00:00 00:19:22

Share Episode

Shownotes

How do we create space in our lives, our businesses, our workplaces, for nourishing rest, so that everybody, every single person, gets to feel fully human?

Transcripts

Leela Sinha:

So way back in 2017, a guy named Marty

Leela Sinha:

Schneider, who goes by @SchneidRemarks on Twitter

Leela Sinha:

(s-c-h-n-e-i-d remarks on Twitter) wrote a thread about

Leela Sinha:

how he discovered when he accidentally took on a female

Leela Sinha:

colleague's identity for a little while, that the reason

Leela Sinha:

that she was less efficient, was because sexism. Because people

Leela Sinha:

treated him so much differently, so much worse, so much more

Leela Sinha:

skeptically, so much more resistantly, when they thought

Leela Sinha:

he was a woman.

Leela Sinha:

And that got me thinking. But then, you know, it was 2017. I

Leela Sinha:

shelved it, I was busy. That same thread surfaced again, on

Leela Sinha:

social media, as such things are wont to do, this week.

Leela Sinha:

And I read it through and I remembered, realized, that he

Leela Sinha:

was talking about a kind of efficiency that comes from a

Leela Sinha:

lack of friction. From a lack of anticipating friction, from a

Leela Sinha:

lack of encountering friction, from a lack of engaging

Leela Sinha:

friction. And that got me thinking about the way I cleaned

Leela Sinha:

my house a couple days ago. So a couple days ago, I was getting

Leela Sinha:

ready for bed. And I looked at my sink full of dishes, and I

Leela Sinha:

thought I could wash those. So I did. I've talked before about

Leela Sinha:

how I have discovered that many tasks take less time than I

Leela Sinha:

think they will and dishes are definitely one of them. I have

Leela Sinha:

few enough dishes and a small enough sink and drying rack that

Leela Sinha:

I can generally do all of my dishes in between five and 10

Leela Sinha:

minutes, 10 minutes if it's a lot of dishes, or if there's

Leela Sinha:

something that needs scrubbing. And that that's an amount of

Leela Sinha:

time that I often spend standing in the kitchen anyway, because

Leela Sinha:

I'm often waiting for a pan to heat up or the oven to preheat

Leela Sinha:

or for something else; the microwave to run and so it's

Leela Sinha:

actually really easy for me to do the dishes if I remember that

Leela Sinha:

they only take five minutes. When I think that the dishes

Leela Sinha:

take longer than five minutes or 10 minutes, when I build them up

Leela Sinha:

into this thing that takes half an hour, or 45 minutes, or all

Leela Sinha:

the energy I have, then I don't do the dishes. But they only

Leela Sinha:

take five minutes. But after doing the dishes, I looked

Leela Sinha:

around the kitchen and maybe it helped that I was watching a

Leela Sinha:

YouTube about somebody who was trying some new house

Leela Sinha:

maintenance routine thing. I am not a house maintenance routine

Leela Sinha:

person. That is not how my house maintenance has ever worked. I

Leela Sinha:

don't have routines, I don't have schedules, I don't do daily

Leela Sinha:

tasks, I rebel at the very idea of a daily task. But anyway, I

Leela Sinha:

was watching this video, just curious. I'm always curious

Leela Sinha:

about what systems work for people and how they work because

Leela Sinha:

even if they don't work for me, they might work for someone I

Leela Sinha:

know, or for a client, or they might percolate through and

Leela Sinha:

become a part of the way that I do something else. So I was

Leela Sinha:

listening and I noticed that a lot of my countertop space, my

Leela Sinha:

cutting board space was covered with off cuts from things like

Leela Sinha:

onions and garlic and stem ends, and things like that, that that

Leela Sinha:

really just belonged in the compost and I had noticed a

Leela Sinha:

couple of days earlier that all of that stuff tended to fall off

Leela Sinha:

the counter if I wasn't paying attention. And so I just put a

Leela Sinha:

paper bag there to catch it as my compost bin. And now I can

Leela Sinha:

just sweep it off the front of the counter into the bag at my

Leela Sinha:

feet and when the bag is full, I can take the entire brown paper

Leela Sinha:

bag out to the compost. It's a system that works pretty well.

Leela Sinha:

It uses brown paper bags that I already have in the house, that

Leela Sinha:

are already going to need to be used for something. And so I

Leela Sinha:

just looked over my cutting board and I swept all those

Leela Sinha:

cuttings into that brown paper bag that was already by the

Leela Sinha:

cutting board, and then I looked around and noticed a few more

Leela Sinha:

things, and picked up a few more things, and then I walked into

Leela Sinha:

the dining room and noticed that, by comparison, the dining

Leela Sinha:

room now felt pretty cluttered. And most of why the dining room

Leela Sinha:

feels cluttered is because of what I pile on the dining table.

Leela Sinha:

And so I played a game with myself that I sometimes play

Leela Sinha:

called "One Thing I Know." Because so often my response to

Leela Sinha:

a cluttered dining table is, I don't know what I'm supposed to

Leela Sinha:

do with this stuff. I don't know where any of it goes. And then I

Leela Sinha:

just kind of get overwhelmed and shut down. But instead, I play

Leela Sinha:

this game called "One Thing I Know" where I look at the table.

Leela Sinha:

And I say, "what's one thing I know about one thing on this

Leela Sinha:

table?" So one thing I know is that this bowl from my lunch

Leela Sinha:

belongs in the sink. One thing I know is that these five things

Leela Sinha:

are paper waste, and can go into paper recycling. One thing I

Leela Sinha:

know is that this piece of plastic is trash. And it goes in

Leela Sinha:

the trash bag, which is right there. And so I sort of worked

Leela Sinha:

my way through the dining room. And then I got to one thing I

Leela Sinha:

know is this pile of clothes on the back of this chair can be

Leela Sinha:

put away, I was like, Okay, well put away at least one thing. So

Leela Sinha:

then I put away one thing, and then I put away a few more

Leela Sinha:

things, because I was already putting things away, the closet

Leela Sinha:

was open the hangers were there.

Leela Sinha:

I puttered around for an hour, tidying, sorting and cleaning.

Leela Sinha:

This is not me. This is not the way that I have built my life.

Leela Sinha:

But I did it. And I kept checking in with myself to see

Leela Sinha:

if I needed to go to bed, to see if I needed to rest, to see if

Leela Sinha:

this was okay. Partially because it was unusual. And partially

Leela Sinha:

because it's easy for me to shift from doing something

Leela Sinha:

because I'm moved to do it to doing something because I feel

Leela Sinha:

like I should do it. But no, it was it was still okay, so I kept

Leela Sinha:

puttering. And after about an hour, hour and a quarter, I was

Leela Sinha:

done. I could feel like I was done. It was bedtime, I have my

Leela Sinha:

lights set to automatically turn themselves off to let me know

Leela Sinha:

that it's bedtime. And unless I'm really absorbed in

Leela Sinha:

something, that's usually a cue I'll notice. But as I was

Leela Sinha:

getting into bed, I was observing how gentle that

Leela Sinha:

cleaning process had felt, how unforced, how unfraught, it had

Leela Sinha:

felt. And I realized that the reason that that was, is because

Leela Sinha:

I had taken a fairly light workweek. I had worked, I've

Leela Sinha:

been telling people almost not at all, but I think it was

Leela Sinha:

probably like 10 to 15 hours instead of 40 hours or more. And

Leela Sinha:

I had done work that was nourishing. And then I had

Leela Sinha:

filled the rest of my time also with nourishing things. I had

Leela Sinha:

taken the time to cook some food that I actually liked. I had

Leela Sinha:

taken the time to go for some walks and take some pictures of

Leela Sinha:

some pretty things that I saw outside, which is one of the

Leela Sinha:

ways that I have practiced centering on beauty. Since

Leela Sinha:

seminary. When I was grumpy about going to seminary in

Leela Sinha:

Chicago. I had sworn I was never moving to Chicago and I was

Leela Sinha:

never going to seminary. Be careful what you say you're

Leela Sinha:

never doing. And so I made myself take my camera and take

Leela Sinha:

pictures of things that looked unlike things that I thought I

Leela Sinha:

would encounter in Chicago. Unlike my previous experiences

Leela Sinha:

of Chicago. I took pictures of pads between buildings that

Leela Sinha:

looked like English Country Garden pads, and I took pictures

Leela Sinha:

of you know, tall grasses on a roundabout that made it look

Leela Sinha:

like I was in the middle of the prairie, and I took pictures of

Leela Sinha:

intricate architectural work and trees in bloom. And I like

Leela Sinha:

cities but I need a certain amount of green around me. And

Leela Sinha:

so I took a lot of pictures of things that were growing. It was

Leela Sinha:

a good practice. I go back to it periodically. It's easier now;

Leela Sinha:

when I did that practice, I was still using film. Now I can use

Leela Sinha:

digital. Now I can take as many pictures as I want. Now I can

Leela Sinha:

correct something that I cropped incorrectly in frame, and by

Leela Sinha:

incorrectly I mean not the way I meant to.

Leela Sinha:

But when I filled my week with all of these nourishing things,

Leela Sinha:

and not with too many of them. When I left space for a certain

Leela Sinha:

amount of staring at the wall, or lying under a tree and

Leela Sinha:

staring at the needles high above me; when I left that

Leela Sinha:

space, and then didn't work very much, I was not exhausted. And

Leela Sinha:

when I was not exhausted, puttering and cleaning came

Leela Sinha:

naturally. And I do mean naturally it, it just emerged

out of the question:

"Do I want to?" The answer was "yes, I do.

out of the question:

I want that." Which the next day led to me cooking more, which

out of the question:

the next day led to me being pleasantly surprised by the

out of the question:

state of my kitchen. I wish I could manage to do a little more

out of the question:

of that, all of that. Part of my challenge has been my entire

out of the question:

life that I have more stuff than places to put it. And the answer

out of the question:

is not getting rid of the stuff, in this particular case, I'm

out of the question:

using it. So this led me down two paths. One was thinking

out of the question:

about executive dysfunction, which I do believe is a real

out of the question:

thing. I'm not disputing that at all. But imagine, imagine if

out of the question:

some significant portion of what we're calling executive

out of the question:

dysfunction is actually straight-up fatigue. What if

out of the question:

it's just being tired, and extra tired from having to mask in

out of the question:

public, and extra tired from having to pretend to be things

out of the question:

for other people all the time? Or being on display all the

out of the question:

time? What if? What if we didn't have to do any of that? What if

out of the question:

we didn't do any of that? What if we spent a relatively small

out of the question:

fraction of our time in the public eye? What if we spent a

out of the question:

relatively small fraction of our time being observed and

out of the question:

evaluated by ourselves or others for work? What have we spent the

out of the question:

rest of our time in rest, in nourishment, in relaxation? I

out of the question:

know there are reasons why this is hard. But if we did... if we

out of the question:

were not so tired, if we were not so rushed, if we were not so

out of the question:

wedged into the corners of capitalism, the focus on

out of the question:

productivity, what else might emerge? What else might we be

out of the question:

urged to do? Because I felt so peaceful when I climbed into

out of the question:

bed. I felt so grounded and so peaceful. I was tired but not

out of the question:

exhausted. I wasn't bone-weary, I was just tired. I knew I

out of the question:

needed to go to sleep, it was bedtime.

out of the question:

And all of that came because I had had enough control over my

out of the question:

life and my schedule and my space, over the amount of

out of the question:

stimulation I had, and what kind of stimulation I had, over

out of the question:

everything. I had had enough control over the elements of my

out of the question:

life, that I could let everything emerge. At its own

out of the question:

time, at its own pace, at my own pace. I recognize that there's

out of the question:

incredible privilege in being able to do that even for an

out of the question:

hour, much less an entire week. And it hadn't been perfect at

out of the question:

all. There were many times during that week when I was

out of the question:

doing things that I didn't want to or in ways that I didn't want

out of the question:

to or things that weren't working right or whatever. But I

out of the question:

could feel as I went to bed that night after having spontaneously

out of the question:

cleaned for an hour, I could feel like the beginnings of the

out of the question:

grass growing up through the dirt in the spring. Just the the

out of the question:

little fuzzy, soft green tendrils of a different way of

out of the question:

being. What does this have to do with business? Well, it has

out of the question:

everything to do with business, right? Because what if, what if

out of the question:

our business models assumed that as a baseline human experience?

out of the question:

What if our business models assumed that everybody needed

out of the question:

restorative time, that all of that restorative time makes

out of the question:

people more productive? Because it does. But also, what if we

out of the question:

just did it because it's the right thing to do? What if

out of the question:

extracting productivity is not the right way to run a business?

out of the question:

What if it's not even ethical to be highly extractive? What are

out of the question:

the other ways we could think of businesses? What are the other

out of the question:

ways we could think of running our businesses and our lives, so

out of the question:

that they're so integrated, that we don't need sharp lines? So

out of the question:

that they nourish each other. So that we are so well-nourished

out of the question:

that we don't resent taking a moment here, or a moment there,

out of the question:

that we had planned for this, to do that. What if it's not

out of the question:

agitating, what if it's not stressful to change things?

out of the question:

Because the schedule is not that fall, there's room, there

out of the question:

spaciousness, there's possibility.

out of the question:

More and more people are saying it, that time is the actual peak

out of the question:

commodity. It's the one thing we can't make more of no matter

out of the question:

what we do. And so how we spend our time becomes the most

out of the question:

valuable thing. Time Off is often more valuable to people

out of the question:

than more cash, not always, it depends on their cash levels.

out of the question:

But if we think about running our businesses as places where

out of the question:

we assume that people need, say, three quarters of their week to

out of the question:

be self-nourishing; three quarters of their week to be

out of the question:

self-nourishing. And I mean, their waking hours, and then

out of the question:

they also need time to sleep. And then they can come to work.

out of the question:

We're looking at what a 20, maybe 25 Hour Workweek. The

out of the question:

unions should never have stopped at 40 hours, if they had

out of the question:

maintained their power, they probably wouldn't have. Forty

out of the question:

hours was a bare minimum, a bare minimum of time for the workers

out of the question:

in their lives. Eight, eight, eight. But we should be doing

out of the question:

better than that. We can do better than that. We can do

out of the question:

better than that for ourselves. That's why everybody is moving

out of the question:

toward wealth, people are leaning toward wealth. Not

out of the question:

because like holding cash money in your hand, is the best thing

out of the question:

in the world. But because that cash money in your hand gives

out of the question:

you the ability to work less, it gives you the ability to control

out of the question:

your schedule more. It gives you freedom, it gives you creativity

out of the question:

in some ways, it gives you the space, it gives you the space,

out of the question:

you need to be a full human. That's all people want, is to be

out of the question:

a full human. That's all we want. To be fully human.

out of the question:

Everybody, not just the people at the top. And so how do we run

out of the question:

our businesses so that everybody, every single person,

out of the question:

gets to feel fully human? How do we run our businesses so that

out of the question:

people are people, and not commodities? How do we give

out of the question:

everyone agency and control and space, so that we can find out

out of the question:

how they can truly shine for themselves, for themselves? And

out of the question:

maybe it's just rest. Maybe it's just rest. They don't owe us.

out of the question:

Nobody owes us. But we owe ourselves. We owe ourselves

out of the question:

this. How do we create businesses in a world where this

out of the question:

is everybody's norm? That's the question.

Links

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube