The White Space that we need

by Joanne Bariring / August 10, 2021

Pause. Stepback. Think. Continue – this is what I’ve been doing whenever I caught myself drowning in a tremendous amount of work. The drastic change of our usual routine into school or work from home set-up brought changes to how we usually handle our day. Now that we’re always at home, we can’t deny that we can’t stop ourselves from working non-stop and I think that is a problem. Busy-ness doesn’t mean productivity because, in reality, it robs us of productivity.

Years ago, I attended a two-day leadership summit, and there were at least four speakers a day. They provided meaningful talk regarding leadership for corporate, organization, churches, and personal leadership as well. There’s a wide variety of topics that have been discussed, and you could easily notice the differences between leaderships, but each of them left a mark of inspiration and influence.

Of all the talks that I had heard, what resonated with me the most was the WhiteSpace by Juliet Funt. This specific talk has been a great help in my own productivity in the last few years and more so in our current situation now.

The WhiteSpace

When we are drowning in a lot of work, meetings, emails, decks and paperwork, we only achieve a fraction of our full potential. Surprising, isn’t it? I used to believe that when a person was busy at work, they were using their full potential because they were putting all their time and effort into it, but to my surprise, it wasn’t the case.

Juliet Funt is a renowned high-energy speaker, founder and CEO of WhiteSpace at Work. She and her team’s mission is to help organizations, employees, and individuals to reclaim their creativity, productivity and engagement. She defined WhiteSpace as a “strategic pause between activities.” She emphasized that this is not meditation, mind-wandering, or mindfulness. WhiteSpace has no rules, agenda, or structure – it is a boundary-less, freedom experience for your mind, and this is what’s missing in our critical and busy life.

WhiteSpace gives our mind a time to play, improvise, innovate, and permits us to think the unthunk thought – freedom for creativity and great ideas to grace us over. It opens our mind to more time and space, and detaches our overloaded and overcommitted selves.

You can start practicing this by literally taking a pause for 15 seconds, a minute, or 3-5 minutes in between activities – a short time to breathe deeply, to cool down your busy thoughts or even take a short walk, drink water – whatever works for you.

The Thieves of Productivity

Apart from the WhiteSpace itself, I’ve learned to be conscious of the thieves that can easily corrupt and rob us of productivity if not managed.

Drive, Excellence, Information, and Activity are all necessary for our productivity, but if taken in extremes, they become easily corrupted. The drive becomes overdrive, excellence becomes perfectionism, information becomes information overload, and activity becomes frenzy – these extremes entice us into pace and pressure that reduce our effectiveness and productivity.

Reflect on where your productivity is between these thieves. Are you near to overdrive? Perfectionism? Information overload or frenzy? Now that we are conscious of our own thieves, how can we defeat them? Funt shared that to defeat these thieves we must ourselves the following questions:

Drive: Is there anything I can let go of? Let go of the unnecessary task that’s keeping you from achieving your real mission for the day or at work.

Excellence: Where is “good enough” good enough? Know your limit and when to stop putting time and effort into a specific task.

Information: What do I truly need to know? Not all information is for you to absorb. Put a limit on how far you should know about certain things.

Activity: What deserves my attention? Not all activities are for you to say yes to. Focus on the task given to you and offer your help to others once done.

These questions will help us to draw ourselves back into productive balance.

In the midst of the varying community quarantines, we remain locked up at home. Schools and work are brought into the comfort spaces. Some people may find it difficult to concentrate, simultaneously thinking about work and your role in the household, which can be really challenging.

Practicing WhiteSpace, pausing and stepping back to allow the creativity and great ideas to come flowing in, this has been a great help in my personal life. Whenever I reach the point of exhaustion, this activity allows me to breathe and regain my productivity.

This season of exhaustion has been long and difficult for all of us. When at home, there are a lot of distractions that can be a real challenge in our productivity. But if we purposefully redirect ourselves back to productivity, reminding ourselves of our mission and allowing our minds to breathe is an excellent step to unwrap our full potential and effectiveness.

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