100 Business Days Out: Day 29- Rituals

This morning I went for a run with my buddy Greg. We get together for a run once a quarter when he is in the Bay Area. After the hour-long run I was driving back to my house for a shower before having to rush to the city and I was thinking about how in downtime or uptime (not working or working) the rituals that we have in our life are part of what keep us moving forward in our lives in a steady and predictable way. It can either be the big or the small rituals in our lives. For me, those rituals include a daily devotional time, exercise and even structured email time. And then during the week I make sure that when I am in town I go for a long run with John and Peter on Saturdays. Wednesday mornings are reserved for phone time with Hank and coffee with Terry and David. These meetings and occasions are part of the rhythm that sets a beat to life. I notice that when I let myself drift from the rituals that it is then that I start to feel frazzled, unorganized and unproductive. Work provides a framework for a set of rituals for most. Going to a place, having a set of hours for work each day and counting on that day in and day out can be the best way to set rituals. When you are not working the discipline to keep the rituals alive has to go up to ensure that they do not drift and begin to not be habits or real commitments. I encourage anyone who is going through a downtime period to work as hard as they can to either keep their rituals or if they do not have them, to find them and then keep them. Without them you might wake up wondering what happened to the time.