LINDSAY’S LETTER: FINDING FOCUS IN BUSY CULTURE
About Lindsay’s Letter
As part of our program, we want to make sure that our striving student-entrepreneurs & manager teams are given a wide range of resources to succeed. As so much of the entrepreneurial journey comes from learning about the experiences of others—Lindsay’s Letter is one of these resources intended to share some experiences & lessons learned along the journey of growing Student-Made.
Our world is constantly evolving, and with evolution comes a new set of standards.
Standards that affect what we value, how we see ourselves as people, and what it means to be successful. There’s one standard in particular that comes to my mind often, and I bet it ties in closely to those three factors mentioned above, in your everyday life. This standard? Efficiency. I mean think about it, you can order a package on Amazon and it will literally be on your door step the next day, guaranteed. You can have the answer to any question in the world on your phone in a matter of seconds. When you really step back and think about the modern capabilities, especially compared to how things used to be, it's a perfect testament to our world’s constant progression. And these types of progression in society have altered the way we fundamentally think. Since it’s now actually possible to get our package within 24 hours after we order it, a new standard has been set in our minds to not only value, but expect a quick turnaround.
With all this on my mind, today I was inspired to write about one particular outcome of our modern, “efficiency-happy” lives that may especially be finding its way into life as a college student today.
This is something that competes with School Spirit culture, Football Saturday culture, or even Hiking culture (you campuses know who you are...). What I’m talking about is “Busy Culture.” The advancements in our world have made our systems more efficient, but also pushed the boundaries on how efficient we can be as humans. With the technology that we have at our disposal, we can be anywhere, at any time. We can do more work more often, and at a faster rate than ever before. And because we are constantly able to take in more information and gain easier access to experiences, we keep doing MORE. We are putting more on our plates because… more is better than less, right?
It’s amazing to think about how much we can accomplish in one single day. And beyond that, in how many different areas. There’s this idea that the more we do, the more productive we are, and therefore the more successful we're being (or think we’re going to be down the road). And while on the one hand it's pretty amazing that we have the capacity to juggle so many different people, places, and topics (sometimes all at the same time!), part of me gets so much joy when I close my eyes and think back to what it must have felt like when you were only able to be an expert at one major skill, or craft. To be an expert at something that required committing essentially all of your time to– seeing little to no progress on a daily basis, but immeasurable progress over time.
Like the kind of focus and time a potter would spend perfecting the balance and curves of a ceramic vase. (See last week’s story on Creator, Natalie Emerson!) And to think that a task that may seem so simple to us, could actually take so much time– simply because it wasn’t meant to be just another task on the daily agenda, but a craft meant for perfection. Thinking about having that kind of focus today is hard to even imagine, with the ever-so-common scatter of topics, focuses, deadlines, and obligations that so many of us have occurring in our brains daily.
And to be clear about that analogy above, I am definitely not like the potter most of the time in my work & life. And with how our world has changed, I don’t even think it’s realistic to expect us all to be just like the potter. But, I do think that we can apply the same slow, focused, determined, committed mindset to the variety of things we have going on in our lives, and get closer to the same result of a perfected craft.
I love the idea of looking through the lens of a master and his/her craft when envisioning the capabilities we have as people today. We CAN accomplish so many things thanks to the tools built for efficiency that have become engrained in our everyday lives. But at the same time, we can “code” in some discipline for ourselves to focus on one task at a time, really allowing ourselves to benefit and take in one experience from the next. We can choose to limit the things we say “yes” to, as we develop realistic boundaries on the size of our plate at the “life buffet.”
I would urge us to consider our involvement in things more as an opportunity to make a deep impact, rather than something to fill our time. We can find comfort and stillness when there is no more to be done, without having to question our self-worth, or wonder what else out there we could have taken on. In my eyes, we are in the best position than at any other time in history, because we really do have a chance to be BOTH. We can be efficient, but also mindful. We can dream many big possibilities, but also hold a human-sized plate.
This month, I encourage you to really dive deep into the things you are involved in, and not just do the bare minimum. Have confidence in the impact you can make, and grace when you need a break. Busyness is definitely a culture, but not the kind that you need to fit into to be successful… You can do that all on your own, by giving yourself the space to commit to the things you love, and make an impact in the spaces you become a part of.
