You've got to make time to take time.

Drinking a beer and stroking a cat. An excellent use of time.
Gary Peterson's place, New Zealand. 

When I was a rower at university in Bristol we would periodically make the trek up the M4 to Reading, for a session of specialist coaching with Rob Morgan. Rob was the head rowing coach for Reading University and considered by us to be something of a guru.  Not to take anything away from Rob, but we hadn't set our coaching standards very high - at that time, self styled "west country bandits" that we were, we didn't have a coach of our own.  Some referred to this approach as 'self-coaching'.  In retrospect it could have been more accurately called 'being rubbish'.  

Anyway, I digress. It is the winter of 1998, it's cold on the upper Thames, and it is inevitably raining.  We are all sleeping on the floor of Reading University's (unheated) boathouse, a privilege for which I think we actually paid cash. And all this so we could hear Rob's words of wisdom.    Rob talked a lot.  In fairness, he knew a lot about rowing, and he was an enthusiastic communicator.  Most of what he said made sense, but some things were so opaque - so cryptic - that they remained a complete mystery.  There were two phrases in particular that stuck with us, and we would spend hours repeating them to each other in the minibus home, trying to mimic Rob's style, tone, and general sense of guru-ness.  (All I can say is that Reading to Bristol on the M4 can be a long and boring journey).  

The first was easy: "You've got to save your beans for when you're giving it beans!".  I think I figured this one out pretty well.  Essentially what Rob was saying was that you needed to conserve energy for when you'd need it most.  Don't go full guns on the warm-up and leave yourself knackered for the actual race.  At least that was my excuse for never pulling too hard on the way to the start (this explains why our warm-ups were often terrible - for which I would like to hereby apologise publicly to my former crew-mates). 

The second was a little more cryptic: "You've got to make time to take time".  I was never quite sure what this meant, although it didn't stop me form nodding sagely whenever it was uttered by guru Rob.  I think the general point was: don't rush.  The rowing stroke has two distinct phases: the drive, and the recovery.  The drive is when the oar is in the water, you are pushing with your legs and applying maximum force to accelerate the boat forward.  The recovery is when you've finished the drive phase and are travelling back up the slide to start the next stroke.  Taking one's time over the recovery is vital. Whizz up the slide too fast and you have to suddenly decelerate; the combined 700+kg of rower weight in an eight man crew acts as a massive brake against the forward momentum of the boat.  

So why am I talking about the technicalities of the rowing stroke?  Well Rob's words came back to me today at work when I was reading a book about being a better lawyer.  I am starting a project to look at how we can more effectively manage large disputes and I thought a good place to start might be to read everything I could on the subject - management, project management, leadership, whatever.  This particular book was closer to the 'self help' end of the scale than the 'academic' end, which meant that like most self-help books it was terribly written but quick and easy to read. (To quote one critic of this blog, "Samuel Pepys it is not"). But it also contained a few really useful ideas.  And one that struck me was the need to make time in your day for the things that are important to you.

The one thing we always complain about not having enough of (besides money) is time.  This particular book advised making time for leisure; for reading; for meditation; or for simply sitting and thinking.  It also pointed out that whilst most people would respond "but I don't have the time", they need to realise that there will only ever be 24 hours in a day. And that if the day were 30 hours long they would still probably want 40. As Rob Morgan might say, such people need to make the time to take the time. 

For a long time I was as guilty as anyone of not making the time for the things that really mattered to me. And I see it in others.  The other day Anita described her Wednesday night 7pm ballet class to me. It usually involves a full speed cycle up the road at 6.59 followed by a mad dash into the studio and a breathless start to the class.  Anita herself admitted that its usually a bit stressful.  And this is meant to be leisure time!  The reason for the hurry? A failure to leave work in sufficient time.

These days, I am making a conscious effort to prioritise my time towards those things that are really important. To read (I reckon if you don't read you'll never learn), to write this blog, to enjoy a post-lunch espresso at a quality coffee emporium, to sit and watch Lara play in the evenings before her bedtime.  There's always the time to do the things that matter to us.  After all, each day will always have the same number of hours - wishing for more time is a waste of time (literally).  Its just a question of prioritising.  Leaving work five minutes earlier to make that journey to ballet less frantic.  Saying "no" to something at work because I want to spend half an hour a day reading around my subject matter.  Deliberately leaving one weekend a month commitment-free just so we can wake up and spend a delicious few moments in bed wondering what to do with the day (everything or nothing - imagine that!).  Making the time to just take time. Maybe Rob Morgan really was a guru after all!