Do you need a time out?

Every single person who reads my board today smiled and laughed. Each one would tell me a story of tem asking their children or their parents asking them that question. That is the first place many go when they see this phrase. It’s true we use this with our children as an incentive to control their emotions and act with a level of decorum.

I have already submitted this as an idea few days ago. What if we applied this to ourselves as adults? I am gonna be honest with you, every day I leave the office for lunch for one reason beside nutrition. I need a break from my office. I can clear my head, let whatever stresses that have occurred during the day clear away and leave room for rational reasonable thinking. Timeout doesn’t have to be a bad thing, taking time to let emotion run its course so you can see clearly and respond accordingly. This is not just for work, but for life in general. Anytime you feel like emotion is getting the better of your senses, wouldn’t it be great if you could call a 30 second timeout? Your life cuts to commercial break and when you come back from break your brain has plugged back in and you can continue.

When I was little I used to think there were cameras following me everywhere creating a record of everything I ever did. This by the way kept me out of trouble A LOT. Anyway, what if that were the case? Not only that your life is like a sporting event, each day there is a start to the game, you are aloud 3 timeouts, there is a half time and periodic commercial breaks until such time that the game ends. Wait…that is what life is like.

Each day your alarm clock signals the start of the game. Sometimes you are caught off guard or sleep through it, but you get up eventually and get started. There is a rhythm and routine to getting off to work or your daily responsibilities. Many jobs have 2-3 15 minutes breaks (timeouts), lunch happens sometime in the middle of the day (Half-time), head home to your nightly routine and then your head hits the pillow signifying the end of the game for the day. Sounds pretty simple, well like sports anything can happen between the alarm clock and your head hitting the pillow. Now, you are saying to yourself, real original sports analogy, what about the timeouts? In all sports timeouts are a resource to be used wisely, you don’t have a never ending supply, so you have to use them in such a way as to maximize their effectiveness. Then you have to take into account what a commercial break can do for you as well.

Personal Timeouts and commercial breaks are a way for you to take a few deep breaths, get some perspective and get back in the game. To illustrate my point let’s go through a typical day for me….(this ought to be interesting)

Game Starts - 6am - 30 min: Drag self from bed, take shower, dress other morning prep activities

· 6:30am - 40 min: Perform Child School preparations: includes dragging daughter from bed, nagging her for faster eating and better spelling, followed by barking about dressing faster, brushing faster and better teeth brushing and ending with loud breathing from mouth while talking through gritted teeth to get shoes on before we miss the bus. (dramatization, but close approximation)

o At this point I want to call a timeout, but I know that I will get a commercial break once the bus drives away, so I use thecommercial break between drop off and work starting.

· 7:40 – 2 hours: get to work, review and clean out email and assess what kind of day I will have. Host 1-3 calls and respond to various requests or follow up items.

o When you start your day inevitably there is what I like to call the “idiot request” someone whom really is not an idiot has requested or responded to something without thoroughly reading or considering what their request is. It is very easy to get irritated and let this set your day off poorly. I am generally not affected by these and mostly look at the list of to do items and either groan inwardly or have hopes for a productive day because I am not bogged down.

o Then I start hosting calls, people don’t listen, you repeat yourself 30 times and they still don’t listen, OR my personal favorite is taking this opportunity to try and run their agenda on the call because they don’t care or pick a fight because they are frustrated. This results in me having to play moderator and put the smack down on picking the fight or cut off the agenda pusher and inform them of the right arena for their concerns. These things challenge me to keep my cool. In most cases I know there is a generally a commercial break after this call and before the next that I can gather my wits about me. However there are times when I actually have to physically take some deep breaths and sometimes even mute my phone so that I can pull myself together and not yell into the phone.

· 1st timeout: Have a snack, get up and walk around say hi to a few people chat about non work related items.

· 10am – 1-2 hours: Host some more calls, see above bullets. Do some more email correspondence, follow up, follow up, follow up.

o Follow up = babysitting this can result in frustration that I have explained the work and the timeline 4 times and yet there are still people who claim to not know, just ignore or outright snub your request thinking I won’t remember of follow up. I remember people! It’s a lot easier on you and me if you just do it when I ask. I don’t like being the bad guy, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. (see, I need a timeout just typing this)

· Halftime!!!! – I love this time of day, even if all I do is drive out pick up some food and drive back. It might be 15 minutes, but it’s enough. Leave the office, breath some fresh air, get out of the environment you are in. Listen to the radio, read a book, think about anything else. This clears my head and recharges me for the rest of the day.

· 12pm/1pm – 2 hours: more calls, more follow up, Now you get the drive by assignments. These are one of the top 2 things that will make you call a timeout. Someone (doesn’t have to be your boss) drops by your office and lays a big ugly mess in your lap that you need to clean up, but they don’t give enough information and mostly just give you the feeling that a bomb might actually explode in your professional life if you don’t fix this quickly.

o Keys to preventing a waste of a timeout: don’t own that person’s anxiety and emotion. Stay calm, interrogate them for all they have and then let them know that as soon as they have sent you the details in an email you will begin working on it. (unless it is an actual emergency) This buys you time to ponder what they said, think through the angles and have a general plan when the email comes in, AND it gives the bomber some accountability to get you some information. If the info doesn’t come how important was it really?

· 2nd timeout: for me this serves two purposes. First, this is about the time that I want to take a nap and need to get up from my desk and second my focus on work and ability to manage my inner monologue is waning for the work day. Get up, circulate some blood, do a little more visiting, or consulting with someone intheir office to get some advice, anything.

· 2:30 – 2 hours: Work feverishly to close all loops for the day, line up work for tomorrow and do some last follow up items.

o 3:38 – Daughter home from school – calls and starts asking what she can eat, what she has to do, please don’t make her practice math she doesn’t like it, her bag is heavy, when are you coming home (all in a very whiny 2 year old tone)

· 4:30ish: commercial break: 8 minute drive home – use this time wisely, gather wits, take deep breath, let go of work and go down mental checklist for Mommy taxi time.

· 4:30 – 6:20 (most days): Walk dog, get mail, make dinner, listen to child tell you why homework is not done, then harass child in 3 minute intervals to continue working on homework while you are rifling through the back pack for information you should get from the teacher, packing next day’s lunch, feed dog, yelling at child to stop dawdling finish dinner and get ready for swimming, we have to leave in 10 minutes! Do the dishes, wait did I eat dinner? Did the cat go out? Oh crap, I need to feed the dog. Man I want to change out of my work clothes…

o Here is where the day can really go sour for me. I have now worked a whole day, I am tired, hungry and want to sit on my rump and watch some DWTS. However, I don’t get to do that and on top of that this is where I would like to have that timeout. There are now no timeouts. The only timeout you get as a parent is when they are sleeping.

· 6:20 – 8pm – My daughter is a magpie and never stops talking (which in most cases is very endearing) on the way to swimming, studying for test, practicing memorization for school or if God is good, she is reading. Swoop into pool parking lot 1 min before practice starts, H tucks and rolls out so that she can race into practice and get to work. I park and wander in.

o This would be a great time to work out, but really who wants to do that when there is a bleacher with your name on it where you can stare at the wall like a vegetable for 45 minutes. You sit in the stands talking with other parents who look like you.

o This is not really a timeout for me, because my daughter is watching very closely that I am paying attention and providing enough thumbs up and encouraging smiles to keep her trying her best at practice.

· 8pm 3rd time out– back from swimming we sit for a few minutes so that I can relax and pull myself together to finish the game.

· 8-9 – bedtime routine for H, and there is more nagging to wash hair well, not just rub your hands on top of your head, wash face and ALL your crevices!!!! Why is the curtain not IN the shower, but out of it? Why isn’t the curtain shut ALL the way? Is the city going to run out of hot water? Get dressed, brush your teeth. Did you brush your hair? Brush your hair. I love you, have a good sleep; then daddy whisks her off to bed.

· Final commercial break – While Rob is closing out bedtime I sit in my chair at home and just breath, review the events of the day

· 9-10:30 – Rob and I connect and talk about the day, read, watch some TV, generally de-compress.

· Game over - My head hits the pillow.

Typing this out made it seem like my day is one big stress ball, but the reality is I love my life and everything I get to do. However, it is very easy to get all wound up and angry over a lot of nothing. Some days you don’t need all your timeouts and commercial breaks and other days you will need them all and more. You know what, it’s OK, but you need to use them. In most cases if you call a timeout for yourself no one is going to die. In fact it might result in a better outcome simply because you took a quick break to pull yourself together.