The gift of time. I care deeply about this topic, and think about how I use and manage my time constantly. After all, I started OutGrowth with the hope of carving out the much-needed and often-neglected space for students, professionals and companies to explore, experiment and experience. I believe that if we create opportunities to understand what else could be possible, and just hit the pause button long enough to be instead of do, we can gain a completely new perspective on what matters to us, and how we want to use our days on this earth. I don't believe that there are any rules to this life, and time is our prized possession. As a mother of two boys under the age of two, I know the value of each minute of my day. I've become a student of time, becoming very skilled at recognizing the moments to be an efficiency machine in the household, the specific minutes each day when I will be the most successful at starting and finishing a work call without crying in the background, and the millions of moments each day when the best thing I can do is be still, be present and soak up every fleeting second. I know that time is elastic, and that we have more power than we think when it comes to what we choose to fill our days with. This month (and every month), we see time as a gift. Even if you don't think you have any time (none of us do), it's important to recognize that there are some creative hacks and mindset shifts that can enable us to fulfill our commitments while working toward a life that lights us up. And this month, I have just the writers and resources that will get you there. Happy reading. Grow out with us. |
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OutGrowth Today Our Monthly Blogger Spotlight + OutGrowth's Top Tip for March The En Root Scoop On Spending Time Wisely Our Top Ted Talk, Podcast + Book |
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Do you remember that witty remark by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting about how he got all the education he needed from his library card? Did it make you wonder if it was really possible, or was it just a really ideal concept for a pleasing retort in a movie? It makes me wonder, which has given us more growth - a formal or an informal education? I can certainly see the benefits of both. Truly, that part of the movie was the very first time I considered if I even wanted the career I was heading toward. As it turned out, I did. But what a strange concept: I just went from one step to the next - not necessarily thinking about what would make me happy or what I truly wanted. I became a teacher happily, and then after about a decade I decided I wanted to do something else. I didn’t suddenly dislike it - but there are lots of other careers out there. Who says we have to stick to one? I will say this: time ought to be more valuable than stocks/diamonds/gold to all of us. So, if an area in your life exists by default, ask why. Don’t waste your time doing things that you just assume you should be doing. When I asked why I needed to keep teaching, my answer wasn’t groundbreaking. It was time to try something new. I knew it was. But no part of the change felt easy. So I’m going to break down what was getting in my way. FEAR - It’s not always a negative thing. I know it gets a bad reputation, but fear makes us capable of quite a bit. The kind of fear to watch out for is the kind that cuts off possibility. For instance, if you start thinking of the embarrassment of failing, you talk yourself out of making the big moves. Failure is even more likely to follow. Instead, tell yourself with certainty what you will be accomplishing and break that down into teeny, tiny steps. It may take you a really long time, but you will do it. It’s not up to chance. It’s not the lottery. If you take the small steps, you will get it done. |
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THE DUST - Thinking of your time as a gift is a great way to realize how much of your time doesn’t necessarily feel like it is yours. But it is. One of the hardest things to do when you are thinking of a new path is to think about how the dust will settle with everything else in your life. It was hard for me to imagine what life would be like if I wasn't teaching anymore. Would I even have the skill set to do anything else? Would I need to go back to school again? What if I wasn’t particularly talented with the new career I tried? As it turns out, it doesn’t matter. I could brainstorm as many scenarios as I wanted. How I imagined it as the worst, and how I imagined it as the best were both incorrect. The dust will settle either way, so you might as well go for what you want. AS SOON AS- This phrase is a stepping stone to procrastination. And I am no stranger to procrastination. I imagine that an obstacle in taking your time back for yourself is the inability to reflect upon what is going on in life because, well, we are all busy. In fact, I didn’t truly take time to reflect on my longing for a career change until I had a loss in my family. Loss always makes you think of time, and how little of it there is to spare. If you say I will think about this as soon as I finish this pitch, or as soon as the kids start school, or as soon as things slow down a bit - it’s fine. But pay attention to those as-soon-as phrases. They are usually quite telling. Elizabeth is an artist, teacher, and interior designer who enjoys reusing materials that might otherwise be tossed, to curate beautiful spaces. She and her wife enjoy walks in nature with their pup, Shadow. Their most recent project is cleaning out a 600 sq.ft. house that was filled from floor to ceiling, researching the items and discovering the life the family left behind. She reuses some of these materials in her art. |
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Growth doesn’t always involve moving up in title or in responsibility. A little over five months ago, I took a major growth step by making a choice to let go of a title and the accompanying responsibility, stepping down from the vice dean role that I’d held for 8 years. When I stepped down, I was given the chance to direct my own actions for one year so that I could renew my role as faculty. Since then, I have made some efforts to revive the type of work I was involved in nine years ago, before I became vice dean, including research on the cost-effectiveness of medical treatments and public health efforts (particularly in eye care), and teaching health economics. I have also begun to expand my work on mentoring (i.e., continuing to develop my approach, continuing to speak about it, and writing extensively), to prepare to teach a new topic (i.e., the Carey Business School course on business leadership and human values), and to develop my efforts to enhance diversity efforts within the workplace and in my own life. Outside the workplace, I am working to strengthen how I turn my creativity into action. I have written more poetry in the past five months than in some time before, and begun to explore new topics. While poetry is not always useful in the workplace (perhaps except for gifts to co-workers), I am hoping that the opportunity to increase my creativity based on observation will eventually help me to bring creativity to workplace activities as well in the longer term. The gift of this much-unrestricted time does not come often in my career. I have made a pledge to myself to use it as strategically as I can to make myself an even better faculty member when I return to full responsibility at the end of the “free period.” If you ever have the opportunity to invest this much time in yourself, I recommend considering the following: |
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(1) Take the time to identify what your authentic interests are. (2) Don’t be afraid to start and stop a few times along the way toward identifying what you really want to do when you are done. (3) Ascertain how best to follow what you have identified as authentic interests. (4) Be purposeful in how you use the time you have been given. (5) Along with exploring new areas of interest, develop a new skill or find a new way to hone an existing one. To use the gift of time for growth, for me it has been important to both renew and go to new places, to enhance and explore, and to look back and move forward. Sometimes these are contrasting approaches and hold them in one’s mind and heart simultaneously can be a challenge. However, I am confident that the end result will be multifocal growth so that I can be the best faculty member, friend, and family member possible at the end of this time. Kevin is a health economist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He was previously the Vice Dean for Education at Carey and a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Outside his teaching and research, he is an anti-inequity advocate and he loves running, poetry writing, and baking. |
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| | Monthly Blogger Spotlight "Everything - I Mean Everything - is Teaching You" by Emily Iannuzzelli 'Bridges are built from the banks of solid listening. We must listen to each other with curiosity and openness. Sometimes, if we have strong opinions or a lot of mental chatter, this can be really hard and may mean we need to spend time really listening to ourselves before listening to another. I've found it helps to listen to myself through therapy, journaling or talking with a trusted friend.' Emily Iannuzzelli, is a creative soul, whose most recent creation is Time to Heal, a podcast about hope and healing. Emily is a big believer in natural health and holistic healing, and will be open for business as an Ayurvedic wellness coach starting in 2022. Emily lives in Baltimore with her husband and their two children, Catie Grace (12) and Will (8) where they enjoy exploring the outdoors. | | |
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| | OutGrowth's Top Tip On Choosing Time Investments Wisely At OutGrowth, we often refer to our programming as a much-needed pause button. We are constantly returning to this idea that our culture doesn't bake in any time, from schooling to job seeking, for true professional exploration. When we don't give ourselves the time to explore and reflect, we often end up with a life where we don't feel in control of how we spend our minutes and hours. How, then, do we get started? How do we regain control of our days and build in the space and time in an already-jam-packed schedule? We build in moments. I recently read a parenting book that talked about mindfulness exercises we can complete while washing the dishes. It's amazing how creative you can get with your time when you start with what you want to prioritize. By starting with what we want to make time for (even if that's just the time to wonder and dream), we can have a roadmap for what "items" need to be included in our days. Ten-minute creative writing sessions, three-minute meditations, 15-minute workout sessions, 20-minute parent-child playtime. We don't have a lot of time, but we can make our small doses highly concentrated, with just a little effort. | | |
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'There are 168 hours in each week. How do we find time for what matters most? Time management expert Laura Vanderkam studies how busy people spend their lives, and she's discovered that many of us drastically overestimate our commitments each week, while underestimating the time we have to ourselves. She offers a few practical strategies to help find more time for what matters to us, so we can "build the lives we want in the time we've got."' | | |
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'In each bite-sized, daily episode of Before Breakfast, I’ll share a time management strategy or an answer to a listener’s schedule question. I’ll help listeners make the most of their time, both at work and at home. The mission is to give listeners practical tools to feel less busy and get more done.' | | |
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'Are you over-extended, over-distracted, and overwhelmed? Do you work at a breakneck pace all day, only to find that you haven’t accomplished the most important things on your agenda when you leave the office? The world has changed and the way we work has to change, too. With wisdom from 20 leading creative minds, Manage Your Day-to-Day will give you a toolkit for tackling the new challenges of a 24/7, always-on workplace.' | | |
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