“Press Pause” has become something of an in-joke in one of my friendship groups. This particular sub-group is working on pulling together an anthology of work, and you know how it is. Different experiences, different skill sets, different perspectives, different tastes…and I’m the one with the least market-knowledge. What was I thinking when I offered to project-manage?
I mean, also, you know, fog-to-trees or cat-herding…been there, done that…but poet-wrangling is a whole different measure of remind-me-why!
So, whenever things get a little stressy, and we forget we haven’t actually got a deadline, and getting it right is what matters, not how quickly we get through it, I have become renowned for sending out a message with the instruction: Press Pause.
You can choose your own words. Take a breath. Step back. And breathe. Timeout!
Whatever works for you.
I like ‘press pause’ because if you do that, you can then do any of the other things. Stop. Rewind. Take a break. Take a breath. Leave the room. Have a rethink. Go AWOL for a while. Eat cake. Walk. Sit under a tree. Put headphones on and play loud music – heavy metal is cathartic, or I’m told Mars from the Planets Suite works as an alternative. Play gentle music – I like oriental tunes played on Celtic harps.
A pause is a literal break. Use it as an ‘interrupt’. Break the moment. Split time.
The point is that Pause doesn’t change anything. When you return and press Play, you’re right back in it…only if you’ve used it right, you’re not the same you, the group of you is not the same group.
The point about the pause is that it specifically isn’t time away from the front line for you to continue discussing the front line, or even thinking about it. It’s time to forget about the front line.
The point about the pause is the step-back, the time-out, the go-do-something-else.
I will be honest. Press Pause is also code for “ok, we’re not getting anywhere, and I’m tired of going round the loop; I’m shutting the conversation down for a little while, see you later.”
Even for a project manager, saying that out loud would be rude. I know. In my former life, I did. It didn’t get good reactions.
The Pause isn’t just code though. It’s a real thing and it only works if it is legitimate. It only works if you go dark for a little while. Define ‘little’ appropriately depending on the project – if you’re stopping a nuclear plant from exploding then maybe ‘little’ is less than a minute, a long draught of coffee rather than a whole cup, a walk round the room rather than round the block – if it’s non-life-threatening but maybe business-critical, you can at least take a lunch-break, maybe even an overnight recess. If you’re putting a low-key book project together, you can afford a week or more.
Part of the Pause code is “get some perspective here”. Like I say, we’re not that subtle in the PM world. Or maybe that was just me.
Given that I’m well out of the business world now, why am I talking about this? The thing about all the business management stuff is this: it is really also life management stuff.
There are times when it is life that feels like it is getting to be too much. The same rule applies.
Whenever life is getting on top of you: look for your Pause button, reach out & press it.
I am still learning how to do that.
Meanwhile, I've noticed that whenever life is really getting on top of me, sometimes without my recognising the fact: the universe presses Pause on my behalf.
I talk a lot about the whispers from the universe. The universe has learned that I am a little hard of hearing. Occasionally, it stops whispering and shouts. Sometimes it gives that up and just whops me upside the head.
Whatever the conspiracy theorists think, I have days when I know the global pandemic – or at least our local response to it – was just purely to get me, personally, to STOP! It was what I needed then and there. And just in case that sounds far-fetched, the second lock-down kicked in on my birthday,
just to be sure I understood that this was personal and it wasn’t going away until I paid attention. Just saying.
To be fair, I wasn’t the only person on the planet needing that particular lesson.
For me, it worked. I have reflected much upon it since. But like everyone else, my life clambered its way back to a different kind of normality. In my case, this meant forgetting everything lock-down had taught me.
I defaulted back into over-engineering my life, over-loading my months, weeks, days. Forgetting simplicity. Falling back into achievement-mode. A different, gentler, definition of achievement to be fair, but even so. The back-room gremlins were ratchetting it up, filling up the white-space with
places to go, people to see, things to get done. Note to self: remember the difference between 'things to do' and 'things to get done'.
And it was wonderful and amazing and exciting (when it worked) and had its own kind of rescue-beauty when it turned out differently. This is the life I have wanted to be living. This is the me, I have been working towards becoming.
Yes, and yes.
And also, no.
My body could not keep up. And it had learned one or two things from lock-downs. My body now knows how to tell the rest of me: just STOP. Press Pause!
My Dad would have called it Venusian Marsh Disease. Or maybe, Martian Swamp Fever. I can’t remember the difference between the two, if there ever was one. And yes, I do know that neither Venus nor Mars has swamps or marshes as we would recognise them. I was a child, and he was making me smile when I was poorly: when I was this specific kind of poorly.
Nothing serious, but utterly miserable-making, don’t-talk-to-me-unless-you’re-bringing-me-chicken-soup poorly. The kind of common cold that is just a common cold, until it keeps you awake for 48-hours straight, on the back of too many late nights, and weeks of excitement and travel and music and friendship and adventure, and then – if you’re me – the digestive system goes into melt-down. If not being able to breathe easily isn’t going to make you stop, guess what will!
Ok. Like I say. My body and the universe are in cahoots. They know when whispering isn’t going to work, so they shout.
I pressed Pause.
What I mean is, I haven’t done anything this week. I have not been further than my local shop. I have spent a lot of time in my garden. Not gardening, just being in my garden. Risking a little sun to top up the Vitamin D. Seeking a lot of shade. Reading old books that make me smile. Double-dosing on pure Vitamin C. Blackberry-picking. Blackberry-eating. Cloud-watching.
I pottered. I put some things away. I wrote an email or two. I re-hemmed a pair of summer trousers. Re-potted a gingko in a different part of the garden – in about six stages over the course of the week. Paid some bills.
I didn’t swim, or walk, or dance. I didn’t go to the beach – on the best week of the year so far.
I didn’t write.
I looked at all of the work my garden needs. I acknowledged it. It will get done. Eventually. Not this week. I looked at the work that Jay has done, and acknowledged it. It’s part of the reason I need to crack on with the rest. But not this week.
This week I went to bed early. And did not sleep.
I tried to watch TV and could not follow a plot.
This week, I listened to my body – literally, listened to pops and snaps and creaks that I choose to think are healing happening. This week, I accepted the tricks my mind plays on me when I am unslept, and wondered if there are actual stories in any of the delusions. This week I noticed how long mornings can be and how afternoons sneak off into late evening when you’re not looking. This week I noticed how miserable I can be made by a minor illness and was revisited by the dread of more serious ailments to come in my old age. A thought process that required not only a Pause, but also a Delete. Time enough when it happens.
This week has been and gone. I feel better. I am grateful for a greyer, cooler day. I have slept. My voice has not yet returned, but I think I am ready to sit and try to write. I am ready to risk pressing PLAY and seeing what happens next.
