I’ve a brand new album out this month, “KISS OFF KISS”. It’s 13 songs a few quick intimate relationship I had just a few years in the past. We went on 4 dates over just a few months then referred to as it quits. Did we break up? Were we ever collectively? These are questions I attempt to reply on the document, generally painfully, generally playfully.
One of my favourite songs on the document is known as Today/Sex, and the crux of the track is about having made time for a date after which having the particular person I used to be occurring the date with cancel for a cause I didn’t suppose was excellent. As I say within the track, “for some friends and some extra sleep.” This misfire of scheduling was the start of the tip for us.
You see, I feel my most precious commodity is just not in my checking account or the automobile I drive and even my expertise, it’s my time. It’s my presence. If I provide you with my time, I’m providing you with my complete self. That’s gold!
My calendar is a mirrored image of my identification and my priorities. I do a whole lot of various things – some work, some play, some buddies. But once I find time for one thing, it’s a transparent assertion that I feel it (otherwise you) are value spending my most treasured commodity on.
Over the years, I’ve discovered to “protect my time”. What do I imply by this? I imply that I think twice earlier than planning with somebody. I attempt to not do issues I don’t wish to do, or issues that I really feel ambivalent about. And I undoubtedly don’t do issues simply to maintain somebody from feeling unhealthy or being mad at me. That breeds resentment, which is a waste of everybody’s time.
“Protecting my time” means once I say I’m going to do one thing, I intend to do it, to the very best of my potential. I attempt to not cancel plans as a result of your time is effective too. Of course, surprising issues come up. Life isn’t excellent or runs 100% based on plan, however you’d be shocked how usually issues line up should you act with the intention of doing what you say you’re going to do once you mentioned you had been going to do it. If that is arduous at first, preserve at it. The extra you get used to the thought, the better it turns into.
Another approach I shield my time is by utilizing my calendar as a imaginative and prescient board. If I think about myself on trip in February 2023, I put it on my calendar after which attempt to make it occur. I maintain that house and construct round it, to present it the very best probability of really occurring. If I wish to be on tour in October 2021, you possibly can wager that’s been on my calendar lengthy earlier than the primary gig is even booked. I discover this particularly essential as a self-employed particular person whose future work is commonly unclear. Using my calendar as a imaginative and prescient board helps give my future hours some construction. And provides me issues to work in the direction of and look ahead to.
You may suppose all this “protecting my time” makes me inflexible or not open to spontaneity. In observe, it’s the very reverse. I by no means fill my calendar to the brim. I depart numerous open areas too. Because I’m clear about once I have to get one thing finished or have already got plans, I’m liberated to let the remainder of the time chips fall the place they might.
I’m very a lot against “grind culture”, so a method of defending my time is to be very clear about when I’m working and when I’m not. I’ve just lately been practising a shorter work week, with much less work hours. So now my calendar is open to work appointments solely on Monday – Thursday 1- 530p. This has been working nice! I’ve been extra centered on getting my work finished in these hours and have been in a position to have extra time for self-care and buddies. “Protecting my time” doesn’t imply much less “productivity” – one other phrase I hate.
There’s one other lyric in “Today / Sex” that I like rather a lot. In truth, it’s the refrain:
“When I make time for you, it’s a f-ing gift That you can’t buy in any store so you better be grateful”
Of course I’m being playful with these strains, however I hope the gist is evident. I worth myself, I respect you, and our time collectively is treasured. In truth it’s the most important present we may give one another.
This visitor submit was authored by Erin McKeown
Erin McKeown is a musician, author, and producer recognized internationally for her prolific disregard of stylistic boundaries. Her brash and intelligent electrical guitar enjoying is one thing to see. Her singing voice is actually distinctive —clear, cool, and picked up. Over the final 20 years, she has carried out all over the world, launched 11 full size albums, and written for movie, tv, and theater, all of the whereas refining her distinctive and difficult mixture of American musical kinds.
Her first musical, Miss You Like Hell, written with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes, opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater in 2018. It was nominated for five Drama Desk Awards, together with Best Lyrics, Best Music and Best Orchestrations, and The Wall Street Journal named it Best Musical of 2018.
Leading her personal band, she has carried out at Bonnaroo, Glastonbury, and the Newport Folk Festivals. A well-known presence on NPR and the BBC, McKeown’s songs have additionally appeared in quite a few commercials and tv reveals.
While a pupil at Brown University, Erin was a resident artist at Providence, RI’s revolutionary neighborhood arts group AS220. A 2011-2012 fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center For Internet & Society, she can be the recipient of a 2016 writing fellowship from The Studios of Key West and a 2018 residency on the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. McKeown is presently a 2020-21 Professor of the Practice at Brown University.
Her newest album KISS OFF KISS is out now.
