Faff space
I think the important part of human beings is the “being” bit. I think of you, my dear friend reading this, as "the being” rather than "the body". I find this hard to explain without using metaphor, so let me throw a pile of metaphors at you and see if any of them stick:
You’re not the particle, you’re the wave.
You’re not the computer processor, you’re the process.
You're not the art work, you’re the beauty.
You’re not the physical thing, you’re the dynamic property that emerges from it.
Human beings aren’t static. We’re a constantly changing system, influenced by (and indeed a part of) the environment around us. Ever notice how you’re vibrant and confident when surrounded by one group of people, nervous and withdrawn with a different group? That’s a practical example of your system operating differently based on the influences of the broader system it’s a part of.
If this is all a bit too philosophical or metaphysical for you, let’s ground it back into something with some practical utility.
One of the things I do (I’ve even written a book about it!) is teach people to speak effectively on important occasions to large groups. It’s amazing how different the experience of talking is when there’s a thousand people in front of you rather than three!
Because of our sensitivity to the environment around us, we are presented with an incredible opportunity to shape who we are and how we behave by consciously adjusting the environments we spend time in. A few days ago when I suggested that people make “energy experiments” I mentioned the idea of work space and faff space. The utility of faff space is something I’ve learned over ten years of working from home, and something I’ve been recommending to people a lot now that pretty much everyone I know works from home!
The idea is to create zones—mini environments in your house—which are dedicated to certain ways of being. I have a dedicated work zone, and I have a dedicated faff zone. My faff zone is a place where it is considered 100% A-OK to scour Facebook marketplace for earthmoving equipment, browse r/metalworking on reddit, and check out tweets from @G_S_Bhogal and @meaningness on Twitter. When I sit on my couch in the faff zone, I feel no guilt for faffing; indeed, it’s what I’m there to do!
In my work zone, however, my job is to work. In this space (where I am as I type) I am a creator, not a consumer. In this place I am steely in my resolve, firm in my commitment to be the professional (in the Stephen Pressfield, Turning Pro sense).
I believe your productivity and creativity is a function of your energy much more than your time, and creating defined spaces for creation and consumption—for working and for faffing—can be an extremely useful strategy for guiding and crafting the wave function that being you really is.
If you’re like me, you’re going to faff at least some of the time. By creating a specific place to do that, you can drop almost all of the guilt and shame associated with it and instead give yourself permission to relax now and then. By creating a specific place for it, however, you introduce an element of choice that can help you focus on being the person your narrative-self wants to be.
Header image by Nicole Wolf on Unsplash