Time is Elastic

Welcome to The Fulcrum, where I think out loud about work, community, and what it actually looks like to care about the world without losing yourself in the process. The balance is dynamic, and I'm figuring it out in real time. Glad you're here for it.

In the last edition of this newsletter, I was at the airport terminal waiting for my flight to New York City to attend the MLT 20 Summit. Two days later, I was on stage, in front of ~1,000 attendees, giving a brief speech about my work with Happin and the impact MLT had on my career and confidence in leaving my job to work on entrepreneurship full-time. 

It seems grandiose at first, but I lost sleep trying to memorize a speech I had prepared a week prior. I went up on stage, no screen to read off of, just my story, told in a way that comes across clear to the audience. Those were the fastest 3 minutes of my life… very opposite of all the weeks before that moment, where time felt…elastic.

And that’s the theme this week.

I wrote about how the creative freedom I enjoyed in my early days of going full-time entrepreneur, but in that process alone, my assumptions were debunked. 

Leaving a job equals more time… right? Everyone believes this. It feels obviously true. 

But time doesn’t expand; it morphs accordingly. I now have more time to think, and therefore more ideas, which takes more of my time! So with more time comes more to prioritize. 

I knew that when I was working full-time, I did not have the mental capacity to connect the dots and make insightful decisions. Now I have the time to think, and I want to make sure that I catch those insights, because that is valuable information that I am producing by the connections that I make, the things that I read.

I want to be responsible with my time because now nothing is really anchoring it. Just because I removed the 9-5, I have all these hours back. In fact, I was able to control my time because of structure, and a little bit of fear of leaving a steady paycheck for accidental vacation-style funemployment. Consulting really does give you that because I would create time blocks where I had focus time. Otherwise, my time was not mine. 

But Kat, this is not the first time you have been a full-time entrepreneur? Definitely, and I asked myself that question recently: why does it feel more fluid? That is because it is. When we were building Collective Avenue Coffee, we had set pop-up hours and scheduled pop-up events we had to be on time for: set up, marketing, and close down. It was our business, but our time was not adjustable. 

So I built my own calendar. That is something I had to just create as a foundation that I can technically move around, but anchors me to work around it and have productive days around building Happin, writing this newsletter, and showing up to meet-ups and one-on-ones. Structure may seem rigid until you realize you need it to make room for flexibility.  

Speaking of flexibility… my broken toe affirmed my structure helped during an unexpected period of slowdown. I wanted to hit the ground running after leaving my consulting job, but the medical shoe and space adjustments forced a kind of thinking that I had not scheduled for in my calendar. The broken toe slowed me down and removed my go-to activity to process my thoughts, but allowed for the recovery and reset to go all in.

As I started walking again, I became more intentional and had brain dump walks that produced more connection points from conversations, readings, and more. It's the constant curiosity that lets me have those nodes.

In what constitutes a productive use of my fluid, flexible time, I don't know what that feels like, because my days are so different from each other. A good balance of physical activity, healthy food, stepping outside for some sun, and at least one social activity every other day, whether it's related to my pursuits or personal catch-ups, and I think that constitutes some good balancing and management of time and energy.

I end the day with an even longer list of things I want to do. This list, as intimidating as it may seem, is evidence that my clarity is working and that I'm catching insights I would've lost before. It means it's one less gap and one less blank spot that I present publicly. For instance, sometimes I will think of a feature for the app that is in the middle of the day, and I don't have a computer in front of me. And so now I carry a notebook to catch those ideas and actions, no matter where I am.

Time is elastic, fluid, and sometimes brutal in how fast or slow it moves. What I am learning in a new flavor is that clarity is the magic behind “more time”, and that requires structure, reflection, and balance.

Quote: "Allowing yourself to grow and change in your activism is part of the process. Sometimes growth is fast and furious; at other times, growth means quietly doing research and expanding your base of knowledge...The causes you are advocating for are ever evolving."

- Omkari L. Williams “Microactivism: How you can make a difference in the world (without a bullhorn).”

Question: What does a productive day actually look like for you right now — and has that definition changed? Hit reply and let me know!