Grace Judson
Grace Judson is the founder of and driving force behind Svaha Concepts. As a professional coach, she's dedicated to helping her clients improve the quality of their lives and achieve their full personal and professional potential – and full personal and professional satisfaction!
In the course of her corporate career, she has worked in organizations as small as five people – and as large as 200,000. She has managed departments, participated in corporate strategic and tactical initiatives as part of Senior Staff, and supported businesses and customers as a consultant. In short, with over 25 years in the corporate world, she has a broad and deep understanding of the challenges faced by workers in today’s knowledge economy.
With her strong strategic and tactical background, she specializes in helping individual clients recover from burnout, identify their goals (some of which may have been lost in the hustle of success) and create challenging yet realistic plans for achieving those goals. Executives receive assistance in developing their skills in leadership, collaboration, creativity, and communication. Corporate clients seek Grace's knowledge management expertise and advice in pro-actively managing the "brain drain" resulting from the retirement exodus of the Baby Boomer generation. She works one-to-one and in groups to help experienced executives impart their experience and wisdom to the upcoming leaders within the organization, while simultaneously helping the apprentices develop their leadership skills and decision-making abilities.
Modeling the life balance that she helps her clients attain, Grace spends time volunteering her business expertise at Shakti Rising (a women's recovery center headquartered in San Diego, where she also serves on the Board of Directors), being a lap for her cats, cooking for herself and friends, and staying active in fiber arts. A spinner, weaver, and knitter, she confesses to being a "fiberholic," and teaches knitting in several local yarn shops. She also admits somewhat sheepishly (no pun intended!) to having held the "Fastest Knitter in America" title in 2002, and appeared on Good Morning America that October to compete for the world title.
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I have a friend who actually knows how to work all the functions on his Ironman watch – you know, the timer, the split-lap timer, the alarm, the countdown timer. I don't know if it's an obsession with him, or simply something he does to keep himself amused, but he times everything. He can tell you how long it takes his coffeepot to finish making coffee and how long a particular traffic light stays red.
Perhaps with his example in mind, I've recently started looking at how long certain tasks take – especially the ones I don't really want to do. Not being as familiar with my (much less fancy) watch's functions, I take the cruder approach of simply writing down when I start something, and then noting when it's done.
It turns out, somewhat to my embarrassment, that I've been spending far more time debating with myself over whether to do these tasks than it actually takes to complete them once I get moving. For instance, my grumbling over the cat fur on the floor may last for days before I finally drag out the vacuum cleaner and spend eight minutes – eight minutes! – vacuuming the house. Mowing the lawn? Fifteen minutes apiece front and back, with another fifteen minutes each if I edge and weed-whack.
Suddenly, my productivity horizons have opened wide. Why am I pouring my valuable energy into procrastination and complaints, if it truly only takes a few minutes to do what I'm fussing about?
As a nation, we are working longer and longer hours and – predictably enough – accomplishing less and less. Work-life balance is suddenly important enough that multi-million-dollar corporations are hiring external consultants and trainers to conduct work-life studies and workshops, and featuring the results on the human-resources pages of their websites. Time management and personal productivity are long past being trendy; they've become so ingrained in corporate culture that they're cliches. And as a nation, we continue struggling with overwhelm, stress, and guilt – guilt that we're not doing enough for our families or our careers, never mind how and if we're taking care of ourselves.
We all have a different tolerance for the level of overwhelm we can handle. I'm certainly not suggesting that overwhelm would vanish if we eliminated procrastination and grumbling (if that were even possible!). And I'm well aware that a certain amount of procrastination is simply part of the creative process.
I do wonder, though, how much productivity is being poured into avoidance rather than accomplishment. I know I'm certainly taking a closer look at how I'm spending my time, especially on those days when my to-do list seems to be multiplying alarmingly. And I challenge you to examine your day and ask yourself the simple question: What one thing can I do right now that will bring me closer to my goal?
Then do it! (And let me know how long it takes!)
"Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one's balance and keep afloat." Eric Hoffer, 1902 – 1983; American longshoreman, philosopher, and author.
(c)Grace L. Judson
About the Author
Grace Judson is the founder and driving force behind Svaha Concepts. She works with powerful women who appear successful on the outside, but struggle with feelings of discouragement and defeat on the inside.
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Grace offers a free weekly teleclass Stress Management for the Insanely Busy, open to all! View the list of upcoming topics, listen to previously-recorded classes, and sign up: Stress Management.
