Got Rhythm?

We all have rhythm. It’s built into us through our heartbeats and the circadian (24 hour) rhythms that influence when we feel hungry, energetic, or sleepy.

As our biology influences our rhythms, so, too, does the way we work. 

Our distant ancestors followed rhythms that were tied to light. Our parents may have worked “on the clock,” subjected to a rhythm established in industrial times.

We no longer follow the sun or work 9–5. With our increasingly flexible workdays, we have the option of working 24-7.

Such flexibility might seem like a good thing. If you’re a night owl, you might be more than happy to forego commuting before dawn for another dread breakfast meeting.

I can assure you that I wasn’t happy when a former client announced that he was scheduling my workshop for 7 am. (I like to write in the morning – but strictly in my pajamas.)

Lack of schedule: liberating or not?

Freedom from an imposed or arbitrary schedule can feel liberating, which is why vacation, retirement, or working for one’s self can feel great, at least for a while.

But, devoid of rhythms imposed by other-directed schedules, our days can lose their spines, and we’re left feeling like we’re spinning around.

At a minimum, those external demands, deadlines, and meetings keep us pulsing through our days.

Without them, where’s the incentive to get out of bed on a bad hair day?

Becoming a-rhythmic

Job or no job, many of us have gone a-rhythmic with our days.

I was initially delighted when the Internet offered me the freedom and flexibility to work when I wanted. Ride my horse at ten am? Yay! Work at 9 pm? No problem!

Until one day, I woke up and realized that I couldn’t tell, from my schedule, when I was “off work,” and when I was “on.”

My schedule had lost its boundaries. It was as if I was composing music by stuffing in more and more notes while forgetting to add rests. (Usually called cacophony.)

What I lost

As I survey our new world, I notice how many the rhythms that used to be part of life are endangered:

• Eating regular family meals together. (Stats vary, but a 2003 study suggested that US families eat dinner together only three or fewer times a week, with 10 percent never eating dinner together at all.)
• Going to bed and rising on a regular schedule. (Sleep doctors keep trying to convince their patients on this one.)
• Observing a sabbath, rest day, or even intentional time off, consistently every week. (Read Marilyn Paul’s book with her convincing rationale for rest days. You could try a rest break if you’re not yet up to taking a full day.)
• Taking vacations at all. (In one 2017 study, 52 percent of Americans didn’t use all of their paid vacation days.)
• Stopping work at a given time, or establishing work-free zones. (Guilty as charged!)

Rhythm is about more than schedules

Our loss of rhythm isn’t just about our crazy schedules. It’s about listening to our bodies in a world that’s gone head-centric and body-negligent.

In some African cultures today, the beat of work lives like a pulse entering the body and then manifesting through music, song, and dance. It’s as if the rhythm lives in their bones–and in their souls. You can see it in this video.

Listening to the rhythms of life

Can we recapture that sense of everyday rhythms by listening more to life?

Watch how people walk and see if you can feel their beat. Listen to how a rooster crows on fixed intervals. Explore if that amorphous rush of traffic might contain hidden rhythms that give its noise a shape.

Maybe some of your everyday work, whether chopping onions, sweeping a broom, or pumping iron, might be more fun when you can feel its beat.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the erratic tap tap of my fingers on a keyboard gives me the rhythmic boost that I need.

Become your own composer

Once you start to listen, then you can compose. Has your life become bland as you march to a steady, but monotonous, four-four beat? Could you add more rhythmic variety?

If you’re always working at a high rhythmic intensity, could you deliberately insert some downtempo activities?

Have you structured the rhythm of your days to be so complicated that even a professional dancer might stumble? How about notching back, and introducing some time in an easy to follow two-two beat?

If no one but you is driving your schedule, why not introduce a few regular beats into your life to set a rhythm for your week?

• Create routines, for your early morning, evening or mealtimes, that punctuate your day.
• Set regular weekly meetings with friends and colleagues, or join a class.
• Plan together-times with your family or partner you can count on.
• Create deadlines that fit the rhythm you want to establish for yourself.
• Publish a blog every Thursday–my secret formula!

Finding more flow

Rhythm comes from the Greek word that means “to flow.”

Let’s give it more attention, so we can become master composers of our days.