10 Minutes to Freedom
“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
While I was eating lunch last Saturday, I looked out my picture window to see the neighbor boy, Avery, shooting baskets in his driveway, wearing a backpack. I wondered why he was wearing a backpack. A few minutes later, his mother came outside and called him to the car. He got in, and they drove off.
In “The Power of Full Engagement,” Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz write that the best way to keep our energy up during the work day is to take a 10-minute break every hour. Still, even if we’re convinced of the importance of this break, we can be tempted to stay in plow-through mode—and then wonder why our afternoon caffeine isn’t helping us focus.
Reclaiming Our Freedom
Chances are, Avery has never read Loehr and Schwartz’s book, but he knows instinctively that there is freedom in grabbing 10 minutes between duties to do something restorative—or at least something different.
For us, as Catholic businesswomen, it could be spending a few minutes in prayer, answering an email we’ve been putting off, playing with the dog, or making a quick call to a potential client. It can be anything that breaks our routine and reminds us that we are children of God, born for freedom.
For Avery, it was perfecting his three-point shot.
Management expert David Allen, author of “Getting Things Done,” advises readers to make a list of things we can do in 10 minutes. Then, when we’re taking our hourly break or waiting for the next meeting to start, we can go to our list and find a way to spend that time intentionally.
What’s in It for Me?
Three good things result from this practice. First, shifting gears charges our battery for whatever’s next or gives us fresher eyes when we return to a project. Second, even if the task we’re completing is a “duty,” like finally putting the new sticker on our license plate before it expires, we feel freer, because that little thing-to-do isn’t nagging us anymore. Third, we feel the freedom of using our time well instead of the heavy feeling of having wasted it.
Injecting a jolt of change for 10 minutes every hour—something fun or taken from our list of quick things we want to do—can keep us from being mentally and spiritually weighed down by what we have to do.
God Is the Ultimate Refresher
Here are three spiritually energizing things we can put on our “10-minute” list:
Open the Bible to any page, and meditate for a few minutes on what you find there.
Linger over a decade of the Rosary that speaks to you, asking Mary to share the peace of the Holy Spirit, her Spouse.
Listen to music that takes you away from your routine and lets your brain rest.
Humility to the Rescue
Stress comes when I start believing I’m in charge of making things happen—and in charge of the results. It’s a prideful frame of mind that can make it hard to reach for my 10-minute list. What? Give up control? Pry my white knuckles off the keyboard?
Whoa, girl!
That’s when I know the 10-minute list is my lifeline to the sip of peace and freedom God is offering me. It took a 14-year-old boy shooting hoops to remind me.
Rose Folsom helps Catholic professionals have a closer connection with God in prayer that brings more clarity and confidence to their leadership. Sign up for her free live webinar, “Lead with Confidence: 3 Virtues All Professionals Need” at https://virtueconnection.com/. Following 30 years as a solopreneur, Rose served as Director of offices in the White House and elsewhere. After building up her prayer life from zero after her conversion and then profession as a Lay Dominican, she’s passionate about helping others discover how to connect with God in a way that feels intimate, joyful, and natural to them.