Janice Valdez

I have a great appreciation for systems and options that can save time. I value efficiency. When given a choice between a route that will take 5 minutes and a route that will take 15 minutes, I’ll take the five minute route. If I can do yoga in an hour versus an hour and a half, my initial preference is the one hour class. However, does fast necessarily equal efficient? I sometimes overlook the value of things that take more time. As a result, I miss opportunities for growth and learning.

This morning, I took my time getting out of bed, and I took the time to make french toast rather than regular toast. Rather than create my list of “to-do’s” straight away, I took some time to watch a few TED talks. And the talk by Carl Honore on the benefits of slowing down inspired me to write this article to reflect on my concept of efficiency and how it relates to the use of time and the pace at which I move and act.

Have you ever done something very quickly but it turned out not to be so efficient? Efficiency, the way I see it, is when the ratio of value adding effects exceeds the investment or output of resource to create them. For instance, let’s say I am in a rush to bake a cake for a potluck. In my hurry to get ready, I start multi-tasking and I get distracted and lose focus and I forget to include one of the necessary ingredients that helps the cake rise well.  In effect, I end up using twice the amount of resources (ingredients, time and energy) to create the cake and I fail to prepare for the party in an efficient manner.

What are we omitting from our experience in this age of high-speed technology? While our focus is on getting somewhere more quickly and acquiring more quickly, what are we doing for our human consciousness to keep up with the astonishingly powerful technological creations? Are we evolving our behaviours to be wise, mindful and consciously connected?

Another way to look at the fast vs. slow question is to consider a human and how we develop movement. A baby who crawls typically moves more slowly across a floor than a toddler who walks.  They get to their destinations differently and develop the skills they need along their way, just by honouring their own pace.  I’ve actually heard it taught in a yoga class once that in some cases, babies who do not crawl enough during this developmental stage of learning to move, can develop challenges in their learning later in life. It’s as if the nervous system creates a foundation for our body’s processes during each stage of physical growth and to rush any stage of it makes it more likely that one will skip over valuable development in other areas of cognitive functioning.

So, as contrary as it may be to our habitual pace of modern life, it could be that slowing down really is essential for quality of life. Moments for pause and reflection, are to humans as baking soda is to cakes. Slowing down can help us to rise…to our potential. When I am training my body to do new things, it’s when it is at rest, that it integrates the new information. Slowing down and taking pause plays a critical role in allowing change to occur.  It has much to do with being present to the moment of now. That’s not to say that one can only be present when moving slowly, but it seems that it is easier to be fully present of mind and body when one is not in a frantic hurry. The state of being in a hurry is really driven by the anticipation of the future, isn’t it?  So to be fully present would require a detachment from our linear perception of time; perhaps a detachment from any construct of time.

This weekend certainly has been that for me. I’ve taken time to spend a day with my neices at the kitislano pool, a day to stay indoors and rest, and today I attended a community festival for arts and social change. All were choices that can be seen as time away from doing “business” things, but at the end of this slower paced weekend, I felt more inspired with more clarity of ideas for business than if I had spent my time working on spreadsheets and filing. So even when I slow down, I’m “getting stuff done.” That’s a great realisation and something to consider when I start worrying about whether or not I’m getting enough done in a day.

Janice Down the Rabbit Hole Carl Honore, efficiency, TED

It amazes me how quickly things can change. On thursday night at11:30pm, I decided to give notice to vacate my apartment @ Dunbar & W16th ave. after Jennie and I decide that it would be best to share a suite to live and work from.  I spend parts of Friday finding listings and create a viewing agenda for us to follow during the weekend.  Saturday morning, we hit the streets. The open houses for the garden level suites have trails of students and young couples looking for new homes; several needing to find something in one day because they have come from 4 hours away, or more.

We take a break at a coffee shop on Broadway and Vine and look through the classifieds of the Vancouver Sun. Finding our specifications for quality and value did not prove an easy task going through the fine print. I made a few more calls and left messages. We viewed three suites that morning and went back home until it would be time to head out for the afternoon open houses.  While I was making my lunch, I got a return phone call from Edwin, the landlord of a 4 storey house.  He had a pleasant voice, the price was one of the best I’d seen for a 2 bedroom and he could show it to us that day.

I was so optimistic about Edwin’s suite that we decided to skip all other plans and just go straight there.  As soon as I walked in, I was smitten. Every step further into the place simply confirmed that this would be our place.  He was supposed to show it to someone else after us, but we just kept talking and making friendly. By the time the next couple came around, we had already written up our own receipt and the deposit cheque.

This is my second great apartment find from the Vancouver Sun. In my experience, Craigslist gets the mobs when it comes to housing, but the Vancouver Sun advertisers seems to go for quality, not quantity.

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