Think of your day as an artist’s blank canvas. If you go through your day passively accepting whatever other people and circumstances splatter on your canvas, you’re likely to see chaos where art could be. If that chaos disrupts your sleep, your next new day will begin in a state of fatigue and mild confusion. From that state, your canvas will become increasingly splattered with shapes you don’t like and colors you never chose.
Thinking of your day as a painter's canvas will allow you to be more aware of what's happening to you when you flood your mind with Internet gossip, commercials on the radio, the latest murder trial, your spouse's criticism, office politics, and pessimistic music lyrics.
If you allow yourself to step back far enough to realize and really see that your daily canvas is filled with all of this negativity, a certain freedom occurs. It is the freedom to choose something better.
The more we become aware of our freedom to paint whatever we want on our canvases, the less we live our lives as victims of circumstance. Many of us are not even aware of our own victim status. We read whatever is on the coffee table, listen to whatever is on the car radio, eat whatever is handy, scan whatever is on the Internet, talk to whoever calls us on the phone, and watch whatever is on television—often too passive to click the remote control.
We have to realize that we have it in us to change all that. We can paint our day our way. The best time management—or “day painting” course I’ve ever taken was taught by Dennis Deaton. The main point of his seminar is that we can’t manage time—we can only manage ourselves. “Clear the clutter from your mind,” Deaton says, “and remove the obstacles to greater success.”
While most time management courses feel like engineering courses, Deaton has captured the spirit of an artist in his teaching. His recipe for managing your day all comes down to creating goals and living the vision you create. Wake up and visualize your day as a blank canvas. Ask yourself, “Who is the artist today? Blind circumstances, or me? If I were to be the artist, how would I paint my day?”