139 - Work and Play in 2022
Resources from this episode:
Take the Contentment Challenge (officially starts Jan. 10, 2022, but you can start anytime you like!)
Show Notes:
Hello and Happy New Year! I am so excited to be back to be bringing you some fresh episodes of the work and play podcast moving forward, and to start this year off on the right foot, encouraging you in your work and in your play.
Happy 2022!
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below.
You may or may not know that I have been on a six month sabbatical from work from this podcast from social media. Since my sweet fourth baby was born in July of 2021, and it has given me such a gift—the gift of time, the gift of perspective, just to really stop and weigh what I want to do with my life, how I want to spend my time and, especially, what I want to do with my work.
And one thing was really clear for now: I want to keep the podcast going. I really enjoy it. I enjoy this medium. I'm so grateful for the feedback that so many of you have given me, and the encouragement, saying that you enjoy the podcast. And my hope and prayer is that these few minutes that we spend together each week will continue to be an encouragement, a challenge, and hopefully a light in these crazy times that we are living in.
So today I want to leave you with two ideas, two ways for you to think about your work and play. Two ways that you can hopefully enhance your work and play this year. And I want you to stick with me because I'm going to attempt to talk about these two different concepts that I've just been kind of thinking a lot about and mulling around in my mind over the last few months about work and play and the two thoughts or ideas I'm going to present you with may seem like they're in opposition to one another at first, but they're not. I really don't think they are. I think they work well together. So that's my preface. With that, let's just dive in and I'll go ahead and tell you about the first idea or the first way that you can enhance your work and play.
Number one is just to be present. This isn't something new. You already know this, but I feel like I can't hear it enough. Just be present, whether you're working or whether you're playing, be present in what you're doing. I love the quote by Jim Elliott, it's one of my life quotes, I've heard it a million times again. I can't hear it enough. He said, “Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”
Coming off of the holidays and Christmas and this break and sabbatical that I've been on, I've really had some sweet times of play with my kids and my family and my friends. And we’ve played games, we've baked, we've sung songs, we've taken walks. It has been really fulfilling to just be present with my people, to laugh and to play and not focus on the work or not be distracted with social media. And instead, just really being present with the quality time that I've had with them.
But likewise, in the past, when I have been able to fully focus on a task to get in what some people call “a flow state” with my work, whether it's, you know, this podcast episode or a project I'm tackling in my house, to clean out something, whatever it is, the work is so fulfilling when I set out to do something and then I do it.
When I see that thing through to completion, because I have gotten into that flow state or that deep work state, as Cal Newport says in his book, he, he defines it or says in that book “To produce at your peak level, you need to work for an extended period of time with full concentration on a single task, free from distraction. Put another way, the type of work that optimizes your performance is deep work.”
And there's something so fulfilling about play and being with friends and family. But there's also something so fulfilling about working, about doing a project, setting out to do a thing and accomplishing that thing. It's fulfilling. It feels good, and God gave us work and it's good.
Now, if you're like me and you have kids, this deep work concept is kind of hard to come by sometimes. And sometimes I achieve it by putting on a movie so the kids can be entertained while I do a little work and feel like I can accomplish something. To be honest, that's what I'm doing right this minute, the baby's napping, the other three are watching a movie and I'm doing this podcast.
Other times, it takes a babysitter. Other times I just announce to my four little people, “Hey, we're doing a project together. We're all going to be doing this work thing together. And we're not stopping until it's done.” Like cleaning out the playroom or making dinner or some little work project that we can tackle together.
But whatever it is, when I can focus on that task and not get distracted and just go for it and clean out the thing or do the project and see it to completion, it's so fulfilling.
So that's the first idea. Be present, be all there in your play or your work. If you are able to be fully present and be all there, it just gives you a richer, more fulfilling life. And that's my first reminder to you for this year.
Now, the second way that you can enhance your work in your play this year is to strive to keep work and play in your work and in your play for a rich life. You might need to hit rewind and listen to that again. Let me explain what I mean. There should be an element of work in play in your work. The work is the main thing, whatever the project you're focused on, whatever you're trying to accomplish, that's still the main thing, you should still be all in on that thing. And staying in this work state or flow state is crucial to the success of your project, but know what else is crucial? To incorporate some play into that work as well.
Let's say you're cleaning out your entire kitchen. Major work project. Something you need to tackle. Why not play some music or listen to an audio book while doing it? Why not make it fun? Why not make a game out of it? Setting a timer to see how quickly you can clean out the overstuffed drawer of Tupperware that you have.
See how much richer life can be if you incorporate play into your work. Likewise, there should be an element of work and play in your play. The play is the main thing. You're still wanting to focus in on the playfulness of it on cutting loose, having fun, laughing, enjoying whatever it is you're doing. But if you think about it, there should be a small element of work in your play to make it richer. If you're doing a craft, game or puzzle with your kids, it's more enjoyable when you're focused, when you bring it through to completion. And when you clean up after yourself, and that's a form of work. It's not enjoyable if you do something fun and then just leave a massive mess in your wake or get distracted.
Like if you got kayaking or hiking, there's an element of work there, right? We're working our bodies. It's an active play activity. You’ve got to use your muscles. Sometimes you get tired, you gotta push through and do that work to get to where you're going. But that's part of the fun! To push yourself and to accomplish something, even in your play.
So my encouragement this year is for you to add maybe a little bit more work into your play and a little bit more play into your work and see what happens. I started really thinking about this when Will my husband recently said, kind of out of frustration, honestly, he said, “Sometimes it feels like all we do is work. All we do is work even when I'm off work.”
And he said this after we just finished cleaning up all of our Christmas decorations and it felt like it took two days to do it because we're obviously still trying to feed our four children and ourselves and clean up the kitchen after every meal and put away all the new toys. And then we're trying to take down all the Christmas stuff. And it just, it was a lot of work. It was a lot of work after a lot of play. And it really does kind of feel like it never stops in your family. Like the work never stops.
And he said that, and I thought, you know what? I bet life could be more enjoyable if we just adjusted our expectations a little bit. If we can just know that there's play and work in work and play and that's the expectation, I think life would be richer, just more enjoyable. Our expectations would line up a little bit more with reality. And we'd remember that work and play are both good gifts given by the Father since the beginning of time and they're in everything we do. And the reward of a rich life is embracing both of those things: work and play.
So to recap, my first idea, my first point, was to be present wherever you are, be all there, get rid of distractions and be fully present with your work or your play. And my second point is to recognize and embrace that there's work in play and play in work, and that that's good! You can still be focused. You can still be all in with your work or your play while incorporating both of those things.
So I encourage you be sure to incorporate some playfulness in your work and some work ethic into your play and in doing so, I truly believe it will lead to a healthy soul and a fulfilling life.
Here is to a beautiful year—2022—full of work and play.
Now because I've taken a few months off of this podcast and off of work, I'm sure some of you might be wondering what's going on with me and my life, and I thought who'd give a little State of the Podcast Address and a personal update.
So first and foremost, I am loving life with four children. It's amazing. It's full. It's crazy. It's beautiful. Benji is just a doll. I mean, he is so precious. He's will. And I say, he's probably our smiliest baby. He smiles all the time at everyone. He's so sweet. And I have loved this break. I've loved the chance to just be with my kiddos. It’s been very full, very busy time, but really, really sweet. But now I'm back, I'm back to give you weekly podcast episodes. I'm really excited about it, and they're going to be fresh episodes from here on out this year.
And I'm going to extend the survey, nancyray.com/survey. Some of you sent in your responses and I'm so grateful for them, but I'm going to extend it to January 10th. So if you wouldn't mind just hopping on, I think it's just a few questions, but just give me some feedback. Give me some feedback about this podcast specifically what you would like for me to talk about this year, because I'm going to be planning a lot of my episodes off of your responses there.
So if you could take a minute and do that before January 10th, I would greatly appreciate it. Speaking of January 10th, that is the day that contentment challenge starts. This is something I do every year. If you are not familiar with it, go to nancyray.com/contentmentchallenge.
It's when I give up shopping for three months—crazy as that sounds. Yes, I do it. I do it every year and I'm very excited to do it again this year. And this year, just a personal update. I feel like the Lord is leading me to do it for eight weeks and that's kind of veering off the normal challenge that I recommend and that I do, but being that I've done this challenge for, I think, seven years in a row, which is crazy. I'm feeling like I don't want to just stick to the mold of how I've always done it and just continue to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and what he's asking of me. And so I'm going to be all in with it for eight weeks.
And then if He asked me to extend it for 12, I will, but that's, that's kind of where my heart is. And again, it's just a reminder for you to make it work for you. If you're doing it for the first time, I do recommend the full three months. There's something about it. That is, it's just really good to do it for three months, but anyway, you can do it for free or you can get more extended resources for, I think, $12 over at nancyray.com/contentmentchallenge.
Okay. Lastly, social media, some of you have been asking, am I coming back to social media? What's the deal? I've really been praying about this. January, I'm going to use January as just kind of doing like a big clean-out of people I follow so that I can just really hold closely the people I want to follow.
I'm going to try to just narrow it down to just a handful of people really, that I know and I love. And then after I do a clean out, I am going to hop on, I think once a week. And that's it, just give you a brief update once a week and then that'll be it. And I'll try that for a couple months and then see how it goes and see if I need to make any other changes.
Last thing, the book club. It's live. My book list is live needs to nancyray.com/bookclub. I am really simplifying the book club this year. Listen, I have just realized with four children and the season of life I'm in, I need to simplify it. I'm going to be doing away with the Facebook page, the Facebook group. I'm not active on it anymore. I don't really feel like many people are. I don't think it's serving people. It's just simple: if you want to read the books with me, read them with me and listen to my podcast episodes about them. If you don't, then don’t, that's great. You can still listen to the podcast episodes about them if you want, but that's kind of how I'm approaching it, just simplifying it this year. And I'm really excited about the books I've chosen. You can see all those at nancyray.com/bookclub.
Okay. That's my update. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. I'm so grateful for each and every one of you and happy new year!
I'm going to close with words from Louisa May Alcott, who said,
“Have regular hours for work and play. Make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well, then youth will bring few regrets and life will become a beautiful success.”
Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.
