Posts Tagged ‘patterns’

Zen and the Art of lawn mowing

Saturday, May 12th, 2012

If you have a large garden, especially one with an irregular shape you’ll be familiar with the dilemma of “how do you mow it?”. If you have a ride-on, you can’t do simple stripes, as the thing has to be manoeuvred. The challenge is to come up with a pattern that cuts all of the grass once, with as little possible being cut more than once, and minimising any ned for reversing. It sounds simple, but really isn’t; come up with the right pattern and you move in a smooth flow, that is both satisfying and efficient, saving time and effort. There is a zen-like quality to being one with the flow.

In the midst of my meditative mowing, it occurred to me that there is a similarity between the use of good strategy for mowing and for business. Finding the way to get the most done for the least input, by seeing the relationship between shapes and then flowing smoothly from one to the next. When you are doing things well you are not working so much as dancing. All very fanciful you may say, but I suggest that if everything you do is taking vast effort, and only achieved by dint of hard work, then you are perhaps missing this sense of how these things relate to each other and you to them.

Could Life be easier? Sometimes, just sometimes, mow is less…

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Posted in General, Hints, Tips & Techniques, Personal Change | 2 Comments »

Living your pattern?

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011

I was talking to a friend & colleague today about something that someone had said to me.  He replied that I was listening to the content rather than seeing his pattern.  That this pattern was defined by how he saw life and how he acted so that despite the fact that I had offered him help and opportunity, he was incapable of doing what was required to seize it as he believed that these kind of things didn’t happen.  This is linked to our flight/fight response, which is designed to keep us safe but often just keeps us living small.  I thought this was a very interesting thought both from the point of view of understanding people whose actions don’t add up and also in terms of reflecting how our pattern  might be driving us.

I’d be very interested to hear any examples of this that you may have or to hear if this helps you to understand things just a little better too.

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Posted in Communication, Flight / Fight, Hints, Tips & Techniques | 2 Comments »

On the tiles?

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

I discovered that there is a cracked slate in the roof of Cooke Towers; annoying but one of those things one might think.  So I called the roofing guy back to fix it, assuming it had happened when the other roofing repairs were done. “No problem gov“ was his initial response. a little while later he was telling me that “It couldn’t ‘ave been us gov”.  What can you say?  The tile needed fixing and I had spares (or so I thought!)

It turns out this called for a special tile and half size and I didn’t have those. never mind he would come back in a week or so and fix it for me for ?100.  Seemed steep, but it had to be done didn’t it?  A week on I got a text saying he was too busy for this tiny job.. “sorry“ .

I did a little more research, and got in another recommended roofer and now it appears that:-

  • As all these tiles interlink, they have to take off all the tiles above to the (newly repaired!) ridge line, and
  • Those tiles are scarce as they are no longer made!

I’m now looking at ?200 or so!

It seems life is a bit like my tiles.  All these interlocking components that in order to repair one bit you have to disturb other (apparently) perfectly good elements of the greater whole, bits that are very securely locked down.  Small wonder most of us have little appetite for disturbing the status quo.

Has anyone been rattling your tiles recently?  What choices did you make?

“Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character…”   Stephen R. Covey

 “All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”  Bruce Lee

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Posted in Business Change, Personal Change | No Comments »