In Tibetan Buddhism, there’s a symbol of the cycle of birth, life and death called Bhavacakra or The Wheel of Life. Six realms are depicted in the Wheel of Life, and one of them is the realm of the hungry ghost.
The ghosts in this realm are depicted with huge bellies, shrunken limbs and tiny mouths. This ensures that the ghost can never satisfy its appetites and is in the grip of its unfulfilled desires. The ghosts are trapped in this realm by their over-attachment to the world and inability to satisfy their appetites.
In the tightly knit modern era of work, our to-do lists resemble the appetite of a reversed hungry ghost with a large mouth and tiny bellies.
The mouth represents our “imagined” capacity, whereas the bellies represent our “actual” capacity. We stuff our calendars with back-to-back meetings, multiple projects and various initiatives we are “volunteering” for.
Our to-do lists are endless, and we berate ourselves at the end of the day for not being productive because we could not get down to doing everything on it. We try to achieve “inbox zero”, but in the next moment, an avalanche of emails gets in, and we can never stay on top of it.
Even if we think we can “eat” them all with our giant mouths, our capacity to do so is restricted by our tiny bellies – the trifecta of time, skill and energy.
This leads to burnout and something worse – cynicism, dissatisfaction and unhappiness with our work.
While working in the corporate world as a program manager, managing multiple projects and initiatives along with managing my team people, I would use a “gating” method— one big task for the day and three small to medium tasks. I also blocked my calendar every day for an hour or two to complete the enormous task without squeezing it between meetings. I also learnt to say no to meetings, information, and projects.
As a solopreneur, the problem persists. I always have more work than I have the time, energy or bandwidth for. I use the same “gating” method I used as a program manager by gating my tasks.
I do no more than one big thing daily and three other small to medium tasks. I insert more tasks only when I have completed them and only if I have time left in my work day. I also have a ceiling of how much work I can get done during a week. If I finish that quota, I will take the rest of the week off.
Having boundaries for how many things we can do in a day, blocking out distraction-free time, learning to say no and establishing hard time boundaries about when we start and end our day can help our bellies not get overstrained by our huge mouths.
Constraints are the walls of a prison when imposed by others, but they are liberating and the road to freedom when we embrace them on our own.
P.S. If you are ready to level up, work with me for 1:1 career coaching. Hit reply, and I’d love to share more.
đź’Ś Siri
