Articles
All of the articles housed in the library are written by your Pausemeister, Patricia Katz.
Browse through the entire list of articles, or jump directly to the category that appeals most:
Overload & Overwhelm
Think Again
When you're striving to improve the balance in your life, sometimes changing your mindset is just as important as changing your habits. Here are five key concepts to help you change your mind and your practice. Read more.
Do You Know Where Your Off Switch Is?
How driven are you by the whims of the www (whole wide world)? Read more.
Surviving the OO's – Sane & Satisfied
Overload and overwhelm are two of the biggest Oh-Oh challenges that workplaces face in these first few years of the 21st century. Given the way things have been going, ‘OO’ could end up being a very appropriate description for this decade without a name. Read more.
Living In The Moment
10 Ways To Pause When You've No Time To Spare
As much as it may feel that you've no time to spare, there are ways of going about your everyday business that will help you be more present to the moment and less frenzied about the future. Here are ten ideas to get you started. Read more.
The Pause Starved Month From Hell
A Case In Point
It's December, 1996. I am a wife of one, mother of two, sister of five, aunt of eight, daughter, friend, volunteer, and neighbour. I own an active speaking and training business, and for the first time in over two decades, I am, once again, a student. Read more.
What's The Message In Your Model?
Is It Helping Or Harming?
Does any of this sound familiar? You come in early to get a jump on the day's work. You take no breaks and schedule working lunches every day. You stay late to finish up the paperwork before heading out to an evening meeting. Read more.
Restoring The Rhythm Of Renewal
Press Pause ... Press On
Give and take. Back and forth. Wax and wane. There's a natural rhythm to life and work. When you are in the groove ... in the flow ... you move forward with confidence. When you ignore the cycle of ebb and flow, life grows tough and nothing comes easy. Read more.
Strategic Signals
10 Key Cues That Call For A Pause
How do you know when it's time to stop or step away from the action? Ideally, you want to do this before you get into trouble or roll into overload. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to identify those recurring experiences in daily life that could trigger a pause. Read more.
Take The Lead In Work Life Balance
Ease The Pressure - Lighten The Load
Partner massive workloads with high-speed expectations and you've got a recipe for disaster. Remove any sense of control and toss a lack of appreciation on the pile, and the mix grows downright explosive. Read more.
Signs & Signals
Pause subscribers share their experiences in response to two questions: What cues signal you that it's time to pause and take a break? What cues tell you it's time to focus and press on? Read more.
10 Terrific Times to Pause
Pausing is not a reward for being done or caught up. It’s an investment in being able to continue, even during the busiest of times. How do you know when it’s time to stop or step away from the action? Here are ten triggers to prompt you to build more pauses into the everyday flow of life and work. Read more.
Thoughts on Stopping
Pause subscribers share their stoppers – what they've already stopped doing and what they plan to stop doing in the months ahead – all in the name of making time for what matters most. Read more.
Can't Stop ... Gotta Run!
Overcoming Resistance To Pause
When I encourage people to give themselves permission to pause™, reactions vary. Some folks embrace the idea with enthusiasm. It fits with their view of life and their everyday practice. Others resist with every bone in their body. Read more.
Permission To Pause™
9 Benefits Of Time Off The Treadmill
You're climbing a mountain. It's a tough, dirty, exhausting challenge. The higher you climb, the quicker you tire. Still, you plod on. Never stopping. Swiping the sweat from your brow. Eyes fixed firmly on the path ahead. Focused. Determined. Single mindedly on task. Read more.
Are You Fluent In The Language Of Haste?
Calm Your Words ... Calm Your Life
How fluent are you in the language of haste and hurry? Do you ever think about what it costs us to pepper our days with high-speed words and phrases? Read more.
Maximize Your Vacation Pause
10 Do's & Don'ts
Ten tips to help you make the most of your vacation time. Read more.
More Than A Black Hole
Pausing Defined
What really is a pause? Is it always a complete, dead, full stop? An emptiness? A void? A total absence of action and thought? Although from time to time a pause may be just that, more often than not, a pause is so much more than nothing. Read more.
Paused On Purpose Or Stuck On Hold?
There Is A Difference
How do you know whether you are experiencing a temporary pause or a permanent hold? Pauses and holds look the same on the outside. In both cases, it appears to others that you're doing absolutely nothing. But they are experienced very differently from the inside out. Read more.
Stop, Drop & Roll!
The Paus-able Cure For A World On Fire
When I first started speaking about 'permission to pause' I noticed something peculiar in the response of my audiences. Read more.
The Trials Of An Im-Paus-able Day
There's No Better Time To Be Here Now!
Alarm clock goes off – jump out of bed – trip over pile of clothes on the floor. No time to hang them up last night. Maybe tomorrow. Read more.
Loose Ends
Loose ends are a prominent feature of life at the turn of the century. The result? That relentless feeling of being behind, unsettled, unresolved, incomplete, in progress, underway. Always on the run...never quite arrived. Read more.
Who's Got The Button?
So there you are. Right in the middle of a noisy chaotic workspace. You've just been asked to carry out a long string of tasks ... no errors ... top speed! Sounds like everyday life, doesn't it? Read more.
Speed Matters — Or Does It?
A colleague arrived at work full of fury. Other drivers had cut in front of him all the way. When pressed as to why it mattered so much, he muttered, "They'll get there before I do." Read more.
Organization & Time
Ten Point Productivity Tune Up
Are you getting the best possible return on your investment of time and energy? Run through this ten point checklist to see whether your productivity engine is purring along at top speed or about to seize up. Read more.
Too Busy Getting Organized
This wildly busy world places a high value on organization. If you appear to be organized you're held in high regard. Desk free and clear? Calendar clearly marked? Latest in organizing gadgetry on hand? You must know what's happening and how to get things done. Read more.
You've Got Mail
You've got mail...and mail...and mail! Forget the printed variety that your postal carrier delivers. We're talking about that beeping, blinking, buzzing messenger on your computer screen. The one that signals someone has you in their sights and is hoping to nab your attention. Read more.
I Can See Clearly Now
It doesn't matter how fast or efficiently you can get things done – if you're working on the wrong thing, you're wasting your time. Read more.
Office Centers
Shopping centers! Rec centers! Seniors' centers! What's in a center? It could be almost anything. Read more.
Getting Real About Workload
Complaints about job overload are common in today's workplaces. Whining aside, the effects of overload show up in more subtle ways, too. Growing overtime. Frequent sick days. Widespread stress leaves. Resignations. Read more.
Workload Streamlining Techniques
Too much to do? Too little time? Here's how to identify some of those tasks that might be streamlined out of existence. Read more.
Appreciation, Encouragement & Motivation
Hidden Value
Finding The Meaning In Everyday Life
Rise in the morning. Climb into your gear. Step into the harness. Plod your way through daily routines. Head back to bed. Rest. Rise. Do it all over again the next day. Sound familiar? Read more.
In The Swim: Learning Lessons From The Waterfront
I was raised on a farm in rural Saskatchewan. We didn't take many family holidays – aside from the odd side trip to Manitou Lake. The mineral waters of Manitou are buoyant enough that you don't really need any skill at all to bob happily around the lake. Read more.
Let Your People Go
The daily business sections of the newspaper and the monthly business magazines are abuzz with strategies for hanging on to employees. Share the profits. Flex your hours. Woo them with perks. Thank them for coming to work. Read more.
Celebrate Your Success
People are starved for good news about themselves. Our daily busy-ness drives us from one task to another without a breath for reflection. There are clients to please, phone calls to make, children to ferry, and bills to pay. Read more.
Wondering How to Keep Me Happy?
You might have noticed that I'm a little less enthusiastic about coming to work these days. Hmm....then again, maybe you haven't. Read more.
Way To Go There!
Done anything worthy of recognition this week? Did anybody notice? Read more.
Love's Lessons Learned
When we celebrated a recent milestone anniversary, my husband and I created a list of ten relationship lessons learned from 35 years of married life. I shared the list in an edition of Pause, and it elicited quite a response. A number readers asked me to pretty the list up a bit so they could: post it on the fridge, tack it to the bulletin board, share it with their partners, or tuck it into wedding gifts for other couples just starting out. Here is that formatted version of Love's Lessons Learned. Enjoy and share as you wish.
Pause Check
The appreciative power of one positive action after another. A checklist.
P Katz Celebration Log
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
Note: You are welcome to reprint or repost these articles with the understanding that: 1) Optimus Consulting retains full copyright. 2) Contact information is included as it appears at the end of each article. 3) Patricia Katz of Optimus Consulting is contacted and sent a copy of the publication or notice of the link in which the article appears.
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For a complete listing of articles, special reports, useful links, and recommended references visit the Library.
"It's in our idleness...that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top."
-Virginia Woolf
