Kathleen E. Allen and Gar E. Kellom, professors of education, wrote about the amusement park ride that involved a large spinning saucer cylinder. ‘œWe enter’¦ which then starts to spin. The spinning increases until we are pulled away from the center. At its peak speed, the floor drops out from under us, and we stay plastered against the outer wall.’ It is a metaphor for what happens in the life and careers of busy folks.

The centrifugal forces of life and career figuratively pull us away from our center.

I recently wrote about the value in finding busy people to do the things that really need doing. Here is another thought about one reason busy people are so good at getting things done: we’re good at keeping in touch with our center.

Keeping in touch with our center is important for maintaining healthy and productive careers or businesses. Here are two strategies I’ve used or recently discovered that might work well for you.

The first, also suggested by Allen and Kellom in New Directions for Student Services: The Role of Spirituality’¦ is called the ‘œBusy Person’s Retreat.’ A retreat is often characterized by stepping away from familiar surroundings in an attempt to minimize distractions and other routine stressors. Retreat centers host individuals and groups seeking retreat from the spinning whirl of everyday life. The family cabin makes a suitable retreat setting for many upper-middle class families. When I was 18 and not sure what to do with my life after high school, much to my parent’s chagrin, I went to Europe for a retreat of sorts. The point is, a retreat can be customized to suit the individual or group needs.

Two drawbacks to typical retreats are that they usually require a commitment of time and money. Even the best Queercents time-saving hints and money saving travel tricks might not be enough to make such a retreat very practical. The ‘œBusy Person’s Retreat’ method requires no travel and a significantly smaller time commitment by designating a set of days and specific time blocks for quiet thought, meditation, drawing, stretching, or discussion. Usually an entire week is set aside for the ‘œBusy Person’s Retreat’ and each day of the week there are three thirty minute time blocks.

The second strategy, a friend recently introduced me to, that might also work well along with or as part of the ‘œBusy Person’s Retreat’ is a singing bowl. A singing bowl requires patience and a moderate amount of skill that is easy to learn. The exercise involves a metal bowl and a wooden mallet. By gliding the mallet around the bowl’s edge a slight vibration develops and the bowl begins to gently sing.

Singing bowls can be purchased online for less than $50 but it is possible to spend several hundred dollars too. Crystal variations are available but to my ear their song tends to be less appealing. Wikipedia has an article that talks about the science behind the singing bowl’s song.

My friend’s singing bowl idea involves a one-minute commitment for each hour he is at his desk. By setting an alarm as a reminder the goal is to spend one minute with the singing bowl’s soothing song. To use this idea with the ‘œBusy Person’s Retreat’ the singing bowl could become a part of one of the daily thirty minute time blocks.

Any Queercents readers have ideas about staying centered? What about ideas that can help manage the often dizzy spin life and career cause?

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Adam Nelson, based in Wisconsin, is a professional speaker. He founded Treading Together LLC in 2007 to help others become successful speakers. He also writes a series for Queercents called Weekend Entrepreneur.