Many of us somehow manage to do several things at once. I’m a Life Architect and Professional Noodge/Author. I know a psychotherapist/potter, two life coach/ministers, an artist/business coach, an author/workshop leader and many, many working parents. How do we juggle these roles? Stay reasonably organized? Stay reasonably sane? Squeeze in a bit of time for fun and friendship?

Is Your Calendar Your Best Friend or Worst Enemy?

Let’s start here. If your calendar isn’t your best friend, this would be a good time to remedy that. While I am generally organized, that isn’t enough. I follow the advice I give my clients:

1. Get the best calendaring tools you are comfortable with.
2. Use them!
3. Schedule everything. This includes alone time, family time, entertainment time and play dates as well as business appointments, client time and working on any career that is not client-driven (painting, sculpting, writing, photography).
4. Use online scheduling tools when you can. This saves me from double-booking, dealing with appointment changes and cancellations and allows clients to find times that suit them from a list of times that suit me.
5. Consider both electronic and paper planners. I like a paper planner that allows me to set and track goals and chart activities related to those goals. For an overall picture of my day, week, month, thought, I rely on my computer and phone. I can see where I’m supposed to be, including an address and phone number. I can block out writing time, days off, etc. and see them easily.

Next?

This is the first post in a month-long series, as part of The Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’ll be posting on a range of topics related to managing that “AND” and I hope you’ll add to the discussion with questions, comments and tips of your own.

You’re never too old to try something new. Women are experimenting with new careers, becoming entrepreneurs and trying new things well past fifty. Experimentation and discovery are part of the lives of wise, wild and wonderful women at any age. Look around to see what older women are doing and start a little experimenting of your own.

Feeling Too Old?

Grandma Moses didn’t even pick up a paintbrush until she was eighty-five. The last of the Ziegfeld Girls, Doris E. Travis, performed the week before she dies at the age of one-hundred six. She apologized that she was no longer able to do a cartwheel.

Jeannette Paladino, over sixty-five and retired from a career that included marketing and copywriting, was feeling bored. She took a blogging course and decided to give writing online copy a try. She thought she’d bring in enough money to finance her bridge games. Write Speak Sell became so successful that Jeannette doesn’t have much time for bridge. Alice March was well past sixty-five when she decided to pack up, move to New York City and create The Attention Factor.

You Don’t Have To Have a New Career

This is Sally Frissell. She spent many years as a flight attendant, squeezing in long stints as a volunteer in Cambodia between periods of work. Now retired, she splits her time between Manhattan and Maine, allowing plenty of time to continue her volunteer work and to have adventures. Here, she’s stilt fishing in Sri Lanka.

I Don’t Know What To Do

Here are a few simple tips:

1. Try small experiments. Shake up your routine in small ways. Get off the train or bus at a different stop. Explore a different block or a different neighborhood. Go into a new store. A man in New York City decided he wanted to walk every single street in New York City. This project has now turned into a series of six books documenting his experiences.

2.  Volunteer. It’s a great way to get reengaged and reenergized. You can do everything from work in a community garden to teach new immigrants English. You can hug babies or pet puppies. You can prepare meals or record books for the visually impaired.

3.  Take a course. Past sixty-five, you can audit courses free or for a nominal fee at many colleges. There are continuing education courses everywhere. Professional organizations offer classes. There are art schools, dance schools and cooking schools.

4.  Join a group. There are groups for everything. Many cities have chapters of The Transition Network, a group that has activities and sponsors peer groups. My own peer group has been meeting for nine years now and is still going strong. MeetUp has groups for everything you could possible imagine.

Need a Little Help?

If you want to move forward on your own with a little advice, go to the AARP website for ideas and free resources. Encore offers courses for people looking for a new career.

When you know you want to do something, but can’t seem to figure out what that is or get started, a coach is an excellent partner. You can find more resources and contact me at SusanRMeyer.com or simply schedule yourself a no-cost Jump Start call here.

Cute, right? Innocent. Sweet. But eventually they will wake up. Now don’t get me wrong. They are adorable and my heart melts when they curl up next to me to purr and give little kitty kisses. And they are mighty hunters, so I will never see another mouse. Not so sure I appreciated the great waterbug hunt at 3:30 AM. but I’m certainly delighted at the demise of said bug. Job well done, guys!

When Obie curled up on my shoulder and started to purr at the adoption event, I knew I was a goner. Ernie came along so Obie wouldn’t be lonely when I travel. They aren’t litter mates, but they are somehow brothers.

So what’s wrong with this picture? Well, sleeping kittens wake up. Early and often. Ernie is a leaper,  and a climber, so I’m spending lots of time convincing him that the stove top is not a good place to hang out. Obie likes to pounce, so we’re working on the notion that feet under a blanket are not the enemy. Both of them tear through my apartment at high speed at unlikely moments that generally coincide with my need to concentrate or sleep. Ernie is fond of small spaces, so I’ve lost the trash basket in the living room:

I just hope that I have the energy to survive their first year! I also wish that I’d heard my sister-in-law’s advice before adopting – she said never adopt a cat under a year old. Well, maybe not. They really are cute. And growing every day.

I just hope I make it through kittenhood!

Q. So you finished this – this career and you reached retirement. And from the outside, it looks like suddenly but it probably isn’t if, I want to hear the story, you decide that you’re going to create a very different life for yourself.

Yes. The first part though was to recognize there were capabilities I had as an educator that I was going to call into play for my own life. And so for retirement, the first thing that I knew was I wanted to address those things that I hadn’t been able to do so far—including fitness. I got into a situation with a trainer and did that several times a week.

I started art classes in life drawing at the Montclair Art Museum.  I took that class several times over. I hadn’t had any art classes throughout the whole of my life to that date. I’d gone to a lot of museums. I looked at a lot of art but I hadn’t done any and so I loved those courses.  Also, I started going to the actor’s institute one day a week. This was the general structure I gave myself coming out of teaching and into retirement. I wanted some structure but also I wanted to leave big chunks of time for more spontaneous kinds of choice making and so on. The initial idea was to do those things that I hadn’t had a chance to do heretofore. A few years later, my husband and I divorced and I began living on my own for the first time.

Q.  I remember you talking about how you helped him get situated into what was going to be the ideal life he deserved.

Right. Once again, I think of the educator coming to the fore. I had a real sense of the kind of setting/context in which he would flourish. I helped him find a place and  set up his apartment. He began to flourish. Yes, indeed he has. That’s been a very, very happy kind of, development. And my own has been very like that, too. It’s just been flourishing. My first apartment on my own was in Jersey City. I rented a brownstone there for two and a half years and then it was going to be sold. I needed to think about some place to move. I recognized during the time I was in Jersey City, there were weeks where I was in New York City five times. And so I dared at that point to think about living here myself. When I started looking for places to live, I looked in Jersey City again but I also came into New York City. I like to say that I started out in Iowa and began moving East until finally there was only the Hudson left to cross. And I decided to cross that, too. I’m  living here very happily.

Q. Great. Great. So you had a lot of structure  around this plan. One of the things that I loved about the first time you talked about your retirement to me was that you had – It wasn’t “Oh, I’m retiring and that’s it.” So I’d like you to talk about how you structured this. I remember you telling me that you’re going to do a least  – I think it was at least two new things a week and try different restaurants and study different things.

Oh, yes, I’ve always got ideas about that kind of thing. Yes. The Artist’s Way  by Julia Cameron has been helpful as well. I’ve gone through it several times–on my own, in a mediated way with a leader and other seekers and then on my own again.  Some of the tools that are recommended in that book are morning pages, which I think are great. I write them every day. And an ‘artist’s date; which entails going to some place different on your own at least once a week just to keep the creative juices going. In Walking in the World, Cameron adds walking to the tools that encourage creativity. I walk a lot. But, yes. I do like to have these specific ideas about intentions, I call them. I don’t have goals. I have intentions and then I like to be awake to the possibilities that show up. That’s a process which in itself keeps us alert, I think.

Q. There’s a couple of things that you’ve been sort of consistently working on, the flower arranging, the whole art of conversation and the salon. Could you talk about that up close?

Yes. Well, you see a part of these things grow out of saying “Yes.”  I got into flower arranging because a friend called and said “There’s this weekend offering of Ikebana, would you like to go?” And I say, “Yes.” [Laughter]  I’m so glad I did because all of these years later I am still practicing. I consider it to be my spiritual practice. Flower arranging for me is not just putting some flowers in a vase.

Q. There’s also discipline among other things involved in Ikebana. True?

Yes. Right. I studied first with a sensei who had been trained in Japan prior to the war.  After my weekend intro, I was told that was the kind of teacher I should look for. It just so happened  there was a woman in that weekend course who was studying with the sensei I eventually studied with. That woman and I are still practicing together and she was just here this week. We made our arrangements for the Holiday Season. We always start with meditation.

Each of us brings materials we share. Then we do the meditation and we make our arrangements. After we’ve completed our work and talked about them, we have tea — or lunch, depending on the time of day. It is a wonderful, wonderful practice.  The principles of Ikebana are something that just radiate through my life. This year as I thought about Christmas and decorating, I thought “I really don’t want to do it the way I usually do it. I want it to be different.”  One of the things I have done is to  take away a lot. That is one of the principles in Ikebana.

I want to be Bethene when I grow up!

No, it’s not that I say yes to anything — and in fact, I say no to a lot of projects but what I’m doing is I am pursuing my own creative projects. When they come to mind, if they really engaged me I’m going to go for it. And the first thing I do is I call my agent or email my agent and I say, “I’ve got an idea, what do you think?” and she’ll say, “I don’t think it’ll sell but if you love it, I’m behind you” or “It’s a great idea, let’s pursue it.” I’ve got somebody there I trust and we’re partners in everything that I do and I couldn’t do it without her. She’s a remarkable young woman and having her in my life, my professional life and my private life, my friendship life, is extremely important to me, and she knows it. I cannot tell her enough times how important she is; it’s wonderful, it’s just wonderful.

So I do turn down a lot of projects, because after five anthologies and teaching my courses, I get contacted a lot. I would say at least twice a month where people want me to edit a book and unless it’s something that I find very well written and totally engaging, I don’t do it. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about doing it, of course I would have done it, how can you say no? But at 68, you can say no.

Q. That’s why I asked that question because your response was wonderful and I think there’s a lot in there for women who are operating out of that kind of fear and that I have to say yes.

Absolutely and that fear is like turning down a date. When somebody calls and ask for a date and you’re busy you’re afraid to say I’m sorry, I’m busy because you’re afraid he’ll never call back and ask again. It transfers over so much into our lives and especially I think for women. Men probably have the same insecurities but they don’t discuss it as openly but with women, we are programmed not to let people down, not to say no, not to disappoint people. You’re being the good girl and you get to a certain age where you say, you know what this doesn’t work for me. I’m not infinite, I have a finite time on this universe and I’m 68 I may not live to be 69, who knows?

And so I don’t want to take on projects that I find tedious or the projects that don’t fascinate me and don’t compel me to move forward and I’m also very fortunate that I live not lavishly so I’m able to say no. I have friends who cannot say no because financially they can’t afford to say no. I have other friends who have become wildly successful as novelist, as writers, as speakers and they still don’t know how to say no because they’re always afraid that all of that is going to disappear one day and so they are not looking in terms of what their lives are like, now they’re looking in terms of protecting themselves in the future. And there’s not much you can say to somebody, even a New York Times best seller, who’s afraid of having it all disappear. It won’t all disappear. You’re work is too good, you’re fiction is too compelling but you have to have that sense of confidence too that there will always be something out there will provide that income and it’s wonderful. When I tell people how much I love what I’m doing they — some people look at me a little bit strange because they see their lives and careers winding down and I see my career as taking off. I figure I’ve got another 10 years, maybe 12 years of really strong creative energy, maybe not the physical stamina but the creative energy and I intend to maximize that.

This conversation, part of the 50 Over 50 interviews, made me think about choice and fear. I think Victoria nailed it with the dating analogy. It brought me right back to my college dorm room, sitting there wondering if he’d call. (In the mid-60’s, yes, we still generally waited for the guy to call.) I wonder that about recurring projects. I wonder that as I drop off a proposal. I wonder if anyone will sign up for the class or buy the book. Certainly, anyone who has their own business has these moments.

Over time, though, I find myself getting much better at doing what Victoria describes – I no longer automatically say yes. I have a running list of all the projects I’ve agreed to and absolutely hated. I don’t keep this list (it’s in my head, by the way) to beat myself up or to feel regret. I use it as a filter. When a new project comes my way, I stop and think:

• are these people I want to work with?
• is this something I’ll enjoy doing or feel satisfaction in having done it?
• is this time well spent?

Your list may be different. Still, it’s helpful to have one. If the answers to those questions are no, I pass on the project and perhaps suggest someone more suitable. Then, I sit and wait for that moment of panic to pass. Something else will come along. And I’ve left space for it.

Often, it’s the unexpected learning that has an even greater value, though. In the process, I learned a little about promotions, a fair amount about reviews, and – most surprisingly – the value of using grammar check.

Now, as an English major and long-time writer, I’ve always disdained using the grammar check that’s part of Word. I disable it immediately. I’ve ignored it successfully for decades. Today, it saved me hours of work and I understand its value. But first, a few words about reviews.

Life Blueprints is a compilation of materials that I’ve been using for decades. It’s very dear to my heart, and I know the process works. I was interested in getting the Kindle version of the book out to as many people as possible, so I took advantage of the opportunity to do a three-day free give-away. I timed it right around New Year’s Eve, reasoning that, between parties and parades and football, people might be spending a little time evaluating their lives and they might want a free book to help them do that.

A reasonable number of free books were downloaded. I waited to see what would happen. The first thing that happened was that I got a perfectly dreadful review from someone who had never written a review before (Amazon provides that information). It said that the reviewer couldn’t trust my advice because the book was riddled with typos – she wasn’t able to get past the second page. I was crushed. And mortified. How could this be? I’d used this material for years. It had been edited professionally after being proofread and spell-checked by me.

A few friends also read the book. As it turned out, the reviewer had misidentified the page where the errors were, but errors there were. I needed to fix them. Quickly. I opened my own Kindle version of the book as well as the file I’d uploaded and began to re-proof the document. I knew there was a problem on page 12 and another in the 20’s, but I couldn’t find them.

This is where I swallowed my pride and turned on the grammar check. It found the errors – somehow, “are” instead of “am” had crept in – in seconds. I was hooked. I kept going. Grammar check and I still disagree. I use sentence fragments for emphasis or as a style point. Sometimes, passive is just fine. Sometimes, grammar check is just plain wrong about subject/verb agreement. Still, I found a number of other errors that had gotten past both me and my very talented, very experienced editor. I also found a few suggested wordings that I liked better than my own.

By tomorrow, the revised book will be uploaded and everyone will get a notice that they can download the new version. As I work on my next manuscript, I might even leave the grammar check on. I’ll certainly include it in phase one of the editing process. I’ve learned from the bad review, too. I’ve gone from, “hey, lady – you got all this great advice free and could have maybe been a little nicer,” to thinking that I’m glad to have had the opportunity to correct the situation and produce a version of the book that makes me proud.

So, the learning curve continues – sometimes steep, sometimes smooth, sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating. I’m looking forward to it.

The following comes from Wickipedia’s discussion of synchronicity:

One of Jung’s favorite quotes on synchronicity was from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, in which the White Queen says to Alice: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards”.[12][13]
‘The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday–but never jam to-day.’
‘It MUST come sometimes to “jam to-day,”‘ Alice objected.
‘No, it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every OTHER day: to-day isn’t any OTHER day, you know.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Alice. ‘It’s dreadfully confusing!’
‘That’s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly: ‘it always makes one a little giddy at first–’
‘Living backwards!’ Alice repeated in great astonishment. ‘I never heard of such a thing!’
‘–but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.’
‘I’m sure MINE only works one way,’ Alice remarked. ‘I can’t remember things before they happen.’
‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ the Queen remarked.

What does this have to do with synchronicity? For me, synchronicity is all about being open to all kinds of things. It’s about looking at the world a little differently. It’s about expecting good things to happen – a parking space opening up, meeting someone who leads you to your next job or life partner or passion.

How many ways can you put the details of your life together in a different pattern? How many different groupings are there for your talents? Are you looking for new experiences? Open doors to walk through?

Speaking to so many women who have been open to possibilities has been a joy. Helping others along this path is my passion.

On Sunday Morning, P.J. O’Rourke described Boomers as self-absorbed and happy-go-lucky. He points out that the first segment of this enormous group was born into post-war prosperity and two-parent families. Life was good. Optimism was natural. He divides Boomers into four groups: seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshman and describes the segments in The Wall Street Journal and in an appearance on Sunday Morning.

Seniors were born in the late 40’s, he says. I suspect that a few of us born a year or so earlier feel a closer bond to this group than their own cohort. O’Rourke characterizes this group as pulled between the calm of the previous cohort and their own need for exploration and experimentation. He sees Hillary Clinton and Cheech Marin as representing the diversity of this group. That says it all!

By the early 50’s, when the Juniors came along, experimentation was all. Sex, drugs and rock and roll turned into sex, drugs and protests until many in this group discovered experimenting with computers.  Sophomores,  born in the late 50’s, added a more traditional work ethic to the mix. Freshman, according to O’Rourke, were born into a different universe. Anti-war protests and feminism were things to read about.

As I look at this and ponder the diversity of voices that, by virtue of numbers if nothing else, represent us in the world, I wonder that we ever get anything done. One thing all these groups have in common is that they were all taught to speak up. As what I like to call a cusp-boomer (end-of but not post-war), I’m supposed to be part of the Silent Generation. “Children should be seen and not heard” battled with “express yourself.” Many of us were not so silent – Judith Jamison, Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, Nora Ephron, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Linda Ellerbee, to name a few.

I no longer wonder why Congress is in perpetual gridlock. In fact, I’m amazed any group this diverse ever gets anything done. Still, there’s hope. O”Rourke says:

There is no escape from happiness, attention, affection, freedom, irresponsibility, money, peace, opportunity and finding out that everything you were ever told is wrong.

Behold the baby boom, ye mighty, and despair.

I’ve just added The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way…And It Wasn’t My Fault…And I’ll Never Do It Again to my Kindle. We’ll see where it goes from here. Brad, how will you and your 70 million best buds shape the future?

My Story

I’m in the business of creating happy endings. That’s because my life has been the stuff fairy tales are made of. Let me tell you a little about myself. My mother died before I was nine (1). My easy-going father married the prototypical wicked stepmother (2). She was emotionally distant and physically abusive, and, lacking henchmen to do away with me, she sent me off to Grandmother’s house, where I learned to cope with the resident big bad wolf – my abusive alcoholic grandfather.

I spent a lot of years hiding and being quiet at home while being myself and building strength at school. (3) When I was thirteen, my father died and I began to figure out that my rescue fantasies were just that.

By the time I got out of college, I kissed a lot of frogs (4) and figured out that I needed to be my own Prince Charming and that I could create all the good things I wanted in life on my own. (5) All this makes me a great coach. I know how to help people create what they want – whether it’s a totally different life or a few tweaks, whether it’s leadership skills or retirement planning – I can help you see into your crystal ball (that really means take a good look at yourself) and build on what’s revealed.

I’ve developed some useful skills along the way. Since I’ve worked in education at every level from pre-school through grad school and coached and consulted in corporate, non-profit and government settings, I’ve been able to transfer my own skills to a wide range of settings. Turns out that book Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is right. If you can figure out how to manage four year olds, you can help anyone manage any staff. I’ve coached women returning to work, managers wanting to be happier and more productive, people who felt like failures or had no self-confidence and successful women who wanted just a little bit more in their lives. I’ve been all those women.

Of course, I have I have formal credentials as well. I hold a doctorate in Adult Education and Leadership, with a focus on Workplace Learning, from Teachers College, Columbia University, and master’s degrees in Educational Psychology and Counseling from New York University. I am the current the President of the IAC, an IAC Certified Coach and Board Certified Coach with a doctorate in Adult Learning and Leadership, and Masters’ Degrees in Counseling and Educational Psychology. My Women Living for Today and Tomorrow workshops were featured in The New York Times. I am also a published author, with articles and book chapters on midlife, stress, transitions and transformative learning, including my Life Blueprint series, Mapping Midlife – Sensational at Sixty and the forthcoming Fifty Over Fifty: Stories and Lessons from Fifty Women Who Changed Their Lives.

But I think the first part of the story is more important and I’m pleased to have found a way to tell it.

What’s your story?

Footnotes (sort of)
(1) think Snow White or Cinderella or so many other little girls you remember from your childhood
(2) following the plot line
(3) This reminds me of Little Gerda, from a fairy tale of perhaps Norse origin, who learns survival skills from a band of bandits in the forest.
(4) Yes, The Princess and the Frog
(5) This reminds me of a movie version of Cinderella – Ever After – starring Drew Barrymore.

Another English teacher, this time in high school, reinforced my love of reading. Miss Connelly encouraged me to read widely and taught me to begin to judge what I read and stretch. I turned in an extra-credit book report on a trivial book only to have it returned, accompanied by a long discussion on how to tell great literature from trash.

Oh – and then there was Broadway. Does anyone remember Bye Bye Birdie? If you do, you probably didn’t walk around singing this for years:An English Teacher. Of course, I was the English teacher, not the English teacher’s wife:

You were going to college and get ahead
Instead of being a music business bum
You were going to NYU
And become an English teacher
An English teacher, an English teacher.
If only you’d been an English teacher
We’d have a little apartment in Queens
You’d get a summer vacation
And we would know what life means
A man who’s got his masters
Is really someone
How proud I’d be if you had become one
It could have been such a wonderful life
I could have been Mrs. Peterson
Mrs. Albert Peterson,
Mrs. Phi Beta Kappa Peterson,
The English teacher’s wife!
Albert:
Oh Rosie, I told you as soon as I get a few bucks ahead…
Rosie:
You said it before, Albert!
And along came Conrad Birdie…
And it was goodbye Jeffery Josser
Hello William Morris
Goodbye NYU,
Hello all ALMAELOU
‘Cause when you wrote Conrad’s first hit
Agha-bagha-boo
Then I knew that was it
You were through with English
Forever…
An English teacher is really someone
How proud I’d be if you had become one
It could have been such a wonderful life
I could have been Mrs. Peterson
Mrs. Albert Peterson,
Mrs. Phi Beta Kappa Peterson,
The English teacher’s wife!

I did get two Masters at NYU, though. I also discovered exactly how tall high school students are and what a poor disciplinarian I was. I didn’t even last a week before fleeing to the safety of pre-school. Still, my love of reading remains. Those early influences on my writing remains. My respect for teachers gets stronger every day.