11 Jun Do you know someone who always has time?

He had parked his car a bit further away because his stubborn route planner had led him to a sandy road. But I had already noticed him. It took a while for the door to open. He walked to the other side and helped his children out of the car. They were visibly tired from the long journey. Both were wearing princess dresses. He helped them put on their little jackets and buttoned them up. His careful gestures caught my attention. First, he helped the youngest, then the older one. He left the car standing in the middle of the field. He took both children by the hand and walked calmly between them towards the house, a smile on his face. The epitome of calm. My brother Pieter took his time. Often it took a while before you had his attention, whether it was in real life or on the phone. But once you had his attention, he was completely there for you.

Do you know someone who always has the time?

My parents had a friend whom we called Uncle Louis and who also belongs in this illustrious list. Louis had kind bright eyes and a soft voice. He smiled when he entered and made you feel as a child that this was a special moment on a special day. He quietly listened to what you said, made a joke, and asked a question. It is pleasant to be in the presence of someone who has the time.

What was their secret?
And that time, I just didn’t have. I felt rushed and never ready. Despite all my good intentions, the task list in front of me kept calling and signaling at me. ‘Come on, this should have been done a long time ago and you should have done this too.’ I divided my list into three parts. That made it clear. In the three parts, I made chapters with recognizable titles, but no matter how much care I put into my lists, they always glared at me. How did Pieter do it? How did my uncle do it? What was their secret?

I thought that their secret was initially an inner decision, a choice for a lifestyle. Now that I was experiencing the tension within myself with those nervous little lists in front of me, I felt a similar decision ripening within me. I picked up the lists, carefully reviewed the content once more, and crumpled them into a ball which I then threw in the recycling bin.

By throwing away the lists, I closed something off but also opened a door. What I discarded along with the lists was a visible system based on control. Without these lists, I discovered the existence of a secret world within me that had been eluding me until then. Apparently, there was an invisible system within me that also kept track of the tasks I wanted to undertake in the future, compared them with each other, and presented them to me at the right moment.

Exploration
I called this world: the basement of the unconscious. I began to explore this space more and more. I discovered that I could communicate well with this basement. I could assign tasks to it as much as I wanted. I didn’t need to organize them; the basement itself took care of that for me. I also noticed that once I had placed a task in the basement, by first examining it properly, it would evolve over time. Without having to do anything, good ideas and solutions to problems would arise. The tasks would enrich themselves overnight with past knowledge and experience.
I made another special discovery: in the middle of the cellar stood a figure with a blindfold over his eyes. Whenever I thought: what is the best thing I can do right now, this person would offer me the task that best fit the current moment based on their intuition. I understood who this person was that had always resided within me, but whom I had overlooked due to my controlling checklist behavior: it was my intuition.

I learned the conditions to be able to trust this intuition and navigate with it over the waves of time. I called it Time Surfing. Later, I wrote a book about it. The book is titled: ‘I’ve got time’.

Meanwhile, Time Surfing has become a recognized method used in many fields: from the nurses in the surgical department of ‘Spaarne Gasthuis’ to all 140 employees of the company ‘Secrid’. From the students of ‘ArtEZ art academy’ to the police of East Netherlands. About 30 trainers of Stress-free Working with Time Surfing have already been trained. They teach this method to their colleagues such as Hans Huls (senior accountant at BDO) or use it in their coaching or provide open training.

*This post has been automatically translated from Dutch