The last couple of weeks have been pretty darn good. And when I look back on what has been different, it really boils down to a matter of focus.

Focus of mind, for sure. I have been getting up early, exercising and then trying to stay “present” and work on the work. I haven’t been doing very much “surfing for surfing’s sake” and have gotten a ton accomplished. So yes, focus of mind works.

Also, and probably more importantly, I have tried to enhance my focus in regards to purpose. I have spent some time just slowing down so I could think more clearly. I feel like I have spent more quality time with my children than I normally would, because I has consciously tried to put all of the work out of my mind for periods of the day. I have also thought more deeply about business and balance issues. I have been able to identify some paths I want to take and things I want to pursue. Life has still been extremely busy (had a server crash today), but I feel less “hurried and worried” than I have in the past in similar circumstances.

And honestly, I think my resolve to get up earlier has helped with all of this. I have time in the day now (in the morning) to center myself, pray and meditate. Because of this, I feel like I can be a bit more deliberate the rest of the day, no need to rush quite as much as usual. I have already taken care of some very important things by 7am, so the rest is just butter, in a way.

This whole trying to change my life thing is turning into a very long road, a very difficult target. Some things have progressed quite well, one project in particular should launch at the end of the month. I am excited about this one and can’t wait to see what it can do.

One of the reasons I’m excited about this project is because it is different. Most of what I have done for the last five or six years has been VERY traditional (read: boring) and not really a move from business as usual. Not that it is earth shattering, it’s just a new type of project and idea for me. I am looking forward to the lessons learned on this one. I am tired of the same lessons over and over with my “9 to 5″.

Another thing that is exciting about this one for me is the work structure of it. I have made it my goal to spend no more than 10 hours a week on it (I’ve held to that, pretty much) and to do it “off hours”. It’s working well and giving me a bit of the juice I need to do my standard stuff during the day. One of my long term goals has become to make this my pattern going forward, no more ten hours per week on any given “business” or “project”. It probably sounds lazy to some, but it keeps my interest engaged. Working 40 to 60 hours a week on one thing/business definitely makes me a dull boy. Not exactly the advice you read in the standard business books, but I no longer have the goals outlined in those books.

Anyway, I started this post on a bit of a down note. I feel that way right now. One of the benefits mentioned above was that I have more juice to work on my “9 to 5″. That’s been good and I have been far more focused and way more productive. But at the same time, I find my mind working on other “new” projects I would love to get to, but simply lack the time. I wish I didn’t have my current obligations holding me back from going full bore into this new stuff I am enjoying so much.

I’m about to find out. I leave tomorrow for a one week cruise in Mexico, I’m looking forward to it … should be fun. The kids are staying home … my wife and I are going with friends from our college days. The laptop is staying at home too, which will make this first time in about six years I have been away from my computer for longer than 48 hours! That actually sounds great. Just me, the most beautiful woman in the world and one very long book.

The thing is, the past two weeks have been so stressful preparing for the trip that I wonder if the trip will only SEEM relaxing by comparison. And then the week after a vacation is always crazy with “catch up and patch up” duties. Another reason to seek the 4-Hour Work Week and the attendant “mini-retirements”. Just the general slowing down of life instead of revving the engine way too high just so I can slam on the brakes for a second or two.

After returning from a fun weekend with family, you’d think that I would be motivated to jump back into work and “the grind”. But I’m not. In fact, I’m also worse off than before I left. Yesterday was a terrible day at work, full of disctractions and attitudes. I got very little done and even fewer important things done.

Today started the same, so I re-routed my mindset and decided to “clear some space”. I’ve read that a common Buddhist (read: mystical, East oriented, completely hip and cool — whatever) practice is to clean up your space when you feel stuck or down. Well, I decided to relent on this point and give it a try. I took a couple of hours to clean a closet that has needed it for about a year as well as some of my personal (read: bedside) space. It has been so junked up for so long that it has weighed on my mind as one of many “must get around to” items.

I still haven’t gotten much done today, but I feel like it wasn’t a wasted day like yesterday turned out to be. And I have more energy and might even get around to some work tonight, if the “goddess of beauty and brilliance” doesn’t have other plans! I even had some ideas for work as I was doing the fairly mindless “sort and toss” work of cleaning and reorganizing.

Lesson learned … this time, anyway. Next time work is going south, I’ll try to find an outlet that allows for greater energy as well as a break from the drudgery.

A guest post on ZenHabits takes on the issue of a fast paced world and the benefits of slowing it down. The guest post was written by Christopher Richards, author of SlowDownNow.org, a site I will take some time to look over … when I get a chance .

I had a conversation with my eight year old son the other day that has been on my mind since. He was asking when his “half-birthday” would fall … his birthday is in February, so his “half-birthday” will be in August. Anyway, he then asked if I would be getting him any presents for this so called “half-birthday”! I told him, of course, I wouldn’t and that Christmas is just a short time away and he would get plenty of gifts then. After the expected groan, I said, “But wasn’t Christmas just like … yesterday? And that was about half a year ago, and we only have another half of a year to go until the next one. Just be patient, it will come before you know it.” He rolled his eyes and said back, “Christmas was forever ago, and I don’t think I can wait that long before getting more presents!”

Aside from the obvious issue of overblown expectations regarding constant gift receiving, I was thinking about the difference between his and my perceptions of six months. The thing is, I feel like the flow of time has been increasing exponentially for the past decade or so. Ever since I got married, started working, had a child, started my own business, had a few more children … you get the idea. What is interesting to me is that as time has become more important and the supply of “ultimate time” (the time ’til I die!) diminishes, it seemingly moves faster. Not that time itself is speeding up, but my perception of it reads it differently. Like a baseball hitter in the zone can “slow the ball down” through awareness and perception. But right now, I see a fastball coming not at 95mph, but more like 250mph. And if six months feels like a day or two, that means I have about 4 months to live! And in about three weeks my eight year old son will move out of the house and starts his own “accelerated life line”.

This does have to do with my goals. Part of what I want to create is a slower lifestyle that is more apt to slower, more connective moments with my wife and kids. So, I don’t have the financial resources to do this right now, but I am learning that money is often irrelevant where creativity can pick up the slack. I need to figure out some strategies, tricks and actions I can take to slow my life down. And I need to do it now, not only for my own sake, but to try and teach my kids a better way of living. Example is everything in raising children and they will almost certainly stay on the path I helped establish for them.

So like I said, I will be reading more on SlowDownNow.org, but first I’ve got about two weeks of work to get through today!

If you haven’t heard of this book, then you’ve either been in a coma for the last month or you spend more time having fun offline than online (good for you!). I can’t say that this book is the source of my current viewpoint or frustrations or of really anything. The fact is, I have been feeling like a deferred-life slave for a couple of years now. This book has given me some vocabulary and mindsets to work with, but I have known about these strategies for quite some time.

What this book has done for me is give me a kick in the pants to get going on some things that have been in the planning stage for a loooong time. I turn 34 in a less than a month, and I am far short of where I’d hoped to be at this point in my life. While I have never planned on retiring early (or otherwise), I do have some goals that require more time than my current lifestyle affords.

I am going to create a few posts out of the material in this book. I have implemented a few of the techniques and tips with (to me) pretty amazing early success, and gained a few hours a week in the process. For now, I would suggest you go buy The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich and get started on reading it. If you are “web worker” or just need some new ideas on strategies for what Tim Ferriss calls “Lifestyle Design”, you need this book.

It isn’t gospel, but it can be useful and eye opening if you can creatively conceive an implementation in your own life.