Expeditiousness & Balance
Hi, Y’all,
You know I love words. Blame on it my grandmother and the fact she was an English professor. Spending my summers with her, as a child and pre-teen, was a constant grammar lesson. At the time, I didn’t appreciate it as much as I do now. Grandma Marion, wherever you are, I hope you can feel my appreciation and if I could, I would take back every eye roll and snotty huff I made when you tried to teach me something.
I would have also requested you instituted more phonetics into my life, I still can’t spell worth a darn. At least technology has now advanced enough to help me with that. Spell check was nice but wasn’t enough for me, I spell so poorly that oftentimes spell check can’t even figure out what I’m saying. The best advancement of them all is voice recognition. I just talk to my MacBook through my Airpods and it writes exactly what I'm saying. I don't even have to know how to spell anymore, I can just be as verbose as I want to be. As a matter of fact y'all, that's how I'm writing this article right now. So now that we've taken that little detour into memory lane and how technology has saved me in the present, let's get to my point.
Expeditiousness noun
1. the property of being prompt and efficient
I fell upon this word a couple of years ago while reading a real estate book by David Greene.
“Expeditiousness: The speed at which I accomplish a task or objective. Questions to ask: Where am I slowing myself down with activities that don’t have an impact on achieving my desired goal? Where do I need to increase my sense of urgency? Where am I losing out on opportunity because I am—or my system is—too slow?”
That exact statement hit me like a ton of bricks and since then this word has been rocking my world. I’m a “systems” girl, so anything that keeps me tuned into efficiency makes my heart soar. “Expeditiousness” is my go-to thought and word when I feel stressed out, overwhelmed, or in need of some focus. I use it like Mary Poppins sings “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. I’m being quite literal, I do sing-song using Expeditiousness around my house and usually when I’m by myself. I have it written on my mirror in a dry erase marker. Yup, I’l. admit it I’m in love with the word “Expeditiousness”. That simple “ness” at the end makes all the difference. That’s what makes this word a noun. I’m sure you are familiar with the verb usage of this word.
Expeditious verb
1. marked by or acting with prompt efficiency
I was all about that verb, it quite often represents how I tackle life. The distinguishing subtleties in the noun changed the way I look at everything. You see I don’t desire to be expeditious in all my activities. I strive for expeditiousness in my entire life. Let me explain the difference, take the simple scenario of grocery shopping.
Scenario #1: I can make a grocery list, do it isle by isle, make sure to shop at off hours and that the tank is full of gas. In this situation, it’s going to take me approximately 2:30 hours, including unpacking the groceries when I get home.
Scenario #2: I make that same grocery list online and have it delivered using Amazon Fresh as part of my Prime benefits. (Side Note: I’m not meaning for this to sound like an Amazon commercial, they are just so darn convenient and what I use) Admittedly, the first time I made my online grocery list it was a bit frustrating to find all my items, I had to slow down but with some patience, I accomplished it within 2 hours. Time to put away the groceries after delivery, 30 minutes. The total time is still 2:30 hours. But wait there’s more…. the expeditiousness comes into the factor on your second order. Like most folks, I pick up the same things every couple of weeks, now it takes me 5 minutes to add that shopping list to my cart and make edits. By the time I put away the delivery it’s been a grand total of 35 minutes. I turned a 2:30 hour task into 35 minutes,
By looking for expeditiousness and being less expeditious in each individual activity, I’ve created more time for myself. Thus allowing for a key factor in all of life .. you guessed it,
Balance noun
3 a : an aesthetically pleasing integration of elements
// achieving balance in a work of artb : grammar : the juxtaposition in writing of syntactically parallel (see PARALLEL entry 1 sense 3c) constructions containing similar or contrasting ideas (such as "to err is human; to forgive, divine")
5 : mental and emotional steadinessI
// doubt that Thoreau would be thrown off balance by the fantastic sights and sounds of the 20th century.— E. B. White
These two words, Expeditiousness & Balance, have been my revolving theme for this past month. Why do you ask? Because if you didn’t know by now, Naughty N’awlins is just 2 weeks away. As a matter of fact, by the time you're reading this, I’ll be in a Lyft heading to LAX, and in Nola by the evening. It’s not too late to join me and the rest of the framily there, book your tickets now. When you see me at one of the parties or out on Bourbon Street, stop me and say hi. Looking forward to Naughty N’awlins!
If you are looking for a little more expeditiousness and balance in your life, check out my recommendation for this month.
Much Love,
Minx🖤💋
Minx’s Monthly Mind Expansion:
July’s Recommend Reading:
High-Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way by Brendon Burchard
There are a ton of books about habits, I just started reading a different book on the same subject this week. So what makes High-Performance Habits stand out for me is the process of finding and bringing pleasure with purpose into your habits. I highly recommend it, not only for the physiological understanding but for the fantastic actionable steps that you can choose to implement into your life.
July’s Recommend Activity:
Glo.com: Apple App Store (click here) Goggle Play (click here)
Get your yoga on! I’ll even gift you a class, if you are one of the first 5 people to comment on this month’s Minx Latest Love post on Naughty N’awlins Instagram, you can experience the Glo for yourself. I’ll send you a link to one of my favorite classes, just comment on your yoga level, the length, and the style of the class you prefer and I’ll slide it into your DMs. Be on the lookout for my IG post this week. This is actually one of the perks of being a Glo member, you can share up to 5 classes a month for free. It’s done in the spirit of communal giving, I’m sure with a bit of marketing behind it.
If you’re into yoga, pilates, and meditation then Glo is going to be your kinda jam. I’m a lover of yoga and I’ve always preferred an in-studio practice. Alas with my travel schedule this leads to an infrequent practice or a massive search through the black hole of YouTube. I recently decided to try out a few yoga apps, I tested 3 and fell in love with Glo. To my greatest surprise, I’ve found 3 of my favorite teachers, from when I considered myself a yogi, on there. This was when I was in my mid 20’s and gifted myself a year of unlimited yoga classes at my favorite studio in Los Angeles, City Yoga, it was a short 8-minute bike ride from my house. For that year, City Yoga was my second home. So when I found 3 of my teachers on Glo I was sold, well that and I generally liked the app and price structure better. It feels like I’m almost in the studio. I guess it’s a good thing I decided to bring back my habit of yoga to add a bit more balance into my life.