Success Tip: Make the Most of Your “Negative Space”

Sometimes the greatest opportunities we have are in all the places we fail to look at. I learned this recently when I carved my first Halloween pumpkin!

Yes, this was the first time ever that I engaged in that holiday tradition.

Many of you may find this to be a shocking revelation. “What? You’re 37 years old and you never carved a pumpkin before?!?!”

Nope. Just never happened. My parents weren’t depriving me, and they didn’t think it was demonic or anything. I just never asked, and they never offered.

Now I am dating a girl who enjoys engaging in the pumpkin carving tradition, and she decided that we should carve pumpkins together.

I have to say, I went into it with a simultaneous sense of excitement and dread. Excitement, because hey, I was going to carve my first pumpkin! Cool! Dread, because let’s face it: between emptying out the pumpkin innards and carving out the fine jack o’lantern details, it seemed like a lot of work. Dirty, exacting, painstaking work.

Overall, it was a fun experience and the end result made it all worth while:

Now, check ’em out with the lights off:

Pretty cool, huh?

We thought both pumpkins looked really good, but we both agreed that the skull looked better. It took us a minute to figure out why, and then we had it:

The skull is formed by using the “negative space.”

In art, negative space is defined as “the space around and between the subject(s) of an image” (from Wikipedia)

Here’s a classic example:

With our pumpkins, in the “window” one, the physical objects (window pane, cat, spider) were all formed with the pumpkin. In the skull o’lantern, all the solid stuff (skull bone and teeth) was created by empty space, and the “empty space” (mouth opening, eye sockets) were created with solid pumpkin material. This created a very cool effect once the candle was put inside.

This got me thinking about the concept of “Negative Space” in our own lives. We pay so much attention to all the things we “do,” such as activities, jobs, missions, tasks, chores, etc.

Sometimes, however, our greatest strengths and opportunities come not from all the things we do, but from the things we don’t do. From the quiet space amidst the chaos.

In life, the Negative Space is all that time around all the time we spend, “doing.” It could be the rare quiet moment we have to ourselves. Or “wasted time” in traffic, lines, and waiting rooms. It may entail the “dead time” between when you get home from work and when you eat dinner.

You may not even be aware of:

1. How much Negative Space you have in your life
2. How much of it you are letting pass you by.

What’s cool is that when I carved the skull pumpkin, I had no idea what it was going to look like. As I was carving it I thought, “wow, this looks awful. Just like a big blob of pumpkiny nothing.” It wasn’t until the candle was inside it and the light illuminated the negative space that I was able to appreciate it for what it was…

Many people bounce between two extremes:

1. Running around working and “doing” at full speed
2. Totally vegged out

I know I bounce between those poles quite frequently.

Negative Space is the third option. It is that quiet emptiness where you aren’t running around “doing” anything, but at the same time your mind is still engaged in the present.

Proper use of your life’s “Negative Space” can help you recharge, refocus, and make the most of your “active time.”

(Side Rant: This would seem to be a logical place to drop in the DeBussy quote, “Music is the space between the notes.” But I won’t. You know why? Because it’s a stupid quote. It has always bothered me. Music is not the space between the notes. If it was, then you could just drop any old notes anywhere and the space between them would still be music. Poppycock!

I get it, it’s a very inspirational quote that reminds us that the pauses and spaces are important. A more apt quote would be “the space between the notes is as important as the notes.” But that doesn’t sound so slick, does it? Music is no more the space between the notes than comedy is the pause between the jokes. Are those pauses critically important? Yup. Would the best timed pauses in the world matter if your jokes sucked? Not so much.

Oh, to make this rant relevant to you, let’s just say this is my way way of saying, “your life is not the negative space you create.” You still have to do something. However, the negative space is important. You need balance, and most people tend to have zero negative space. End Rant)

Here are five ways to create and use Negative Space in your own life:

Think

The more time I spend in the world, the more convinced I become that “thinking” is becoming a lost art.

Take a few minutes during the day to think. When you first wake up, don’t flip on the TV or rush to get your day started. Just take a few minutes to think. Think about your day, your life, about what’s important. A few minutes in the morning can help center and focus your entire day.

You can also spend some time thinking weekly and monthly about your life in bigger terms. You don’t need to go away for a five day “quiet retreat.” Just a few minutes of fully engaged thought can do wonders for you.

As the Buddhists say, “Don’t just do something, sit there!”

Question: When was the last time you just stopped and thought about your day, week, year, or life?

Reflect

Reflecting is like thinking, but while thinking usually concerns the present or future, reflecting is about the past. It can be worthwhile to look back on what got us to where we are so we can then best decide how to proceed.

Keep in mind, I am not advocating dwelling, stressing over, or feeling guilty about the past. Your energy and mindset are important here.

Instead of avoiding the past or dwelling on it, simply sit quietly and think back over your history without judgement. What can you learn? What can you do better? What worked that you should be doing more of?

If negative thoughts and judgement arise, accept and let them go. Don’t get emotional with this. Just simply reflect and learn.

Question: Are you taking time to reflect on the past and learn from your own success and setbacks?

Pause

Creating some “negative space” in the midst of crisis is a powerful way to slow down, stay calm, and make smart decisions. Too often when the Ding hits the fan people switch into “reaction mode.” They leap to their feet and do do something, anything, even if that something isn’t such a smart option.

When things go wrong (and they will) remember to pause, breath, and think before jumping into hasty action. That little bit of “space” creates the calm in the chaos you need to properly move forward.

Question: How do you respond to the unexpected? Do you jump into action, or do you pause, breath, and think?

Contrast

If you spend your whole life chasing after what’s missing, you’ll never have a chance to appreciate what you already have. Sometimes the “negative space” in our lives creates powerfully useful images if we are willing to look at them.

For example:

1. Depressed about being single? Take the time now to pursue hobbies and dreams that you won’t have time to when you are with someone.
2. Didn’t get hired for your dream job?
3. Don’t have enough money? Use your “forced frugality” to learn and practice financial habits that will serve you for a lifetime (like using coupons and the free library).
4. Unemployed? Take advantage of the free time to learn a new skill that will make you more employable in the future.

Too often people focus obsessively on what’s missing or what’s wrong in their lives. This does nothing but make them depressed, keeps them paralyzed, and prevents them from taking advantage of the opportunities they actually do have.

If you’re willing to look for it, you can often find tremendous advantage within the areas you consider “bad” in your life.

Question: “What’s the strength in what’s missing from your life?”

Eliminate

I know a very small number of people who’s days are packed end to end who are truly happy with that setup. If you’re one of those people, good for you – you don’t need to eliminate. For the vast majority of people, however, their busy busy days are filled with a variety of activities that:

1. Don’t excite or energize us.
2. Drain our energy.
3. They don’t want to do but we feel we have to.

A day that is jam packed with draining activities is one that is devoid of negative space.

One of my favorite Bruce Lee quotes is, “It is not daily increase but daily decrease; hack away the unessential.” If you are dissatisfied, stop trying to look for new and exciting things to add to your life, but rather first look for the unessential you can hack away.

Do less and create some negative space that will allow you to think, reflect, and fully appreciate the things you want and love.

Question: – Do you need more or less? What unessential things can you hack away?

You don’t need to start with giant swaths of negative space. Just start out with a little thinking time and cutting out a few non-essentials. Once you see the value of negative space, you will be motivated to add more of it to your life!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a pumpkin to dispose of. It seems no one told me that after a few days the pumpkin will grow fungus, collapse in on itself, and release water like it was peeing…

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For a great free resource on this topic, check out Leo Babauta’s ebook, “Focus.” Leo is the owner of Zen Habits, a terrific blog on simplifying and improving your life. You can download and read “Focus” here.