Juggling elephants

I read a book with the title 'Juggling elephants' recently. It was a book about how to organize our lives better. As usual, good advice usually comes in few words and advice with many words is usually not good. It is a little thin book with big fonts and one can finish it in less than 2 days at most. So much for the description and let me move to the insights I gained.

The first lesson is that juggling elephants is really no fun i.e. we struggle in our lives trying to balance so many things. At the end of the day, we are not sure if we are managing our lives or our lives managing us.

Our lives can be likened to a circus with 3 rings showing different performances.Each ring represents either 'work', 'relationship' and 'self'.

In these 3 rings, the most important thing is not the acts in the rings. It is the ringmaster i.e ourselves. The Ringmaster has the greatest impact to the performance. Why so? Because the ringmaster's job is more than just introducing the coming acts. He is also the person who manages what shows to add in and which shows to start first.

During showtime, the ringmaster can only introduce one performance in one of the rings at one time. Hence, the ringmaster cannot be in all 3 rings at once. Sounds familiar? How many times we are in a holiday and we think about work and while working, we think about family? Remember that we can only be one ring at one time.

Even though there is a perfect line-up of acts for each ring, the ringmaster always reviews the next event before bringing into the ring. Just because we have planned something, that doesn't mean we must execute it if it is not ready. So, if we have 4 things we plan to do and one needs some feedback from another party, we must decide not to do it because it will not be complete and will waste our time.

Then, naturally someone may ask if that's the case then we will be short of doing something. Remember that the key to success in the circus is to have quality acts in ALL 3 rings i.e. it is always the OVERALL performance that determine our success and not an individual activity.

So at all times, we must ask ourselves 'which ring should I be at this moment?' and 'what acts should I be focusing on right now?'

When we plan the acts in one of the rings, list the acts and look for new acts that can be brought into a particular ring. However, do caution that there is no shortage of acts in a circus. So, do not try to put too many acts into the rings just because they are good. Remember it is the quality of acts that determines the success, not the individual acts.


Every act must serve a purpose and hence not all acts belong in our circus even if some are good. Sometimes when we plan our things, we do have a lot of acts that answer to the same purpose. We need to make sure whether these acts are necessary. We don't have to be in SPCA and PAWS on the same day.

In the list of acts we have made, line up the acts based on what will create an effective performance. Again, it is not the individual acts that determine the success.

When we line up our acts for 3 rings, it is important to schedule major acts in each ring at different times to maintain efficiency and effectiveness. We need to space out the things we like to do so that we don't stumble under our own ambitions. At the end of it, we may not enjoy at all.

If we have to deal with people in our rings,

- remember that the relationship between the ringmaster and the performers affects the success of the circus;

- and so, every team member is important and has to be fully engaged to make the act successful;

- consistently offer positive reinforcement for good behaviour and constructive feedback for negative behaviour;

- people have needs way beyond the obvious ones;

- people sometimes need to relax and not take themselves too seriously.

A circus always has intermission. It is a time for the audience to relax and stretch themselves. But intermission is also a crucial part of creating a better performance. Hence, we still need to take a break (intermission) from our circus and during this time, we ask ourselves the question "what have we done to improve our performance in one or more of the rings?"

Finally, always remember that 'our circus is only as good as the next performance'. Whatever we have done well is in the past. If we want to be good, we must be good in the next act.

If life is a circus, then make sure we are the best ringmaster!