This is a trap that I find myself completely caught in. I am working on a project on my computer and all of a sudden I hear the familiar “dah duh, dah duh” of my email box announcing that I’ve got mail. Curious, I stop what I am doing and checkout what has just arrived. Or even worse, a little window pops up with, “Message from Wendy”. I wonder, “What does Wendy have to say”. Fifteen minutes later I am finished responding to Wendy and a few other messages that have arrived. I am now totally derailed from what I have been doing on my project. Email is a wonderful tool but it also can be a MAJOR interrupter and time waster. Try turning the bell and popup off. If email is critical to what you do at work, schedule a consistent time (like the top of the hour) to check email. Otherwise, fight the urge to check email too often – maybe only check it 2-3 times a day. You will be surprised how your focus will increase as well as your productivity.
Nature Fills Up a Vacuum
I teach a college class on Leadership, two evenings a week, two semesters a year. I take the summer semester off. My excuse always is that I want to focus on writing in the summer and I feel like I am too busy during school to really concentrate. I love teaching so much but I do find that I look forward to the summer break.
The summer break comes and now I have all this extra time on my hands, zam, boom, bang, zip. It is time for Fall semester and what have I accomplished? Ouch!
Nature truly abhors a vacuum. It is a physics thing, but it also seems real when it comes to managing our time. If you don’t intentionally fill up your time, someone or something else will.
Continuous Improvement
I have the privilege to work at FranklinCovey (my day job). For 12 months I had the opportunity to act as host and now I continue acting as the Producer of a “thought leader” webcast. We bring into the studio a guest and talk with them about a topic that they have an insight or expertise on.
It has been a great experience for me to prepare for the interviews (reading their book and/or watching their videos) but to also hear from the guest their ideas first hand on how to grow and improve. It really has forced me to read more books, consider new principles and even change my paradigms. I am grateful for this because I haven’t always pushed myself to continually learn and improve.
What are you doing to continually improve your “mental muscles”? Just like your body, you need to exercise and challenge your brain. Otherwise, it too can get flabby and out of shape. Decide today one thing that you can do to strengthen the “matter” between your ears. Here is a link to our interview with Dr. Daniel Amen on “Brain Health”.
Just Improve "A Little"
A small idea as we look to improve ourselves in 2019 and beyond is to think “baby steps”. We want to lose that extra 20 pounds by next week or write a novel by the end of the month. We want to improve relationships today and be perfectly organized in just 15 minutes. This can be overwhelming and not realistic.
But, something that does seem doable is to focus each day on just doing a little more, being a little better, doing one element of a big goal. A simple task can go a long way as you pace yourself for life’s marathon rather than a sprint. It might take a little longer but at least daily progress moves us closer to a great performance.
New Years Blues
At the beginning of the year, it can be very overwhelming to look at our “circus” and think of all the areas where we want to improve our lineup. It can even get depressing for some. New Years resolutions and our goals for the upcoming year can seem daunting and pretty soon we forget about them so that we don’t have to face that we are falling short.
I take strength from the thought, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Break down your goals into bite size pieces. Spread your goals throughout the year and also be realistic as we make resolutions.
It is also important to look at what acts can be removed from our circus as we look to add new ones. Nothing weighs more heavily on a performer than a line up that is too crowded.