Take The Time And Focus Challenge
We often hear that the way to overcome the perception that we haven’t got enough time to do our leisure activities is to schedule them into the diary so that’s what I did. If I also worked “smarter” I would make the time to fit in such things as the gym and piano practise – sorted!
Well, not quite. I was doing the things I’d scheduled, so that was good. What wasn’t so good was the feeling I had that I should be working, or thinking “When I get back I’ll have to do this” or, even worse, using my piano practice time to think about work and family issues and guess what? I wasn’t doing too well with the practice.
Well, I had the most amazing email from one of my clients saying she’d decided to focus on changing her attitude and challenging herself to do things differently, and it was filled with her successes. It was a joy to read. That made me realise that maybe if I focussed 100% on each thing I was either working on or doing instead of work, then I might get some real value out of my day.
So here’s what happened next. I wrote down the tasks I carried out in the course of a week to see where I could work a bit smarter – did I really spend that amount of time on emails?
I then started to keep a notebook of how my piano practice was going and noticed all the things I did right and how being more relaxed and interested in what I was playing could help me become absorbed in the moment.
The gym was a little bit more of a test because focussing totally on the workout became boring, but I used the time to let my mind wander over work issues and kept finding new ideas popping into my head without the least bit of concentration from me. What a bonus!
The next time you feel “time poor” have a go at this. See if there’s any way you can work smarter, then totally focus on one thing at a time and get real value from your day. It really works!
About the Author:
Pam Stokes is a Business & Personal Development Coach. Besides coaching, she provides interactive online programmes for busy people, supervises newly qualified and trainee coaches, runs workshops in stress management and a Diploma Course in NLP. Free downloads are available at http://www.pamstokesassociates.co.uk