Leading and Thriving through Disruption
not enough of your day is scheduled. As a result, the demands of each day can cause you to lose focus, suck up your time, and deplete your mental energy, which leads to not much getting done. You’re faced with new challenges when you’re working from home. You now have the 24/7 onslaught of moment-by-moment distractions that prevent you from getting anything meaningful done. As a result, your brain is continually operating at a very superficial level. You’re starting. You’re stopping. You’re restarting things all day long. You know you need to make specific phone calls tomorrow, but where is that time set aside in your calendar? You know that you’re working out tomorrow, but is it scheduled for a specific time? You get my point. What gets scheduled gets done. Want to improve in this area? At the end of each day, set aside 30 minutes to review all of your follow-ups from the current day, and put them in your calendar for the next day. And when you do, treat these appointments with yourself as priorities.
A recent HR study done by Dovico.com found that many of us spend more than half of our working day being interrupted! Here’s what the research showed: • We have an average of seven interruptions per hour • We spend five minutes per interruption • We spend four hours daily dealing with interruptions • 80% of interruptions were rated as “little or no value” • Removing trivial interruptions saves three hours a day Second, find a space with no visual or audio distractions. Your brain is hardwired to focus on sound and movement, so help it by getting to an area where it can get strategic. And if you haven’t invested in a pair of excellent noise-canceling headphones yet, you should! Doing so allows you to listen to whatever ambient noise or music you desire. Finally, with fewer distractions, you’ll find you won’t need as much time to get things done. Here’s an exercise I challenge you to try for the next week: Set a timer for 15 minutes. Then tackle your most important project for the day or the project you’ve been avoiding for months. Fifteen minutes. No distractions. You’ll be surprised to see just how much progress you’ll make when you let your brain get focused.
DARRIN JOHNSON Senior VP of Sales @darrinToGo
@darrinjohnson1
We’ve all experienced disruption in both big and small ways because of these unique times. Some of you have been on the front lines taking care of the sick. Others have been working essential jobs to help keep our society and economy moving. And others have felt the genuine sting of either losing income or the fear of job insecurity. Through it all, I’ve been amazed at the resilience exhibited by people around the world. We’ve adapted our behaviors big time. Some of these behaviors have resulted in massive societal shifts in how we communicate and work. Suddenly, our routines, habits, and paradigms are changing. Many of us are now spending more time at home and working remotely. How can we thrive in this new environment? Better Habits We’ve all learned that the habits of washing hands, cleaning surfaces, and practicing “social distancing” will help keep us healthy. Similarly, you can learn better habits that will help you be more productive every day. David Allen, author of Getting Things Done , is one of my favorite personal-productivity experts and is also just a great human being. He teaches a powerful principle – calendar everything in your life. It might be the simplest yet most radical thing you could do to help you establish the right habits in your life. What do I mean by calendaring? Right now, look at your calendar for the next day. How much of your day is allocated toward specific activities that are important to you? For example, phone calls, projects, errands, research, exercise, etc. If you’re like me, you’ll find
Block Out Time to Focus on Three Big Tasks
What are the three most important things you need to get done tomorrow? It’s far too easy to get caught up in trying to tackle the many smaller tasks and “fires” that arise throughout the day. For the next five days, build your daily calendar around the three most important projects, and address these projects during the first part of your day. You may be surprised at how much more focused and happier you are throughout the day, knowing you’re working on what truly matters in your life.
Feed Your Body & Soul
Now that you’re working more effectively by implementing a few of the practices outlined in this article, here’s how you bring it all together to deliver consistent, meaningful change to your life. Schedule regular exercise and movement every day. Ensure you have only healthy food options in your house. Surround yourself with people and things that make your life better. Dr. Jim Afremow is a sports psychology specialist and the author of one of my favorite books, The Champion’s Mind: How Great Athletes Think, Train, and Thrive . In the book, Afremow talks about an old Cherokee legend known as the tale of two wolves. A grandfather explains to his warrior grandson that there are two wolves within each of us: one wolf is positive and beneficial, while the other wolf is harmful and destructive. These two wolves fight for control over us. The grandson is curious and asks, “Which wolf will win?” The grandfather replies, “The one you feed.” As we all transition into new ways to work and to lead, remember to feed the good wolf. We’re living and leading through incredible change. Let’s use this economic and societal disruption to improve who we are, how we live, and how we lead.
Find Time for Deep Focus
If you want to significantly improve your ability to get more work done in a shorter amount of time, set a goal to find deep-focus time every day. Author and Georgetown University associate professor Cal Newport believes the ability to engage in focused, deep work is one of the most valuable – but increasingly rare – skills in today’s knowledge economy. While it’s not easy, here’s how you can get more focused and enjoy the benefits of deeper thinking and having a more strategic mind. First, turn off all notifications, including email, text, alerts, etc. you might receive during this time. While doing so may seem counterintuitive, try it. In Newport’s book, Digital Minimalism , he states, “The key to living well in a high tech world is to spend much less time using technology.”
22 OCTOBER / NOVEMBER / DECEMBER | EU.MELALEUCA.COM
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