“Where the mind is, there is the treasure”
It’s 2:00pm. You’ve had a full morning of back-to-back meetings.
You had hoped to return to your desk an hour ago to “get some work done”, (as if you have not been working today). Meetings took longer than you thought they would. Your next appointment is in an hour.
Even though you’ve spent endless hours during “quiet time” (weekends, nights and holidays) getting organized and determining priorities, you can’t figure out what to do with this precious hour. While you were in meetings the action items, project demands, and emails have piled up. In case you thought you were alone, the average worker sends and receives 122 emails per day.
WHAT TO DO when everything on your list appears to be hot, red hot and do it now!?
Get Calm: Take a deep breath. No kidding. Breathing fits our lifestyle. It’s fast, easy and portable. It’s also free. Allowing yourself to take in and really feel one deep breath relaxes tension, embodies calm, and helps you to get centered.
Cultivate Clarity: Between all this stimulation and your response there is a space. In that opening, lies our power to choose what’s next.
Connect: What’s the one thing you could focus on that is important and meaningful? You knew the answer this morning when you were in the shower thinking about the day.
For optimal results, I recommend repeating these 3 steps every 90 minutes.
WHAT TO STOP DOING:
MULTI-TASKING
According to Gallop (2017), the single greatest source of employee dissatisfaction is Job-related stress. It’s costing American business $450 billion annually. Stress diminishes learning and memory, reduces creative thinking, increases decision making bias, and hinders helping behavior
The World Health Organization reports that “Stress is the epidemic of the 21st Century”.
Multitasking increases our stress levels and diminishes our cognitive ability (Mark, et. al 2014). While problem solving, multitasking slows response time and increases error rate (Rubenstein, et. al 2011). Multitasking is directly linked to impulse behavior and low self-control (Sanbonmatsu et. al. 2013)
When the mind is focused on the present, we are typically happier than when the mind is wandering (Killingworth & Gilbert 2010).
Given the stressful nature of our work environments and modern life, it’s easy to activate our fight, flight or freeze response. Luckily, with practice, we can relax intentionally and bring ourselves back into balance. In the process, we can get something really meaning accomplished.
As an example, it’s been my pleasure to spend the last precious hour writing to you.
If you are looking for more ways to achieve your goals and to build extraordinary relationships with people, contact us.