Staying focused in the maelstrom

The art of self-reflection is so important that despite writing about it before we want to continue the story with more of our observations.

In today’s busy world, the working day can seem never-ending, particularly when everything is so convenient and you can get on with the job remotely through various portable devices. So it can be a rare occurrence if/when you do manage to clear some time in your diary to attend that workshop you really fancied. You spend (hopefully) a productive day, immersed in, for example, how to improve yourself in your role, intelligent communication and focusing on your priorities, and then, emerging from your reflective cocoon, you return to the day job, the all-too-familiar state of frenzy ensues again and there’s just no time to remember any of that stuff, let alone put it into practice. Sound familiar?

So, how do you hold on to those learnings when the busyness takes over again? Well, it’s all about self-awareness. It’s about being disciplined in prioritising ‘me’ with the same importance that’s assigned to everyone else. Consciously block out time to think about and plan the things you need to do.

It may sound obvious, however many of us forget to prioritise time for ourselves. As individuals, we have our own expectations and the drive to meet those can make it hard to take time. Planning some "me" time is an important part of life.

It doesn’t take long – 15 minutes, half an hour, a morning. Whatever the amount of time you have planned, use it to get focused and prioritise your workload:

Recognise the habits that are wasting your time

Cut your ‘to do’ list in half and concentrate only on the really important things
Learn to say ‘no’ sometimes
Stop multi-tasking (because in actual fact we are not good at this)
Delegate effectively (i.e. the end result and not the method of achieving it)
‘Switch off’ from the rest of the world (e.g. are you distracted by emails and calls while carrying out other tasks?)

Concentrating on our own efforts and energy can be empowering – helping to manage life’s stresses, reminding ourselves what we are doing well and recognising accomplishments.

Help yourself to stay focused and schedule some ‘me’ time this week.

Posted on Thu, March 12, 2015 in General Personal Development
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