FINDING YOUR FOCUS

The Ageless Secret to Effective Time
Management.

 

In his book "18 minutes" Peter Bregman suggested, " The need to slow down our momentum and focus on our outcome and be open to extraordinary potential.

He postulated the THE THREE DAY-RULE

This rule states that "nothing stays on the list more than three
days".

everything falls into one of these 4
categories after three days:

1. Do it immediately.

2. Schedule it. Put it on your calendar and commit to doing it.

3. Let it go if it is not enough of a
priority.

4. If you simply cannot let it go, then he has a “someday/maybe/later list” that he looks at monthly.

Finding our Focus entitles effective management of our time and managing our time needs to become a ritual.

It needs to be an ongoing process we follow no matter what to keep us focused on our priorities throughout the day. This is the only way we focus on doing what real matters as far as achieving our lives' ambition is concern.

I think we can do it in three steps that take less than 18 minutes over an eight-hour workday.

STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day.

Before turning on your computer , sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful.

What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you’ve been productive and successful?
Write those things down.

In their book "The Power of Full Engagement",
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz describe a study in which a group of women agreed to do a breast self-exam during a period of 30 days. 100% of those who said where and when they were going to do it completed the exam. Only 53% of the others did.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour - 8 minutes) Refocus.

Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively.

Then look at your calendar and
deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review.

Shut off your computer and review your day.

What worked?

Where did you focus?

 Where did you get distracted?

What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, "That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the task has changed but that our ability to do it has increased"

And according to Wood & Nea (2007),   "As behaviors are repeated in a consistent context, there is an incremental increase i the link between the context and the action. This increases the automaticity of the behavior in that context."

So the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It’s simple.

Please share your thoughts with me by clicking the post a comment box below

Ishola Ayodele is a Public Relations practitioner and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations.

He offers the following services to Large Corporations, SMEs and Individuals.

Result Driven Communication,

Effective Crisis Communication,

Effectual Political Communication,

Reputation and Image management,

And Impactful Presentation Coaching.

He can be reached on 08077932282
WhatsApp 08077932282,
BBM 58ED6030,
twitter handle @ishopr