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When I was in school, aiming for 100% (or more) on every assignment and test was the standard. Absolute perfection was what we were encouraged to strive for, and I was pretty good at being that kind of student. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve encountered and seen the beauty in different mindsets as well.
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Most of us have a few hours a day when we are at our peak energy. I’m a person who is most on my game in the morning between about 6-10am. Some people come alive in the afternoon. Others thrive at night. Once you know when those hours are, protect them!
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One of the most powerful time management tricks I teach is scheduling time with yourself to complete your tasks.
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As useful as email can be, at times it can be really frustrating. One irritating aspect of email is when someone sends a quick one-line question that will require many minutes and paragraphs to respond to. Did you know, some people have ways to sidestep this annoyance entirely?
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If the technology at your disposal is hindering instead of helping you do your job, then experimenting with ways to limit their distractions is a powerful way to be a more effective employee.
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Most people, colleagues and clients, are sending emails and contacting us to simply get tasks off their plates and out of their heads. They rarely care how quickly someone responds as long as someone does respond, and the issue is resolved. If you feel like you need to be perpetually available, consider trying to experiment with less accessibility for a couple of weeks.
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Cal Newport has a podcast called Deep Questions. In one of his episodes, he interviewed another favorite counter-cultural crusader of mine named Laura Vanderkam. Laura Vanderkam is an author and podcaster who loves to study and write about how to make the most of your time. In Cal and Laura’s episode, they talk about the importance of designing your ideal week - like really sitting down and thinking about and refining what the building blocks of an ideal week are.
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Cal Newport is one of my favorite counter-cultural authors. He has done so much to help me retrain my brain to reject the trance of busyness. In his books Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and Slow Productivity (his newest tome), he makes persuasive arguments to discard pseudo productivity busyness mindsets and embrace languid intentionality instead.
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The end of May is a transitional time for many people. With school ending and the shifts this changeover necessitates, it’s a good time to look at any goals or resolutions we set at the beginning of the year to see if we can set any in motion in the summer season.
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Lazy is a four-letter word in our culture. It’s one of those adjectives we never want affixed to our names. However, a recent podcast helped me to reframe my ideas on laziness.
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I’m celebrating a big 4-year milestone – my fourth anniversary with Focus To Evolve!
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Do you wake up in the morning, and the first thing you do is reach for your phone? Whether you’re grabbing your phone to check your email, social media, or the news, you may want to consider a change in that habit.
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Raise your hand if you currently or ever had a job that keeps you sitting for most hours of the day. I’m definitely in this boat. And I’ve had seasons of life when I’ve felt so tired after sitting at a desk all day that I go home and just sit some more. Sometimes days feel so hectic that scheduling time to exercise feels like one task too many. But for many successful people, skipping movement in their day is an absolute no-no.
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Just because it’s possible to respond right away to every request for communication we receive, doesn’t mean we have to respond right away. It’s ok to have times when we’re unavailable and respond to people during the timeframes that work best for us.
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In the hustle and grind culture that we live in, we’re given the impression that if you want to get ahead you not only have to work late every weeknight, but you should also sacrifice your weekends. But someone who disabused me of this notion was Colin Powell.
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About a year ago, I was looking through my son’s school vacation schedule and entering his vacation days on my calendar. On April 8, 2024, I noticed a unique day off designation: Total Solar Eclipse. I was intrigued. The school district is giving all the kids a day off for an eclipse? How marvelous!
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So many of us think that if we want to get more done, we need to do more at one time. But what if the secret to getting more done is ruthlessly focusing on just one thing at a time, completing that one thing, and then focusing on the next?
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Warren Buffet is the patron saint of “no.” He famously claims:
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”
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Today is the first day of spring! Oh, glorious spring – a time when all lifeforms shake off that winter sluggishness and slowly come back to life. It’s a time when the increasing sunlight and warmer temperatures give us renewed energy to tackle our daily affairs again. For many, it’s a time for spring cleaning.
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