One of the best articles I’ve read, and to the points it raises I’m guilty as charged.
The ‘Busy’ Trap
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/
Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day
(via Instapaper)
I’m going to make myself a nice cup o joe now, and wonder – what are the tasks that are actually important and vital for me to complete today?
What will happen if I don’t complete one of them today. Or tomorrow, or this year. Maybe never.
How much of an impact will that have on me?
We need to redefine words like Vital. Crucial. Necessary. Must.
We should allow ourselves to admit that many of our tasks are ridiculous, useless and unimportant. They won’t make a slightest dent in the universe, and so, we must let these tasks go.
Please share this with your friends if you feel the same.
Sent from my iPad
I definitely need more focus in my life. There are a lot of dumb things I do in between tasks or whilst them. I just need to focus on each one on it’s own. I was think of having a timer, too.
Nadia, I’m so happy you came to the blog! Welcome!
I’ve been using pomodoro technique to maintain focus for the last few months. I like it because it’s effective, yet simple and doesn’t take time to learn or implement.
The gist of it: you write down on a piece of paper what task you want to complete. You set a kitchen timer (preferably mechanical, that actually makes a ticking noise) to 25 minutes. No more, no less. And you start working on that task.
No interruptions allowed, not external (phone calls, emails, SMS) and not internal (thinking what should you get for lunch). You must focus only on the task in hand, but remind yourself it’s only for 25 minutes and then your brain may dose off.
When the clock rings, you take a 5 minutes break. Then another 25, etc. After a set of 4×25 you take a 30-60 minutes break.
That’s the core.
The inventor of the technique has a website explaining it all, including a free ebook. You don’t even need to give him your email address, they really don’t try to market anything (at least not to me)!
I’ll look for it and post it here
Good luck! 🙂
Here’s the book http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/book.html