If you’ve heard me talk about self-care for well-being and productivity before you’ll have heard me say that self-care is about more than just bubble baths and candles…. Because it is! But…..
It
sometimes is absolutely about bubble baths and candles!
I was overjoyed to find out about a new local venture in Newcastle – Hot Wax. So, I hooked up with them to have a look at their candles which are made of soy wax. What’s that you may ask!? All you probably need to know is – as you’d imagine – it’s made from soybean oil. There are ‘green’ benefits to using soy wax. It’s made from plants, it’s a renewable source, it is clean burning so doesn’t release toxins, and soy wax candles burn 40-50% slower than paraffin wax candles so they are good for your finances. Who would have thought!
Eucalyptus is well known for its health benefits and is a prized fragrance of master perfumers all the world over. It has a fresh clean aroma which is sometimes described as minty, woody or citrusy. What’s not to like! And then you add in Rosemary! Magic. And it is. The candle smells great and fills the room with fragrance.
A study at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok put some science behind the magic when they found that there were benefits to inhaling the gorgeous smell of Rosemary that produced beneficial effects on mood! Northumbria University in the UK found that Rosemary improved contentedness. Being in good mood and content is something we’d all like to strive for as an outcome of our self-care!
So, you see bubble baths and candles do have their place in your strategy! What better thing than on a Friday night lighting a candle, putting some quiet music on, and clearing you head ready for the weekend. (Or any other night, or time of day, for that matter!)
Give Hot Wax a try and indulge in an olfactory experience! Or put another way – light a candle and smell something awesome ….and drift away!
It’s really difficult to figure out where to buy things for the best. Companies sometimes aren’t what they seem. How do you factor in all of the costs for a product? How do you figure out if a product is ethical or the company that produces it is ethical? And why am I talking about this on my self-care page?
Well, I think that self-care is rooted in values. Self-care is not selfish. Looking after yourself first is important but once you have that sorted then you need to think about looking after other people and things. The planet is high up on the list of things I want to look after. So as self-care, I feel, is about living a life that aligns to your values I want to do what I can to align what I can to my values as closely as I can. This is not going to be perfect and is a work in progress… so before you start with ‘ah but, yes but….’ bear that in mind. I still eat avocados. But have it under review while I figure what, if anything, I can do. They are really good for you (and lush) – so what do you do?
As ever my maximum is small steps over a long period of time have big impacts. So far I’ve started having my milk and eggs delivered by a local producer rather than buying from the supermarket… and a few other things. Let me tell you
My strategy is this. Buy local from independent retailers or producers. Then, buy from national independent retailers and producers. Then, buy local from larger organisations. Then buy national from larger organisations. Then global if ya gotta!
This lead me to discover a coffee roaster in a little village close to where I live. Fika! Matt and Lynn are the founders of the company because… as they put it…..
“we’re mad about coffee.”
They also go on to say “We also have great respect for the land and the people that farm it to bring the best quality speciality coffee to the UK. Fika means a social break in Swedish and our brand is inspired by Swedish folk art but our love for coffee actually originated from a six-year stint in Melbourne. We’re based in the fine cathedral city of Durham and are super excited to open the city’s first speciality coffee roastery so if you’re ever in town, please drop by or call in advance for a special sneak peek into the wonderful world of coffee roasting.”
And I’m currently trying the Fika East Timor – Cristo Liuria – which is devine. Click the link to find out more about East Timor and it’s coffee growers. It’s the kind of information that Fika provide alongside selling me coffee that I love as I can find out where my coffee is coming from and the positive impact (however small) my purchase may be having.
There’s also some great advice on the Fika blog about making your brew. Try this – To plunge or not to plunge?
So while I’m not exactly buying local – in the sense the coffee comes from Brazil and East Timor – I’m buying from a local company that strikes me as being interested in the growers with an ethical eye. My purchase is also stimulating the local economy rather than lining the pockets of some corporate giant. That makes be feel pretty good. Oh… and Matt and Lynn seem to be lovely people! That helps as well!
Every time I ask people to feed back to me after the sessions I do about self care and productivity about what they found most helpful they always mention the 2-minute rule. So… I always talk about it.
It’s basically this. If you look at a task and you think it’s going to take less than two minutes to complete then simply do it. Don’t delay, don’t put it off until later, just do it. You can actually achieve a lot more in two minutes than you think you can. If you have the time, sit quietly now for two minutes. It feels like forever! You could get a lot of small tasks done in that time!
At a session recently though someone suggested that the application of the two minute rule was in contradiction to my view that when immersed in Deep Work we should do it to the exclusion of all other tasks.“Surely the two minute rule contradicts this as if you come across something to do then you are suggesting I just do it”, the person said (I’m paraphrasing – but that was the gist of it I think). I answered something to the effect that the two minute rule was effective for emails and planning tasks and working through small tasks but not when engaged in deep work. I wasn’t satisfied with my explanation. I didn’t feel it was clear enough so I thought I’d write a blog.
There are times, like anything, when the application of an idea is helpful and times when it is unhelpful. The two minute rule falls into that category. I thought the best way to explain when to use it and when not to use it would be to take you through a typical day of mine and explore the application of this ‘rule’.
Start-up strategy
We all have a start-up strategy? Yes? This is the process that gets you going when you get to work. Just like a computer you need to be powered on and have your software loaded and get yourself ready for the day. My start-up strategy goes like this.
8.30 Open notebook to new page and write the date at the top then Open calendar. Work through the day visualising myself undertaking each task. In doing so I am connecting with the task and checking that I have everything to hand that I need for each task. This is a perfect opportunity to apply the two minute rule. If I find I haven’t got something I need for a task, maybe I haven’t created a Teams Meeting link or printed off some lecture notes or found a phone number I need, I apply the two minute rule and do it there and then. Anything else that’s longer than two minutes gets put in a time slot in my calendar (this doesn’t happen very often, if at all, as my planning strategy means that the big things required are all done)
9.00 Open Emails and work on getting my Inbox to empty. I work through my emails methodically one by one using the Do It, Delegate It, Defer It, Delete It process (see this link for more on this strategy). The Do It part relies exclusively on the two minute rule. Can I deal with this email in less than two minutes? If I can it gets done there and then. If it’s going to take longer than two minutes it gets deferred into my trusted system.
Working day
9.30 Clearing up and small jobs. This is a good slot for anything that might have fallen out of my diary scan and my emails. If something needed doing urgently I will have put it into this time slot. No two minute rule things here I’d imagine because this will be a longer task or tasks that needs doing
10.00 Deliver lecture. Off I go to do what I do. This is in many ways Deep Work. I’ll explain. Deep Work in the productivity literature is usually a job that needs you to be completely focussed to the exclusion of everything else and is usually best undertaken in glorious isolation – distraction free. Now that doesn’t define lecturing as you do it in front of people but I feel it is still a Deep Work task as it requires me to be completely in the moment to the exclusion of everything else. So no two minute rule activities going on here.
12.00 At the end of the lecture a student asks me for a tutorial. Yes indeed! Let’s plan that now. I have my calendar on my phone. Two minute rule applied tutorial booked. I could have said I’ll get back to you later with some times, but no, there and then – let’s get this sorted – done and forgotten about – my calendar will remind me of what I need to know.
13.00 Lecture Preparation (after lunch of course as a lunch break is so important – have a look here). This is Deep Work. I need to be in a quiet place and I need to be not distracted. I won’t be applying the two minute rule here because i will have switched my phone and emails to silent and I’ll be getting on with the task.
But disaster – there is a problem here. Our minds just don’t stay focussed on the thing we are doing no matter how hard we try. The more we do Deep Work and the more we train ourselves towards mindful behaviour the better we get at it but nevertheless sometimes something pops into our heads! This is what I refer to as a boundary moment. A point where we have a choice to make about how to proceed! What do we do! My brain has just reminded me that I was asked by my manager to email them the contact details of someone.
Now, that could be achieved using the two minute rule because it will take me less than two minutes to do that. But there’s a problem here because opening my emails and sending the information will only take that time up but I might see other emails that interest me – our minds are terrible like that – and I might end up replying because – well – I could do it in two minutes. We become trapped in our emails and the Deep Work gets interrupted and then, when we go back to the Deep Work, it takes (as an experiment conducted by Microsoft found out) 10 to 15 minutes to get back up to speed on the Deep Work task. So that’s not a good idea!
I could still decide to go and apply the two minute rule and get the email sent. It might be something really urgent and therefore the interruption may be necessary. I might have to accept the productivity dip.
But if it’s not urgent I should resist the urge to send the email now and continue with the Deep Work.
But problem number two raises itself! Every time I try to get on with the Deep Work task I keep thinking I mustn’t forget to send that email! Argh! David Allen calls these Open Loops. They just go round and round in your head taking up vital psychological capacity and distract you from the task in hand. Here’s what to do. Externalise your memory and make a note of what needs to be done in your note book that sits next to you all the time with today’s date at the top of the page. You sorted this out at 8.30 this morning during your Start Up strategy! Note: Send email to manager with contact details for Dave. This gets it out of your head into your trusted system so that you will be reminded to do it later. It does create a pause, it does create a shifting of attention, but you have minimised it as best you can. We can’t help these thoughts encroaching but we can decide how to mange them for the best.
15.00 Team Meeting. I class this as a Deep Work task as well. The meeting needs my attention so no two minute rule opportunities here. The same rules apply that we utilised when we were doing lecture prep Deep Work. As you go through the meeting take notes about things you need to to do so we can move them into our trusted system later.
Shut down strategy
16.00 Emails. This is the same process that we undertook at 9 a.m. Open up those emails work through them and get that Inbox to empty!
16.30 Planning. Getting in to empty is not just about that Inbox it’s also about that note book and all of the entries you’ve made as the day has gone on. You work your way methodically down the list and use the same Do It, Delegate It, Defer It, Delete It process that you used for emails. Note: Send email to manager with contact details for Dave. Two minute rule application! This is where that deferred task gets done in two minutes having caused the minimum of disruptions to your Deep Work. Then, go through the other tasks that you’ve noted in the same way. They either get done, get deleted, get delegated to others for more information, or get moved into your trusted system as entries in your calendar. Cross them out as you go – it’s soooo satisfying! Finally plan tomorrow. Have you got everything you need for everything you need to do. Get all of your ducks in a row.
17.00 Reflect on the day.What didn’t go so well. Could you have controlled something better or could you not have foreseen what went wrong. If you could have done something better jot down what you could have done. This helps consolidate your thinking. If you couldn’t have predicted what went wrong then let it go. It is what it is. Then think about the things that went well, and the things you got done. This is especially important if you have had a stressful day (….there are other sorts of days I hear you say!) When we are stressed we tend to take a micro view of our day, homing in on small details and this can lead to negative thinking. Get your wide angled lens on and take a birds eye view of the day and enjoy the things that went well…. and then Shutdown Complete.
Like any technique it only works in the right circumstances. The two minute rule needs to be used when it is appropriate and not used indiscriminately when it will interrupt your Deep Work. Unless of course the thing that popped into your head is so important that you should interrupt what you are doing and get it done!
It’s a subject that comes up time and time again when I talk to anyone about productivity and workflow. How do I get through my emails!? I have 1000 emails in my Inbox and I don’t know where to start! Help! What do i do! So, here are some things to think about.
Your email Inbox is a capture tool not a storage solution
Ok, so, your Inbox is an input device. People send you things to it when they want you to do something, or they need some information from you, or they have some information that they think may be of interest to you (or they are covering their backs by cc’ing everyone in the world into an email that is only relevant to a few but it means later down the line they can say, ‘well I did tell everyone’. Such emails are what your Delete keys live for!).
It follows then that if your Inbox is a ‘capture – input’ device and not a storage solution you need to clear it out regularly or you will lose sight of what it is ‘it’ is capturing on your behalf. This leads to emails disappearing off the bottom of the screen never to be scrolled to again until you get a withering email from John in Accounts Payable asking if you can respond to his email from a fortnight ago. When such a thing happens you have done two things (minimum). You have eroded your professional status as John in Accounts Payable now thinks you’re a bit useless and John in Accounts Payable has had to take time out of his day to chase you up so he now has more to do than he should have. And then John in Accounts Payable says to all his colleagues the next time someone from your department doesn’t return an email, ‘well you know what they are like in ‘insert your department/profession here’ they never get back to you‘. So now you’ve eroded your professional status, the status of your department/profession and wasted John’s time.
As my favourite productivity guru David Allen says – you must – every day – get IN to EMPTY. That includes your Inbox.
Managed but not necessarily done.
Getting in to empty doesn’t mean that everything in your Inbox is done. No, No! It just means that it is managed and is in your workflow system somewhere where you will find it when you need to do it or think about it. There is strong research evidence to suggest that unmanaged tasks have more of a psychological drain than incomplete tasks. If your tasks are managed, clearly defined, and in your workflow system then you are not left wondering what there is to do lurking in those unmanaged emails. You might look at what is to do and think – how am I ever going to do all of that – but at least you know what it is. You have controlled it rather than having it (namely in this example your Inbox) controlling you psychological. And John in Accounts Payable stands a chance of getting his email!
The first time is the hardest time.
If you are pondering getting your Inbox to empty for the first time then you are likely to feel overwhelmed. I hear reports of people with 8000 and more emails in their Inbox. Each one of those is draining to one extent or another your psychological capacity if for no other reason than you always thinking, ‘I must get that Inbox clear’. Imagine starting everyday, when you open your email, not being confronted with that Inbox but being confronted with an Inbox that only contains emails that have arrived since you last looked at it! It’s like magic! It’s like Mickey is about to burst out of the Disney birthday cake with celebratory balloons!
But where do you start?
This is a difficult one and you are probably not going to like some of the answers but…. you will love the outcome when you empty your Inbox on a daily basis and listen to all of those other people saying, ‘I wish I could get my Inbox empty’, and you think, ‘Hey! I do! That’s not me’.
Firstly, I am confident, especially in this modern workplace we exist in, that if an email is older than about 3 months your response to it is probably useless or worse embarrassing, that it took you a quarter of a year to respond. Now – I think you can probably delete them but…. but given that you felt immediate panic as you read that …I’m not going to ask you to!
Create a folder in your email programme. In Outlook it’s in New Item/Folder. Just in case you haven’t found it yet 😉 Call it something like ‘Older than 3 months’. Drag anything older than 3 months into this folder and breathe. You can go back to it and work though it if you need/want to. But, I’m confident there’s probably nothing in there worth worrying about. John in Accounts Payable wouldn’t have waited 3 months. (If moving everything older than 3 months is freaking you out you could go for a different numbers of months). This is how I started when I wanted to Reset my emails and… I never when back into that folder… ever.
Next you are going to have to find some time to work through the last 3 months worth of emails. Here’s something to keep in mind. Lots of the things in there can probably be deleted because even 3 months is a long time in the workplace. I guarantee as well that there will be lots of things left lying about in there that you’ve actually done and they just need filing.
Don’t do anything yet. Find a space in your calendar when you can dedicate a good period of time to this task. I’d suggest giving yourself a day. Here’s one of those things you might not like. I did mine on a Sunday. In my time. And I did this for three reasons. I genuinely felt that this was my mess so the fact I had to sort it out in my time – well – that’s just the way it was. But secondly and much more importantly – the feeling that I had opening up my email on the Monday morning after I did it was amazing! Finally – Sunday is going to be a day when you won’t be interrupted. You can just get on and do it and get through it. You pick your own slot that fits with you.
If you don’t want to do that or you really can’t find a half day or a full day then you are going to have to diary out an hour periodically to work away at it. This is not as effective in my view but if it’s what you have to do then it’s what you have to do. It will take you longer in the long run because there is a ‘start-up’ time to get up to speed and remember where you were up to every time.
Let’s go!
Ok, so we’ve got our time set aside and we are going to get Inbox to empty for the first time. It’s going to be amazing! Personally I would start at the top with the most current emails. This way you see the last thing in the thread and may find you can move or delete groups of emails in one go if you know the task or conversation is done.
Before you start create some folders in Outlook. Create a unique folder for all of the projects you are involved in and all of the groups you attend. Try not to go too mad – you don’t want hundreds but enough to be able to store emails under a sensible heading.
Also, while we’re doing this I find another few folders useful. I have a folder called Needs Action. In fact it’s actually called ***Needs Action*** for two reasons. It makes it stand out and, because (if the folder is in your Inbox) it is sorted alphabetically so folders named with symbols at the start appear at the top. (It works the same in normal folders – so things you want to find quickly can appear at the top!) I also have a folder called ***Need to Read***. This folder is less urgent than Needs Action but is still important. I then have a folder called Mailing Lists and i have filters set up to direct any mailing list emails to this folder. And! Finally! I have 5 folders – One for each day of the week.
Here we go! Use this approach below when doing this Reset process and also when dealing with emails daily.
DO IT. Apply the two minute rule. Can I do what this email is asking of me in 2-minutes. If I can then I’m just going to do it and once I’ve done it I’m going to move the email into which ever folder is appropriate (or delete it if you are completely done with it). Try this – you will be surprised how much you can get done in 2-minutes.
DELEGATE IT. Delegation is not just top-down. Delegation here means that you need something from someone in order to complete whatever you are being asked to do. You email them and then you are done with that email for now. You have delegated the next action in the process to them. How much you want to keep an eye on the other person and the response you need defines what you do next. If it’s of low importance you can move the email into one of your folders. You’ll be reminded to do the next thing when the person gets back to you. If you need to keep an eye and make sure that you do get a response you could move it into ***Needs Action***. Part of your email strategy is going to be to check the emails in your ***Needs Action*** folder periodically. If it’s mega important you could put an entry in your calendar on the day you want to chase the email up to tell you to do that.
DEFER IT. If the task is simply too big to do in 2-minutes and you don’t need something from someone else then you need to put a task into your workflow system into a date and time when you will deal with the task. I have a couple of strategies here. The task goes into Date/Time if it’s date and time specific or there is a sense of urgency to get it done. If it’s something I need to get done ‘sometime’ it goes into Daily Tasks (that’s the bit at the top of the Outlook Calendar/Google Calendar). When you create the task in a day you just tick the ‘All-Day’ task box. This means to me – I need to get this done and I might have a chance of doing it on that day. At the end of every day any tasks in my ‘All-Day’ tasks get moved into a different day when I might get the done. I have a 3 moves and you’re out rule. If I move a task 3 times it gets a date and time slot to make sure it gets done.
Also utilise that ***Need to Read*** folder for stuff that’s interesting… papers, web sites, videos (I know you don’t read them but you see what I mean!). Pop something in your dairy once a week that nudges you to go and have a look and actually read something!
Once you’ve Deferred the Task into your workflow system you need to move the email. You can use your ***Needs Action*** folder or a more elegant solution is put the email (assuming you need information that’s in it to do the task) into one of your daily folders. If there’s not much information in the email you need you could cut and paste it into the Notes section of the task and ‘file’ or delete the email. I leave little helpful notes in the task for myself like Write Report for Jane – see email in Daily Inbox – so I know where to go for what I need. The key is – don’t leave it in your Inbox!
I’m confident many of the emails you will have to work through when getting in to empty for the first time are emails that should have gone into your workflow system in this way but you’ve left them in your Inbox in the vague hope that you’ll spot them again at some point and maybe do something about them! ‘Hope is not a strategy’ as John Calvin Maxwell said.
Finally DELETE IT – if it’s of no use to you or you’ve read and thought ‘interesting – thank you’ but you don’t need it anymore delete it. Or at very least file it in your ‘That Was Interesting’ folder.
Proceed until your Inbox is Empty!
Now comes the easy part…..
How to keep ‘In’ empty
First rule! Email is an activity that you need to do in a focussed way not just something you do when you get a chance. You are going to do emails at two key points in the day. First thing in the morning and last thing at the end of the day. Once you get into the habit of this ‘first thing in the morning’ gets easier and easier as the only things that have arrived are the things that arrived late in the day after you went home.
Set aside however much time you think you need. I set aside half an hour in the morning an half and hour in the afternoon. You may need more or less. But you need to do it in this way or you will only complete this task in between other tasks. I’m confident you will have so much to do that this primary method of communication in the office environment will play second fiddle to other things if you don’t specifically allocate time to it. You’ll end up with an Inbox that is out of control with thousands of emails in there… Oh! hang on a minute….
If organisations want us to communicate primarily in this way then it needs the appropriate attention. (I also check my emails just before or just after lunch for about 20 minutes if I have the time).
When you are not actively dealing with emails close your email down and switch off alerts. There is lots of research evidence to suggest that responding to emails when trying to do other tasks slows you down on the other tasks. There is also evidence that even just knowing there’s an email there drags your attention away from focussed work.
So at your allotted time every day you use the ‘do it, delegate it, defer it, delete it, approach’ above (this is also a David Allen trick – I love David Allen!) and get your Inbox to Empty. If you miss one of these slots because of other things then doing it when the chance comes around next time in your diary becomes doubly important. My advice is protect this email time with your life (well… not quite… but you get what I mean) or your email will escalate out of control very easily. So, put this in your calendar as a repeating event. DO NOT leave it to chance! Put it in your calendar.
Writing things down gives momentum to the task (honestly! – well researched) and the calendar entry will nag at you to do it. Schedule longer on a Friday afternoon just in case things have got a little ‘untidy’ so that you can get it sorted. I also have a weekly entry in my diary on a Wednesday (that’s when it works best for me) that says Check ***Needs Action*** folder.
And then keep going….
I’m not going to lie – it’s a tough task. We get far too many emails which is why Inboxes get out of control but the essential thing is ‘Control It or It will Control You’ (David Allen again!)
I came across this book referenced in another book and then did a little digging to find out more about Thomas Mitchell, Farmer. Because his book ‘Essays on Life’ written in the early part of the 20th Century is a little gem – full of words of wisdom.
[From: https://thomasmitchellfarmer.wordpress.com/] Just before the First World War destroyed a generation and divided Europe for almost a century, a farmer in a remote part of Scotland sat down at the age of 43 to write his thoughts on how to live a good life. He records the values of his time and his own take on them. His is now a voice from the past that demands our attention, not necessarily to emulate it but to encourage us to consider what we have lost and gained.
He was Thomas Mitchell.
In the first essay in the book he illuminates us on the Art of Living. Because it is an art! I feel, and always have, that we are creative animals. Art is unique to us as a species and packed full of meaning for life. And life is embodied in art. Artistic endeavour and its output tells us so much about who we are. So there is an art to living.
Usefulness
Mitchell suggests that there are some key things. The first is usefulness. He says that we all have a purpose – something useful we can do that contributes not only towards our livelihood but also to our fellow ‘man’. Even when we do not choose the work we do he suggests we must do it to the best of our ability. If we carry the spirit of usefulness into daily work the this lends a dignity to work that imparts pleasure.
Happiness
The second element to the art of living is happiness. This is something of a current theme for me [more here] as I feel happiness in a particular form is liberating and forms the heart of a well lived life. But happiness is not to be found in things or in the excitement of ‘this or that’ but rather in the steady metre of life. The living of a good life day by day is one that resonates with values of humility, common good, and the joy of the current moment. There is a desperation that we cling onto that we hope will bring us happiness in living for future events rather than living now. Mitchell suggests that the secret of a happy life is ‘the art of extracting comfort and sweetness from every circumstance. The world is to us’, he says, ‘is pretty much what we make it.’ Are we a person of things rather than experiences. Are we a person of ‘it will be better tomorrow, it will be better when I’ve…..’ or are we a person of ‘what can I make of this moment.’
Take care of yourself reminder handwriting on an isolated sticky note
Character
Mitchell goes on to suggest that character, the distinctive mark that gives you your personality, is crucial. We are influenced he says by what we inherit but this only gives us a tendency towards a way of being and doesn’t define us. Our infancy and childhood shape us and the habits we form throughout life shape our essence. One element of character he points to is the ability to speak for yourself and think for yourself. Not to simply be buffeted around by the opinions of others. We should be tolerant of the opinions of others and reflect on them but ultimately make up our own minds on the right course of action. I am led back here to the roots we establish in the world by virtue of our values. They will give us our compass.
Self Control
The penultimate principle of his Art of Living is self control. Mastery of self and particularly of the emotional self I have always felt is crucial. This is something I talk about a lot and is Daniel Goleman’s idea that we can be competent and effective ‘pilots of our lives’ if we are emotionally intelligent and therefore exhibiting self control. Every pleasure, Mitchell observes, that is pursued to excess becomes harmful. And here we are in an age of far reaching mental unrest because, I feel, we can indulge ourselves in all manner of things thrown at us in the name of capitalism and consumerism. Pleasures, he goes on to say, are essential but if we exercise no self-control towards them they may produce ‘ill-health, misery, and weakness, in body or mind’. How true.
Self Respect
The final element is self respect. This to me taps into the foundation of self-care. You must have respect for yourself so that you want to take care of yourself. It is of little value if you show your respect for others and neglect your respect for yourself as, eventually, you will not be available to the other people, either physically or emotionally, to show them the respect they also deserve. This starts with self-respect not with respect for others – that comes second. Mitchell notes that self-respect is a regard for your own name and reputation. If we are to maintain our reputation we have to strive to do things at work, at home, or with friends, (or anywhere!) as well as we can and that starts with being ready for the task and being ready for the task starts with self-care.
I recently came across a podcast that shared some words of wisdom from 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management, by Kevin Kruse.I’ve picked a few to write about that i thought had resonance for me and could be applied to the sort of things I think about in relation to productivity.
Time is an asset
Time, Kruse says, is our most valuable and also our most scarce asset. I like to think of time like money. You can either invest it, spend it, or waste it.
Investing time means using your time to take care of yourself – investing your time in you. Spending your time means giving it up in the pursuit of undertaking a task – maybe something you get paid for doing or something you have to do that you don’t get paid for. You have to find harmony between these two things – invest sufficiently so that you are not overspending. A lack of investment and overspending of time leads to negative feelings such as feeling overwhelmed. When we invest in rest we prepare ourselves for the exertion of spending our time. Just in the same way as when we invest (or save) our money we prepare ourselves for spending it.
The other thing we can do with time is waste it. Do I have to explain that one? I don’t think I do. But I would say is that when we do waste our time we’re left feeling bad about things because we think of all the things we could have done. Just to be clear though when I think about wasting time I don’t mean time we spend in rest even if that is binge watching Netflix. If you have set your intention to that and you have engaged with it and it is restful then that is an investment. It’s more the mindless scrolling through social media or drifting aimlessly through a whole weekend that I mean.
Make sure you plan.
Plan your weekend then engage in it. Plan your working day then engage it. Get into micro planning. Have a daily startup plan. Have a working day startup plan. Have a working day closedown strategy. Plan these things to make best use of your time. Assuming you sleep for 8 hours a day you have 960 minutes each day to go at. Make sure you invest or spend them all and don’t waste any. You don’t get them back!
Work from your calendar not a to-do list
This is something that David Allen also says. He says to do lists don’t work. We tend to make them when we’re out of control and we are never sure that everything is captured on them. And… we never get to the end of them before moving on to something else, hitting a crisis, and writing another to-do list. Kruse says that 41% of the jobs on a to-do list don’t get done.
Stick strictly to a schedule. Everything you need to do goes into your calendar. Everything. That way you can plan every day. I do this in the morning at 8.30 and on an afternoon at 4.30 and then a bigger planning session on a Friday to plan the week ahead (and sometimes further). After you’ve planned you pick up whatever task is in your calendar at whatever time and do it knowing that you will have put the right thing to do at that point in your calendar. The less choice points you give yourself the less you will procrastinate. Never (unless you are in planning mode) think what am I going to do next. Plan then do. When you are doing this….
Batch your work in themes
The productivity literature refers to this as ‘chunking’. Put tasks that require the same set of mental attentions together. Here’s what I do. I thought about my job (I’m a lecturer and writer). My work breaks down into three sets. I am always either talking (lectures, meetings, conversations with colleagues), writing (blogs, lectures, book chapters, video scripts), or I am reading (minute notes, books, research papers, text books). I try as far as I can to group tasks that fall into these groups together. Once I switch on the parts of my brain it takes to do these things, the longer I can keep them switched on, the better. When I read I start slowly but the longer I read for the faster my reading speed becomes. Chunk similar tasks together as much as you can.
Say ‘No’
Saying ‘yes’ to something means you will have to say ‘no’ to something else. There are only so many minutes in the day. The problem is saying ‘yes’ makes us feel good! But just because someone knocks on your door doesn’t mean you have to open it. While I think we should all work hard and step up when there’s something to do – don’t go jumping in. Think. Ask yourself – am I a good person to be doing this – does it fit my skill set. Ask, does this support my immediate goals – what do I need to do that needs to be done – does this new thing fit in with those things or is the time frame long enough that I can get to it after I have achieved my immediate goals. Don’t just say ‘Yes’ then think about these things! Because you’ve already said ‘yes’ so it’s too late now! Act in haste repent at leisure as my Mam has often said to me when I’ve just acted in haste!
Spend you time wisely.
Say ‘no’ when you should (and when you can ….sometimes we just have to suck it up). Plan your time meticulously – it’s precious – and make the most of every minute by chunking similar tasks together when you can.
Not sure how you do with music when you’re working or when you are resting but I find the right stuff at the right time does wonders for me!
I can’t work while playing music with words but there is some great instrumental stuff out there that just settles into the background and into your head and calms and relaxes create a great ambience for work.
I also love music when I meditate. Sometimes focussing on my breath just doesn’t work for me so listening to some music I can focus on a particular element or the feeling of the whole piece and try to clear my mind that way.
Here are some of my favourites – Spotify is my weapon of choice but I’m sure these playlists/artists/style are available on other platforms.
I’ve got into the habit when talking to people about self-care of finding myself often saying, “all we are doing here is playing psychological tricks on ourselves to get the best out of ourselves so ‘ourselves’ stop getting in the way”.
There’s a funny thing goes on in my head when I go for a run. Sometimes I head off and run a big loop but sometimes I run laps close to home. I have a route that is ‘near as damn it’ exactly a mile long and I have another route that is ‘as near as damn it’ one and a half miles long. If I want to run three miles I find it easier to run the longer route than the shorter one because I only have to do two loops and I’m done! On the shorter one I have to do 3 loops and that, psychologically, seems so much harder. Which is daft really because either way, it’s 3 miles! But it’s a very real thing. In fact, sometimes (like today) when I get to the end of the 3 miles on the 2-lap route, I think, well I might as do another lap because I usually have to! What’s that all about!
Everything we do has a psychological element to it that we can either let get in the way, make work for us, or use to trick us into convincing ourselves that something is a good idea.
Lockdown is difficult for a lot of us. Many people I sense are finding it hard to motivate themselves to do things they would usually just get on and do. Exercise is a good example of this. Lots of people seem to be finding it harder to motivate themselves to do what they know already is good for them.
How can we overcome that moment of inertia when, at the end of a busy day we know we should take some exercise but we just don’t feel like it.
Firstly, let’s give ourselves a break and in some ways identify the problem. When you are feeling stressed you don’t feel like exercising. This is a fact – well researched – well established. An American study from Yale University tested this out and found that levels of stress are a predictor for low physical activity. But it’s a double bind because exercise is a great stress buster. Indeed the same Yale University study showed that those who managed 30 minutes of exercise during the day experienced a reduction in stress.
There are lots of reasons why this might be and all have been researched. Which it is for you is probably down to your own uniqueness! For some the exercise simply takes their attention away from the thing that’s causing them stress and gives them a break from it so they can return to it refreshed.
For others it could the rush of feel good endorphins, the ‘runners high’ you might have heard of. It could be that our stress response, the fight or flight adrenaline and cortisol rush, readies us for physical activity, so in doing something physical we ‘burn off’ these chemicals and we return our body to a state of calm. We in effect ‘took flight’.
So, given exercise is good for us, how do we get past our inertia?
We need to plan for our future self – arrange what it is our future self needs to do. Then, trust our past self to have arranged things that are good for us. The just do them at the moment our past self planned them, safe in the knowledge that our future self will thank us for doing what we planned!
When we try to imagine our future we are strongly influenced by how we are feeling in the present moment. So if you try to imagine what something later in the week will be like when you are experiencing a tiring Thursday and you are just a tad grumpy and ‘down-in-the-mouth’ you are likely to think about the future event negatively. ‘That run will be hard work’, ‘Getting my gear on to do the online workout will be sooooo time consuming!’ And the same works the other way – if you are in a good place then you will think positively about the future. (See Daniel Gilbert’s book ‘Stumbling on Happiness’ for more – Professor Gilbert has spent his life studying the psychology of happiness – he knows his stuff!)
So, how do we make this psychological quirk work for us. Let’s keep going with the exercise example. When on a weekend are you feeling in a good place? I find I have a sweet spot that usually occurs early afternoon on a Sunday. I’m feeling rested and I’m not yet grumpy because it’s nearly time for work again. In this sweet spot I plan my exercise for the week because I’m feeling at the top of my game in terms of motivation. I still keep my planning realistic. I bring the future into the present so I can do something with it. I plan what I will do. I remind myself that about 20 minutes a day is sufficient and if I can do more great!
Then, my week starts. And, as we know, motivation wanes as the week goes on and stress rises. So when I spot at 5.30 on Wednesday evening that my diary says ‘3-mile run’ I trust my past self, when I was in a good place to have thought, ‘I’m going to need something to pick me up by Wednesday and I’ll feel great after a run. Clear headed, invigorated, and if I get some exercise I’ll probably sleep well’. Had I left my planning for exercise on Wednesday until I got home at 5.30 I would probably have said, ‘I can’t be bothered, stuff it, where’s the wine’. Familiar?
In that moment when you think, ‘I can’t be bothered with this running thing in my diary’, you have to trust your past self to have done the right thing for your future self and thought, when in a good place, he’s going to NEED a run by Wednesday. On Wednesday his future self will thank his past self for insisting he went for a run!
There is great power in planning. And there is great power in trusting what you have planned. David Allen (productivity guru of the highest order) says you can’t plan and do at the same time and this is why. The feelings of past self, present self, and future self will get all confused. Our ‘selves’ need to find a good positive moment and plan for our future selves so when we hit that ‘present’ moment we can be fully in that present moment knowing that this must be the best thing that can be done right now or why would I have planned it so!?
Plan. Then deliver on the plan. You’ll thank your past self in the future for knowing what will be good for you.
I don’t know about you but despite being a regular meditator I find it really really difficult. My mind just keeps chattering away!
I do like to think of meditation as having many facets and methods and I have written about ‘meditating on’ something as being a thing. I do like to quieten myself and see what comes to mind and then think about that. I have some wonderful thoughts and ideas when ‘meditating on’. But you have to be careful that you don’t get into ruminating and worrying and overthinking something so that ‘meditating on’ becomes negative.
Sometimes though I do like to (try to) clear my mind – and there are two things that I find helpful in doing this.
The first is my Shakti Mat – I’ve written about that here. I love it. Yes, in the first instance it’s uncomfortable but it does become blissful after a few minutes. But what I find is I have to concentrate on managing the discomfort and this helps me clear my mind of other things as I relax into that.
The other thing that helps is music. I listen to lots of meditative music not only when trying to meditate but also when working as it creates the right atmosphere for me in which to work. Now, you may or may not know but I am also a musician so I thought why not write some music for myself to meditate to and then i thought – well – why not share it with everyone.
And that is what I’ve done – and here it is! Available on Spotify and iTunes/Apple Music as well as many other lesser known but equally fabulous platforms!
Excited to be telling you that today (Friday 15th January 2021) the new book is out! Strictly speaking it’s a reworking of the other book – a remix if you like for the music people among you!
We wrote a book (myself, Lisa and Steph) and we aimed that book at Social Workers because we are all social workers and wanted to provide some sort of ‘toolbox’ to social workers to help them with their self-care, wellbeing, and productivity, because we knew for ourselves and from our social work friends that social work takes its toll.
But, what we and the publisher noted, as we were finishing the book and it was set for publication, was that the advice in it was relevant to so many more people than just social workers because many people in many workplaces experience work based stress and indeed many people experience the stresses of life overall. The book would work for everyone.
So, the publisher, Critical Publishing, had me re-write the book for the general market as the launch of their Business in Mind series – and there are more books to come in that series! Exciting!
So there are two ‘How to Thrive….’ books. How to Thrive in Professional Practice is the one aimed at Social Workers and How to Thrive at Work is the one aimed at everyone (and social workers would find it useful too). So buy one or the other – whichever suits who you are – but don’t buy both as they are very very similar.
I would say though there’s a very nice chapter in the How to Thrive at Work one on Rest which isn’t in the first one…. and even though I say it myself it’s a very nice addition!
Whichever you were to buy – I hope you get something from it!
