We cannot manage time. No matter what we do or don’t do, time just keeps ticking away at 60 seconds per. We can’t speed it up. Can’t slow it down. Can’t reverse it, pause it or even save some for later. Despite all of the energy and effort we spend trying to deal with it, we have about as much ability to manage time as we do to manage what happens with the stock exchange or real estate markets.
Like these other markets, time is a dynamic entity with a life all its own. The only thing we can truly control in relation to the flow of time is how we invest. Our returns are not measured in the minutes we have – after all, we each have precisely the same amount. Our returns are measured by how well we’ve chosen to use those minutes.
In time’s marketplace, the blue chip asset is choice. And there are three premium choices it’s wise to include in our portfolio. Three choices that transform time into a multiplier, returning high-yield dividends on our investments. Those three choices are how we deploy our attention, our attitude and our actions.
Attention Management
What gets your attention gets YOU.
It’s a noisy world. Our biggest problem is not a lack of intent. It’s distraction.
Think about that word for a moment. DIS-traction. A lack of traction.
‘Traction’ is based on the Latin word trahere – to draw, pull or drag. It’s the same word from which we get ‘tractor’. Traction is when all our energies are pulling in one direction. It’s purposeful, powerful and productive. Distraction splits our energies in different directions. It literally pulls us apart.
As Maura Thomas argues in her excellent book Attention Management, ‘…since distraction is our problem, “time management” is not the solution. The antidote to distraction is attention. Our ability to manage our attention is our most important defence against a world that is constantly conspiring to steal it.’
Thomas goes on to say that attention management is the ability to ‘consciously direct your attention in any given moment, to be more proactive than reactive, and to maintain control rather than inadvertently relinquish it. It’s about regaining control over your attention and thereby taking control of your life.’
‘If you don’t pay attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves’ ~ David Allen
We can boost attention and create more opportunities to support our own priorities by limiting distractions in our physical environment. If you don’t need something for the task at hand, it’s best if you can’t see it, hear it or feel it. And it’s not just the chatter around us that distracts, it’s the chatter in our own minds. Taming our technology is a start, taming our thinking is even better.
- Declutter your desk.
- Turn off your phone or put it on silent and out of sight.
- Turn off email and other message app notifications.
- Single-task. Open only one window on your computer screen, and give your full attention to one task.
- Use Pomodoro sprints. Set a timer and go hard for 25 minutes. Take a 5 minute break and repeat. [For more on Pomodoro technique click HERE]
- Use noise cancellation headphones. If it helps, turn on some music.
- Set boundaries. Let people know if you need some “do not disturb” focus time.
- Take breaks. Get up and walk around. Go outside in the sunshine.
- Every so often, take your eyes off the screen. Look outside, focus on things in the distance. It helps your eyes (and your brain) relax and reset.
- Breathe. Stretch. Hydrate.
- Our minds like to wander so if other tasks come to mind, jot them down on a notepad for later. Bring your attention back to the task at hand.
- Do the same for ideas and information you want to look up or messages you want to send.
Attention management is a habit, and like all habits it requires practice and repetition. That said, while there are times when managing our attention means giving ourselves completely to focused work. At other times, it is about being fully present with other people. And equally important, it includes times when we pay no attention to work at all. On our lunch breaks, vacations, evenings, and weekends, we need to let our attention off the leash to play and give our brains time to recharge.
When we manage our attention we no longer fight the clock. Time becomes our friend not an adversary. And like the song says, ‘I get by with a little help from my friends’.
Attitude Management
Sales guru and professional speaker Zig Ziglar made famous the quote that, ‘Your attitude, not your aptitude, determines your altitude’. And while it’s tempting to dismiss Ziglar’s words as just another cheesy motivational sound-bite, there’s a profound psychological principle at its heart. Almost a hundred years earlier Williams James, prominent philosopher and one of the founders of modern psychology claimed, ‘The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind’.
It’s not a new idea. Proverbs 27:3 counsels readers that ‘as a man thinks in his heart, so is he’. Buddhist texts like the Dhammapada suggest that ‘we are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts’. The essential message being that our quality of our mind determines whether we think we’re suffering or safe. Even Shakespeare’s Hamlet mused that ‘there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’.
More recently, the work of Dr Martin Seligman has confirmed that attitude does indeed determine altitude. Recognised as the founder of Positive Psychology, Seligman is a leading authority in the field of Learned Optimism. Seligman draws on more than twenty-five years of clinical research to demonstrate how optimism is a learned behaviour that anyone can adopt. Building on Seligman’s work, other researchers have shown that an attitude of optimism can enhance intrinsic motivation, goal-focused behaviour, overall happiness in the workplace, task-orientation, solution-focused approaches, perseverance, and better decision-making (For more on this, see Catherine Moore’s article).
Nevertheless, optimism is not a naive or cheerful pretence that everything in life is always sweetness and light. Rather, optimism is a realistic acknowledgement that problems, challenges and setbacks can and do occur, and we can purposely choose to respond to them with a sense of confidence and trust in our personal ability to succeed. Optimistic people believe that negative events are temporary, limited in scope (instead of pervading every aspect of a person’s life), and manageable.
‘The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me’ ~ Ayn Rand
Imagine two students who receive the same low grade on an exam. The pessimist thinks, ‘I’m such a failure! I always do poorly in this subject. I can’t do anything right!’ The optimist thinks, ‘This test was difficult! Oh well, it’s just one test in one class. I tend to do well in other subjects.’ Optimism is an attitude of mind that believes no matter what happens to us we can’t lose. We either win or we learn. It’s what Carol Dweck calls a growth mindset. The belief that our basic qualities are things we can cultivate through personal effort. Although we all have different talents, aptitudes, interests, backgrounds and temperaments, all of us can change and grow through application and experience.
It’s often said that hope is not a strategy. Yet any strategy that does not include an attitude of hope is very likely to falter or fail. Rebecca Solnit describes hope as an attitude that ‘locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognise uncertainty, you recognise that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others’.
Optimism, hope, a positive attitude, clearly these are a wise time investment. Not just for the productivity benefits, but also for the quality of life effects. We have only one life of time. Let’s choose to make it an enjoyable one.
Manage Your Actions
Choosing what gets our attention gives us clarity, focus and direction. Choosing an optimistic attitude boosts positive motivation and drive. The natural effect of both these choices is the impetus to take action.
The question now is not what to do, but what to do first?
For some people, this part comes easy. They write a to-do list, set priorities and start. Each task is carefully ticked off and crossed out as it’s completed. Additional tasks that turn up unexpectedly during the process are cheerfully added to the list and likewise ticked and crossed. If that’s how you roll, more power to you. You can probably skip the next bit. Good chance you won’t need it.
While some people are blessed with a natural ability to make lists and use them, some of us just make lists and lose them.
Either way, the important fact to keep in mind is that to-do lists are simply one solution to the challenge of how we set priorities. The real payload in a to-do list is its power to help us manage our actions in a sequence of significance. A to-do list makes clear what deserves to be at the head of the queue for us to do something about. Lists simply help us manage what to do first, and then what to do next. Fortunately, for us non-listers there exist some great alternatives.
As Allied Forces Commander during World War II and later as President of the USA, Dwight D. Eisenhower, knew a thing or two about setting priorities for action. He said we run into problems if we focus on urgent at the expense of important, because ‘what’s important is seldom urgent and what’s urgent is seldom important’. Eisenhower’s ideas were later made popular in Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If lists don’t float your boat, you may find using a Urgent-Important Matrix a better option. For some tips on using this approach go HERE.
Another way to choose priorities for action is what Ed Morrison of Purdue University calls The Big Easy. It’s part of a larger model called Strategic Doing that’s had a lot of success in community development projects with multiple and diverse stakeholders. It’s a powerful way to get quick wins, gain traction and build momentum. Instead of thinking about importance vs urgency, consider levels of ease and impact. Allocate each of your action options a score out of ten for level of ease and size of impact. Whatever scores highest on both scales, do that first.
If lists and quadrants still feel a little too complicated, you might like to try the minimalist approach. For all your action options, just ask yourself the gold medal question.From the inception of the modern Olympics in 1912, Britain’s male rowing eight had never won gold. In the lead up to the 2000 games, the team’s captain decided it was time to shake things up with a new approach. Every decision, every action was prioritised with one simple question – will it make the boat go faster?
The team asked that one question of every action. Their priority became a singular focus on performance and the results they hoped would follow. When they hesitated before their morning 20km run, they would ask each other ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ When someone thought about going to the pub, others would ask ‘Will it make the boat go faster?’ It was a radically simple and effective way to prioritise. At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, the team won gold.
‘Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned’ ~ Peter Marshall
Gary Keller has another ultra-simple approach to priority action. Like the British rowing team, all you need to do is answer one compelling question. What’s The ONE Thing you can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?
Bottom line, whether you choose to-do lists, quadrants or a focus question to prioritise and manage your actions, the most important thing is simply to start. Nothing changes unless you change something. If you’re managing your attention and your attitude, then chances are pretty high that whatever action you choose will be a good one. And a worthwhile investment of your time. Life rewards action, and starting is half the battle, so begin. In the words of Marcus Aurelius ‘To begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished’. Or as Simon Sinek suggests, ‘Dream big, start small, but most of all, start’.
We can no more manage time than we can control gravity or the orbit of planets. Sailors know it’s laughable to imagine they could control weather conditions or ocean tides. They focus instead on choosing a suitable vessel and honing their skills to match whatever conditions present themselves. Similarly, we recognise that the flow time is not ours to manage. Where we do have full control is how we choose to navigate the unceasing tide. The quality of our expedition rests on three choices – how we manage our attention, our attitude and our actions. If we set our compass by this trio of guiding stars, no matter the destination, our voyage is certain to be a good one.
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