Those words come out of my mouth. A lot.
I didn’t even include “me” time.
All of those roles lead to what feels like a fractured life, sometimes. And I hate to say this (out loud), but sometimes social media doesn’t help. I have email, Facebook, Twitter, and now G+ running on my computer all the time. When I get a ding that says I have an @reply on Twitter, I’ll often drop what I’m doing, even if I’m in the middle of something, and go check it. Again, fracturing.
Often, if there’s something really important I have to get done, a specific task on my to-do list, I’ll shut them all down until I’m done. I know some writers who even use programs shut down the internet for a certain period of time.
I have certainly gotten better at creating systems to manage my time, thanks to Getting Things Done. But I still pretty much always feel like the answer to all my problems is more time.
I came across this really interesting blog post the other day written by my friend Victoria, from Ireland, who is a yoga/pilates instructor. Her post is a riff on another post by Christine Kane called How to Reclaim Your Attention and Get More Done and I wanted to share it with you.
Here’s the first one:
Have no more than three priorities for the day.
There’s only so many things you can get done in a day and still enjoy the day. Get into the habit of spending five minutes each night deciding what one thing you want to get done the next day. Ask yourself, “If I only accomplish one thing tomorrow, which one thing would make me most happy?”
I don’t know about you, but my to-do list for each day is usually a page long. Only three things??! That feels like a tough one, and counter-intuitive, as I’m actually setting my to-do list with less things, rather than more!
How do you rescue yourself from fracturing? Or is it just a reality of our lives these days?