Recharge Your Batteries
Do yourself a favor and hit the reset button
Life can be demanding. Especially when you are simultaneously being pulled in several different directions. Being in that situation can create a high level of stress, and a low level of accomplishment. Whether you have a minute or an hour to recharge, these strategies will help you to refocus and win the day.
Practice mindfulness
Take a couple of minutes to concentrate on your surroundings. Listen to the various sounds around you. Then close your eyes and form a picture with your mind's eye. Pan and zoom around your environment, focusing on the actions associated with the individual patches of activity, then collectively like a symphony. Take in the details and use your imagination to create a vivid picture. Consider that everyone and everything is in the same moment, yet the experience everyone has is different.
When you wash your hands, when you make a cup of coffee, when you're waiting for the elevator - instead of indulging in thinking, these are all opportunities for being there as a still, alert presence. - Eckhart Tolle
Take a catnap
When you feel that you have no more solutions or the distractions start to creep in after less and less productive bursts, it is time for a nap. Even the shortest of naps can leave you feeling refreshed and ready for action. I usually set my timer for five or ten minutes. That is enough time to create a new perspective of where you are mentally and what lies ahead. That will allow you to completely change the way you see the situation when you return to it.
There is more refreshment and stimulation in a nap, even of the briefest, than in all the alcohol ever distilled. - Ovid
Reset your plan
Take inventory of what you have accomplished, the tasks that are in progress, and what hasn’t been started yet. Then create a new plan of attack for the rest of your day. You may find priorities have changed, and it is better to reassign some work to other days, delegate to someone else or scrap tasks completely. Reprioritizing will help you to utilize your time more effectively, allowing you to concentrate on the 20% of your work that gets 80% of the results.
Your job, as a professional, is to transform big assignments into smaller achievable pieces, prioritize them, then get them done at a high level.
Appreciate yourself
This strategy creates a real sense of accomplishment. You will be able to feel that you are making progress, no matter how small. Take five minutes to think about what you have accomplished so far today. Next, ask yourself these questions. If possible, document your answers so that you can look at them later as part of the bigger picture.
- What have you crossed off your list?
- For the tasks you haven't, how much progress have you made?
- How much is left to do?
- What went well?
- Why?
- What could have been done better?
- How?
Then, regardless of the results, give yourself a pat on the back for what you have accomplished so far. Good Job!
Learn to appreciate what you have and where and who you are. - Wayne Dyer
Take some “me” time to refocus
Get up out of the chair and look out the window or across the room. Changing your focus and point of view reduces eyestrain. It also helps you to push the mental reset button, clearing your mind, and providing a new context for old problems.
Brain studies of mental workouts in which you sustain a single, chosen focus show that the more you detach from what's distracting you and refocus on what you should be paying attention to, the stronger this brain circuitry becomes.
- Daniel Goleman
Regardless of where you are working and what you are doing, using these techniques will help you to enhance your mental alertness, allowing you get things done better, faster and more effectively than grinding. So, the next time you are looking for the solution to a challenging problem, clear those mental hurdles by pushing the reset button with one or more of these techniques.