Be where your feet are.

It's 7:30am, you're walking into the coffee shop, getting your usual beverage. Your mind is thinking of the day, you're prepping and planning for what is to come. By 8:30am, you've entered the office. The phone rings, there are 68 unread emails, and you just received a text from your best friend. What do you do? Well, obviously you pick up the desk phone, and click on the first email. You hardly hear what the person on the phone says, and the email, now technically marked as "read" because it was opened, sits on the screen while you read your text. You hang up the phone, reply to the text, and then read the second email that is queued up. Keep in mind, the first email never had a chance to be read and since it's no longer in bold and marked as "read" it's lost all priority. 

Think for a second, and ask yourself, where are my feet? I know, it sounds kind of funny to ask this question, but it's a valid question to ask. How many times do you find yourself thinking of something outside of work while actually inside of work? Or worse, how many times do you think of something for work, while home on the couch or sitting down to dinner with the family? 

Be where your feet are. You're feet are physically in the office, so keep your mind set to "office mode" and ignore the text. Anything important is still delivered by phone calls, so text messages can wait, day dreaming can be put on hold, and "office mode" can be set forth. Most of us who are non-exempt are used to working all day, grabbing the laptop at night and "catching up". Wouldn't it make more sense to utilize the 9 to 5 hours to do your best to get it all done during that time frame? Guess what, I am where my feet are between 9 and 5. I focus all of my energy on my tasks, my objectives, and what ever projects I'm working on. I keep the side-conversations to an extreme minimum. I only check texts on my lunch hour, and better yet, when it comes to email, I have a new rule: If I open it, I reply to it before I move on to something else. 

By being where my feet are and not letting the mind wander, or let the water cooler gossip extend more than 30 seconds, it allows me to leave the door at 5pm, and not have a single assignment to do for the rest of the evening.

From a different perspective; let's look at a non-exempt salary of $50,000. Based on a 40 hour work-week, you're being paid $24.04 per hour for an 8 hour work day. Now, if you spend 9 to 5 at the office, and you're mind is not where your feet are then you are actually paid less. Why may you ask? Well, with the water cooler gossip, the text message distractions, and more, means you're committing 40 hours of work at the office, and an additional 25 hours at home to work. Now you've just taken your $24.04 per hour and made it $5.92 per hour because of the extended work days.

So the moral of the story is to be where your feet are. Do something today, that makes tomorrow easier, and better yet, enjoy the $20 per hour raise you just gave yourself and the 25 hours of time back in your life.