Here we go…

As soon as you wake up, meditate

Dedicate the first 10 minutes of your day, every morning, to meditation. The practice will bring you to the here and now, silence your mind and create a state of calm that will be carried with you for the rest of the day. You can even slip a positive daily intention into the mix. As a result, your stress levels will reduce, your mind will be sharper and your ability to focus and complete tasks at hand will improve.

Treat your phone as it was intended to be used, for receiving and making calls 

Unless you are on the road away from your usual place of work treat your phone as serving one purpose only, to make and receive calls. When you are in your day-to-day work environment, place your phone over the other side of the room. That’s one less device within your reach to get distracted by. If it rings, by all means get up and answer it. You’ll typically have five rings to do this in, therefore there’s really no issue with your phone being out of hands reach.

Stop being a slave to your inbox!

This one is hard, but very achievable and will potentially help you claw back more time in your day. Find two times a day, one in the morning then afternoon you can dedicate a set amount of time to responding to emails. And that’s it, that’s all the time you are allowed for this task daily. Create an out of office notification that explains how you are now working, contacts will quickly adapt to your new approach. Ensure you leave your phone number in the auto-respond message so people can call you, if it’s urgent. Don’t worry, they will.if it’s urgent. Now you’ve created an opportunity to divorce yourself from your inbox. Next thing to do is ensure you leave your inbox closed and out of sight, and out of mind until it’s time to check in.

Don’t let the “urgent” proceed the “important”

Urgent tasks are rarely the most important that need to be completed (IMO the word urgent is overused, it “dresses up” the importance of something small, so we don’t forget it). Ensure you have clear in your mind what the day’s priorities are, then work through them in their order of importance. Urgent tasks are typically small things that need to be done, now (so they say). Yes, you could drop everything and attend to that one small thing, but no doubt a steady line of other urgent small things will crop up and then…. there goes half a valuable day of achieving not much. Stop yourself saying “yes” to the next urgent task request that arises, when you are already working on something more important. That small task that claims to be urgent, 99% of the time can just wait. If you aren’t sure, you can always ask “how urgent is this actually, because I’m working on something important?”

Get in touch with your peak performance self

Shortly after a morning run with an awesome coffee in hand is when I am fully primed to do my best work for the day. It’s not the time for me to engage with others, I’ll rarely if ever schedule a meeting at this time. You can recognise your peak-performance self by tuning into;:

• When your mind feels clear and open
• You have an energy buzzing through you that says “let’s do this” – a sign you are ready to take on anything
• “Distractions” welcomed when we need a break, during peak performance time are in fact annoying

Find the usual time in your day, when you function at your peak performance, then lock it down for yourself to do your best work. No matter what.

 

 

Article by Maya Rana

Maya is a former fashion model turned tech + startup PR pro. She describes herself as a Thrive Advocate (refer to Arianna Huffington’s book here) and Lifehacker. As a personal non-negotiable and to survive as an introvert in a fast-paced world she practices meditation daily to create the space in her mind to function at full velocity. Not one to sit still, stay inside or settle into a routine, she moves her body daily through either hiking, running, yoga, pilates and learning golf. She is a passionate learner on the topics of; self-development, psychology, business, marketing and economics, as such is a serial reader, podcast and audiobook listener (always on play in her car). Her greatest joys come from sharing experiences with loved ones, being in nature, backing promising talent to realise their potential and to offer her energy, time and professional know-how to arts|community focused causes.

 

Image via: mindbodygreen.com