10

Focus Your Powerful Mind

The fourth area of organizing wisdom is the wisdom of attention. We who tend to be disorganized have wonderful gifts. We often have artistic sensibilities, and we like music and metaphor. We are also often highly curious and “distractible,” which means we can pay attention to many things at once. Not everyone can do that. But we are often not so great at figuring out where everything goes or planning accurately. For many of us, distractibility is at the heart of our disorganization. We forget what we are doing or what we meant to do next. It is the opposite of being fully present. We are not there. Sometimes, we’re plain confused. Managing distractibility means moving toward a much more powerful frame of mind in which we are clear, present, alive, and can pay attention to what we want to.

Your distractibility may be hardwired—but it may be amplified by a number of sources, such as fear, poor planning, overstimulation, overscheduling, and not enough sleep. You may have attention deficit disorder. You may be a survivor of a traumatic experience. You may be the parent of young children. No matter what the reason, managing distractibility takes skill. You need to know when you are distracted. You must value your clarity and focus and learn the steps to take to ensure your presence of mind. Let’s explore a few practices that can help you focus when you need to and accomplish what you set out to do.

Focus Your Attention

Our attention is like a powerful light. We can illuminate what we focus on. Yet with so much to do, so many options, so many goals, it is easy to scatter your energies to the winds and get overwhelmed. You can learn to focus on what you truly want, which begins with knowing what is important to you. This task is lifework. Managing your attention, learning to focus, is a big part of accomplishing what you truly want.

Part of learning to be present is defining your priorities and then staying with them. There are good reasons not to define your priorities. Perhaps you pile on tasks in order to avoid getting to know yourself and your deepest aspirations. Sherry said, “I am completely busy, I am never home. My schedule is full to bursting. But I am too busy to feel much or to think about the things that are bothering me. Sometimes, I think that’s a good thing, but other times I am vaguely aware of a deep fear that is driving me.”

Prioritizing strengthens your sense of who you are and what you value. It also sets a virtuous cycle in motion. As you get to know yourself, you find it easier to set priorities. You are not spread so thin, and you see more clearly what has meaning for you.

Sometimes people don’t focus when they are working because they feel they don’t have the time to concentrate. It’s hard to focus because there is so much to do. However, lack of focus leads to poor quality work, which then needs to be redone, which increases the feeling of pressure

by adding more to your to-do list. This is a vicious cycle that can be interrupted by learning to focus on doing what you are doing well.

Give Up Those Little Slips of Paper—Create a Reminders System

Many of us are tempted by little pieces of paper. We write good ideas on Post-it notes or jot reminders on napkins. We put grocery lists on the back of birthday cards or school flyers. As a result, we often lose the bits of paper, forget which pocket they are in, or accidentally run them through the laundry. Or we write down the number we need in order to return a phone call on the margin of the nearest newspaper. Then when we need it, we often remember that we wrote it on the top margin of the front section. But which day? And where did it go?

Put notes and reminders in one place, and life will become so much easier. Carry a day planner, a small notebook, or an electronic data assistant and “collect” your ideas and notes to yourself. For some people, moving from the “little pieces of paper” system to the “daily collection list” system—although it’s not easy at first—can be the most powerful new habit they cultivate. (Reminder: see chapter 6 for general guidelines on building new habits and systems.) You capture your spontaneous thoughts about actions that you want to take in one easy place. Then, you can move your new action items into a reliable place—a master to-do list—that you will check frequently when you want to take action.

There are several places to keep one master to-do list. You can keep it in the back of your planner, set it up on your computer or in your electronic data assistant. The critical thing is to have a process whereby a “to-do” goes from your head onto a reliable “spontaneous ideas” collection list, then onto a master list, then from the master list onto a daily to-do list, where you check off the action item once it gets done. Your master list will probably be long.

Now, instead of writing your notes randomly, you decide to build a habit of writing things down on a daily “collection” list. When your hand strays to the back of the envelope, you say out loud, “Nope, I’m writing this in my planner or on my little notepad, where I will find it again.” Or you tell yourself, “It will be much easier if I take a minute now and write this on my collection list, and forgo the pleasure of writing it on the back of this envelope.” Then, you get up and find your collection list and write the note. At the beginning, it will feel as if it takes an hour to find your collection list (I carry mine with me all the time), as opposed to the one second it takes to write the note on the back of the envelope. But that is an illusion generated by an old habit. More likely, you will save hours by learning the habit of keeping a daily collection list and a master list.

Stephanie Culp and David Allen, both master organizers, suggest that as you get organized you take some time to write down everything that you can think of that needs to be done: unfinished projects, letters, repairs, communications, or whatever feels incomplete. Your master to-do list will get unwieldy very quickly. It can be helpful then to break your master list down into several distinct categories, such as: to buy, to call, errands, household repair, kids. Try keeping a master grocery list on the refrigerator. You can get a magnetic pad and keep a felt-tip pen nearby.

Once you have broken your little-bits-of-paper habit and replaced it with a collection list habit, you need to do one more thing. You need to build in a weekly review when you look at your various lists and make sure that you write your action items into your calendar, so that you do them. Then, as you create your daily list, pull items from the master you generated. Here’s what the path of a to-do item looks like:

 

Your head → daily “collection” list → master to-do list → weekly review → daily to-do list → action!

Sometimes, of course, you’ll go from your daily collection list to taking action. Thus, this is not a rigid system; the main idea is to collect your to-do’s regularly and then do them. Experiment with how to make this work for you.

Create an Energizing Daily To-Do List

Your to-do list is a tool to help you get things done. How you structure your list can give you energy or it can drain you. A good to-do list guides you through the day. A disorganized to-do list only adds to the confusion.

An energizing daily to-do list is doable. That sounds ridiculously obvious, yet many people carry long lists of tasks that they can’t possibly do that day (or even that week or month), or they have lists that they can’t read, have outdated items on them, or aren’t broken down into manageable tasks. Here are some basics for your to-do list.

 

You can read it. It is really legible, i.e., you haven’t scribbled in mystery scrawl and it isn’t totally cryptic.

It is in one place in your planner or your electronic data assistant. It is not spread out on Post-it notes all over your desk.

Only today’s to-dos are on it. Not all of this week’s, not this month’s, not this year’s.

Each item is a manageable task.

You have identified the tasks that are absolute priorities for the day.

 

Think for a moment about how much time you spend during the day not knowing what to do next. You can cut through this confusion when you have a to-do list that helps you focus. Your list should be relatively short and should feel like a friend, not a boss. In fact, on good days, you’ll feel psyched when you look at it. Your to-do list gives you information about where to allocate your energy.

When I first started working with her, Jenna’s to-do list had every single thing she could think of on it. She carried a list that was many pages long wherever she went. Whenever she looked at it, she felt drained, confused, and overwhelmed. Now, she creates a list for each day. It takes her a few minutes the night before. It is short and she knows what she has to do that day. She still maintains her long master list, but she looks at it only once a week, and only in order to select a few things to add to her daily to-do list.

Removing action items that you concede you will never do is as important as building a good to-do list. Helen used to carry around old action items and make herself feel bad about them. “Write thank you note to Cousin John” had been on her list for three months. Another action item, “Write out check to Susan,” had been on her list for five months. Mary’s action items included sending journal articles to colleagues: one month, six months, a year on her to-do list. Old action items start to get moldy. They only go away when you take action on them, delegate them, or you let them go. The sooner you acknowledge that you just aren’t going to take action on something, the better. It reduces the time that you feel bad about not doing it. Life is hard enough without an old smelly, confusing to-do list.

George explained why he had so many old, undone action items on his list. “Once I put an item on my to-do list, I think it’s done. I often forget that this is only the beginning.” It is not uncommon to forget what is on your list; get into the habit of checking your to-do list several times a day.

 

 

EXERCISE

What do you need to do tomorrow? Create an energizing to-do list by listing your items as follows:

1. State them in action language. Use a verb. Don’t just write “Cousin John.” Say “Write thank you note to Cousin John.” Don’t just say “Plumber,” write “Call plumber.” Add the phone number. If you don’t have the phone number, write “Get plumber’s phone number.” People often write shorthand to save time, but it takes about a second to write a whole phrase and it will help create clarity for you.
2. Write down how long you think that each item will take.
3. Identify a time when you will do each thing on your list.
4. Write down only those tasks that you know you must do or want to do that day. Do not get into the habit of littering your to-do list with items that you can’t or won’t do. Being hopeful really doesn’t help in this case.

 

When you have created your list (and it is an act of creativity), take a few seconds to imagine yourself doing everything on your list with grace and presence.

Here’s Anna’s list:

Enjoy checking things off your list and the energized feeling that you get when your actions match your aspirations.

Today’s Priorities

As part of your to-do list, you must learn to identify your absolute priorities for the day. It is very easy to lose track of even the few burning priorities, so ask yourself, “What three actions are top priority for me today? What must I do by the end of the day to reach my goals?” Write them down in a quiet early moment, or even the night before. It may help to carve out time at the end of the day to connect with what is important for the next day. Try limiting the top priority list to three items, four at the most. Later in the day, refer to this list when you get tired and unfocused, and when you start feeling the tug of too many demands.

Prioritizing takes place all day long. When you are in a moment of confusion and don’t know what to do next, you can read your list of priorities. Prioritizing isn’t easy. Yet, it is the most important work of our lives. With practice, it helps you get better and better at wisely investing your precious time and energy. Keep asking, “What is really important?” Professional coach Cheryl Richardson says, “Sometimes you have to say no to what is really important, in order to experience what is really, really important.”

Create Replanning Time

In almost everyone’s day, there is a moment when you feel your day has gotten out of control. You may realize right before lunch or in the middle of the afternoon that you are just not going to get done what you wanted to do. For instance, it is 11:40 A.M.—almost lunchtime—and you have not been able to start to work. There is one phone call after the next and an onslaught of e-mails; time is slipping away. Your true goals are receding into the distance as you struggle with the immediate demands of the moment. You may start to become resentful. You notice that your stress increases. “This shouldn’t be happening!!! I had other plans for the day!! I have deadlines to meet and appointments to keep!”

Or you may be facing the “world of ten thousand things.” You are dealing with five issues at once. You get flustered. Another hour goes by. You were on a long phone call and you haven’t done anything that was a priority. You can see that precious time for your workout slipping away. Meanwhile, there are calls and e-mails to be returned. Children to be picked up. You need to make something for dinner.

What to do? You now know that you cannot do everything you have to do. It’s tempting to try to move faster and give in to the inner critic: “Do more! You didn’t do enough!” You might even resort to eliminating meals or giving up on your workout to make more time.

Instead, take two to five minutes in the middle of the day to reassess your goals and plans. This is replanning time: a moment to “fall back and regroup” that comes out of sitting quietly. It fosters a different kind of inner conversation. When you take a few minutes for replanning, you look at the hours you have left in your day, you look at what you wanted to accomplish, and you consciously make the trade-offs. And you use some time reallocation strategies. You consciously ask several questions:

 

How can I sustain my energy and presence of mind today?

Do I see any way of accomplishing all of my goals, or do I have to deliberately say, “I can’t do it”?

Do I see any clear trade-offs?

What can I delegate?

What can I say no to?

Where can I change the time line?

What could I do less of and less perfectly and still derive value?

Revisit your top three priorities for the day and ask, “Given my current constraints, what are my priorities now?”

 

You may realize that you can work out or you can finish a case write-up, but you cannot do both. You realize that you need to choose. Or, instead of going to the gym, you can speed walk for twenty minutes. It’s still better than no exercise at all. You need to negotiate your day’s plan with yourself.

The challenge is to sustain your energy and your presence of mind all day long. Use replanning as a learning process. Do you always eliminate your workout? Do you consistently overbook yourself? Cultivate these questions as an inquiry, not an inquisition. You can’t criticize yourself and learn about yourself at the same time. When Helen first tried replanning, she said, “I would say to myself, ‘You’re not exercising again, you’ll never get fit, you didn’t clean off your desk again, you didn’t respond to e-mails again.’ But now I can see that when I replan, it’s best not to badger myself about it. I use scheduling as a learning process. I see how I consistently overbook myself. I also see how to make some good changes.”

Keep your week in mind when you make your trade-offs. If you haven’t responded to a few key phone calls for two days, then they become the priority. On the other hand, if you have worked out for the past three days, then maybe you can give that up this evening.

You can use your vision as a helpful tool here. Every day you are faced with choices about how to spend your time. Different choices have different pulls to them. And some are quite difficult. Do you want to take a forty-five minute walk or comfort a friend who is calling for help? Not easy. Do you want to pick up your children at school or finish a report before the deadline? Our lives are full of trade-offs. There is no way around that. We are always making trade-offs. We can’t do everything. However, when you are faced with a choice, you ask yourself, “How important is this to me? Is this truly part of what I want to create for myself?” Your vision is a guide to making choices in the present moment. You create a new future for yourself by making new choices in the present.

The Hourly To-Do List

It’s easy to lose track of what you want to do even in the next hour. If you have an “open” stretch of time, create a short list of what you want to do as a way of reminding yourself what is important in that hour. Take a blank, brightly colored index card and simply write down what you would like to accomplish in that hour. Keep that card in front of you. This can help you stay on track for the next small amount of time. When phone calls or e-mails come in, you can remind yourself of your priority for this hour. Remember, we are very easily distracted from what is important to us.

Structure Your Time with a Timer

A timer can be your most valuable tool for organizing. Set it for fifteen minutes, and plunge into a task that you have been postponing. Even the most odious job is tolerable if you know it’s just for a limited time. Once you get started, it may not even seem so bad. Mary uses a timer to get herself started on sorting her piles. She says to herself, “I can do this for ten minutes.” She often finds that once she gets started, she can continue her task for much longer.

You can also use your timer to manage distractibility while you’re doing a task. If you tend to get distracted by phone calls or other work demands, the timer can remind you to go back to the initial task. A timer can help you keep track of multiple activities. Set your timer when you put the water on to boil for tea; otherwise, you may go on to the next thing and discover an hour later that the teakettle has boiled dry.

You can use a timer to let you become fully absorbed in a project without being afraid that you will forget to stop when you have to. If you know that you need to leave the house at noon, you can set the timer for 11:50. This will give you time to collect what you need, comb your hair, check your datebook, close the computer, put on your coat, and walk out of the door right at noon.

Using a timer can help with structuring an “open” morning or afternoon with a great deal to accomplish. Yacub, a freelance consultant who works out of his house, described his morning: “I would plan to write for two hours. I would get myself seated in front of the computer at nine. I would check my e-mail, then make another cup of coffee. Then I would remember a few phone calls that I had to make. Then I might receive a phone call or two. Soon, the morning would disappear, and I would be very unhappy and frustrated. I couldn’t show any significant accomplishment for the morning.” Detailed time structuring is almost essential if you are working out of your home office, but it’s also valuable at any workplace.

So, instead of leaving large blocks of “free” open time, you structure your time instead. Here is the basic idea. Take a large block of time, say, two hours, and divide it up into, six twenty-minute segments. Instead of telling yourself, like Yacub “I am going to write for the next two hours,” you say, “I have six blocks of twenty minutes each.” Now you have smaller, more manageable blocks of time to plan. You plan each block of time, and you work through one smaller block at a time. Use your timer as you go through the morning so that you keep track of where you are. You can get a lot done in twenty minutes when you have a goal and are focused. You start with a list of “must-dos” for the two-hour block of time, and then you plan the rest of the time accordingly.

Instead of “write for two hours,” Yacub’s morning now looks like this:

 

9:00-9:20. Make coffee, check e-mails for anything urgent.

 

This acknowledges that making coffee is an important ritual for him. And he needs to check e-mail for messages. He sets his timer to go off at 9:15. That gives him a five-minute buffer before 9:20, when he will start working on his writing project.

 

9:20-9:40. Review yesterday’s work and start the second section.

9:40-10:00. Write the first two paragraphs for the conclusion.

10:00-10:20. Write the concluding paragraph.

10:20 -10:40. Make follow-up phone calls, five minutes of yoga. (The few minutes of yoga provide a change of pace.)

10:40 -11:00. Edit the introduction. (At 11:00, he will acknowledge the morning’s work and block out another hour or two.)

 

Once he got used to this detailed way of planning his time, Yacub realized that “one reason it was hard for me to settle down is that I was intimidated by what I had to do. Even though writing is a big aspect of my work, there are times when I am daunted by what I have to produce. So, I’ll make phone calls, pay bills, anything not to have to face it. Now, I just have to work for twenty minutes. I am willing to tackle the hardest writing problem, if it is only for twenty minutes. But, usually, I get started and I enjoy the challenge that I face.”

Structuring your time like this helps you learn about managing distractibility as well as your own work habits. Here are some pointers for making this time-block system work for you.

1. Be aware that you may plan to do too much. Keep noticing how much you actually do in any given time frame. The more accurately you understand how you use time, the more effective your planning.
2. You may need to replan frequently. That’s part of the way this system works.
3. Take tiny two- to five-minute mind breaks to get oxygen to your brain. Five minutes of quiet, gentle stretching, a walk down the hall, or sitting meditation can be enormously refreshing to your tired brain.
4. Celebrate even the smallest accomplishments. You may be so used to keeping your eye on what you haven’t done that you may forget to acknowledge your victories. This is essential.
5. You will learn to be more aware of trade-offs. You’ll start to see that if you do this, you cannot do that. You cannot do everything.

 

Structuring your time helps you know where you are in your work. It gives you a very clear picture of how well you are focusing and what you are achieving in relation to how much time you have.

Stop and Think

In the middle of the rush of the day, pause for a moment to ask:

 

“Do I have everything I need for the next meeting or activity?”

“Is there anything I might forget?”

“What do I want to accomplish in this hour (or in this conversation or meeting)?”

“What do I need for the day?”

 

Do this every day like a discipline. Before you walk out of the house, stop and think. Say, “Stop. Do not go through this door. Do I have my wallet? Do I have the shopping list? Do I have directions? Do I have my gym bag? Do I have the folders (library books, items to return) I need?” A thirty-second pause allows you to collect your thinking even if you are running late again. Give yourself time to think it all the way through. It won’t take that long. Stopping and thinking help you arrive at the airport with your tickets, or show up at a meeting with the right information, or get to the swimming pool with your swimsuit, towel, and goggles. You can practice “stop and think” right now with a little dry run. Go to your door and say “Stop!” What will I need . . . ?”

“Stop and think” at any transition during the day. Check that you have everything with you when you leave a store, restaurant, or client site. Make it a habit to mentally review that you are leaving with everything, so that you don’t get home and discover that you left your umbrella on the airplane or your grocery shopping list on the pharmacy counter.

Deal with Panic—It’s Only Temporary!

Panic is an acute fear response that is accompanied by physiological flooding of adrenaline into your system. It can both cause and result from disorganization. Just when you are facing a deadline, trying to find receipts so that you can figure out your taxes, or when you discover that you can’t find your car registration, panic sets in. For many of us, this happens far more than we would ever admit, even to ourselves. So, often we suffer panic attacks alone. There are the awakenings at night in fear; the forgetting to put the check in the mail; the running late to a very important meeting. Some people suffer from serious chronic anxiety and some people have occasional panic attacks.

I remember one of my moments of panic. It was a day when I had an important meeting, and I was trying to get a lot done beforehand. My heart was racing. I was doing too many things at once. I had to leave my office to get to the meeting on time, but I needed to do one more thing. I was trying to print something out, and the printer jammed. I was in a hurry, so I pulled the paper out too fast, and thus broke the printer. I left in a state of agitation. I rushed off, and of course I got lost and missed this very important meeting entirely. A few hours later, I went to pick someone up at the airport, and I misplaced the ticket for the airport parking lot. Panic often breeds more panic.

I reviewed what led to my panic attack. I just wanted to get a few things done before I left. I wanted to fax a couple of items, make a phone call, and print something out. I lost track of the time and started to realize that I was cutting things very close. And here is the important point: I couldn’t seem to let go of any of the calls or faxes. I kept saying to myself, “I just have to get this one thing out the door” rather than “I think that it is time to quit so that I can allow for traffic and get there a few minutes early.” I was pushing my limit and I started to lose my focus. I got out of touch with time. Then I got scared that I would miss the meeting, and I did.

Get to know what leads you to panic. Sometimes, we panic over seemingly small things, or because our day is just unraveling and we have planned too much. Sometimes, our pattern of frenzy just goes over the top, and now we are in a full-fledged anxiety attack. At other times, something else altogether is bothering us, and we will only discover this by taking a little time for a gentle conversation with ourselves. Many people try to do too much in any given period of time. Pushing too hard and failing can lead to panic.

A key to dealing with panic is to plan for it in advance. Create some calming phrases for yourself at a time when you are in good shape. Practice them for the times when you are overwhelmed. In particular, if you tend to create jams for yourself, such as losing the keys to the company car right before an important presentation, learn how to remove self-blame for the moment. Talk to yourself: “It’s going to be all right. This is a small matter in the larger scheme of things. . . .” Once you calm down, you will find that you can think again. You’ll remember where you put the keys.

At these chaotic and frightening times, it helps to remember that panic is basically a temporary chemical reaction. See if you can stop for a minute and take some deep breaths. Unless there is a true emergency and you are on the way to the hospital, you can take the time to get some oxygen to your brain. Pay attention to the feeling in your body. Don’t label it, just feel the feeling. Chances are you are feeling a lot. This is the result of the adrenaline that is coursing through your veins. Interrupt your thoughts. You may be frightening yourself with what you are thinking.

If you can be patient and not fight the nervousness, the adrenaline will be reabsorbed by your liver in a matter of minutes. You don’t have to stay in the panic zone. You can tell yourself something like: “I’m nervous now, but in a few minutes, if I don’t fight this and breathe normally, I’ll start feeling better.”

When you get disorganized and panicky, it might be a sign that it is time to face something difficult. Consider that you may be like an alcoholic who drinks when under stress, or a compulsive overeater who eats when things are overwhelming. We create extra messes and stresses for ourselves when overwhelmed and upset about something else.

Once you recover from the immediate fear, you can explore what might be an underlying source of the panic. Ask yourself the following questions:

 

What’s bothering me?

What else could be going on?

What does this remind me of?

Whom can I talk to about this?

What do I need?

Can I see that making messes or chaos is painful but not lethal?

Can I calm myself down and start again?

 

You can gain control over your panic. Keep reminding yourself that it is only temporary and that you will be back in charge soon. Quiet yourself so that the chemical imbalances can drain out of your system. The panic will pass.

Take Care of Your Physical Needs

Rest

Rest. What a concept. Close your eyes and breathe deeply for a few minutes. Do this once an hour and allow your body to refresh itself. Rest is wonderful for helping to focus your tired, distracted brain. Pause—let the events of the day sink in. Thomas Moore suggests that pausing provides a “period of non-doing that is essential nourishment to the soul.”

If you are rested and focused, you will be able to get more done in four hours than you can in eight when you are fragmented and burned out. You may need rest periods. Plan rest in your days. Put rest into your weeks. Turn off the phone. Read poetry. Turn off the TV (it is not restful). Play music. Breathe. Sit and watch the ants. Play with your dog or cat. Don’t do anything. It’s easier to rest if you find a comfortable place. If you work at home, sit in your favorite chair for a few minutes after lunch. If you work outside the home, perhaps there is a park or a coffee shop nearby where you can rest for a little bit.

Get Enough Sleep

Sometimes you are just too tired to clean up. You just can’t face the dishes in the sink or the mess on the dining table. Okay, that’s part of life. But, then, go to bed. Don’t watch TV in a stupor. It won’t refresh you. And don’t read. Put the magazines and catalogs down. Do not answer the telephone either. Give yourself permission to go to sleep. Climb into your bed and enjoy the sweet feeling of letting the fatigue wash over you. You did enough for one day.

Most Americans are sleep-deprived. One consequence of not getting enough sleep is difficulty paying attention. Sleep deprivation contributes to distractibility. Since you’re distracted, you don’t get done what you wanted to, and you stay up late trying to finish everything. Then you don’t get enough sleep. It can turn into another vicious cycle.

Some people can’t sleep because they are up worrying about what they need to do or didn’t get done. Others don’t sleep because the only time they have to themselves is late at night. It is the precious moment when they let themselves read a book or magazine. The parents of young children often find it is the only time they have together without the kids and this has become precious, even if they are exhausted the next morning.

Make it a top priority to get a full night’s sleep. You will regain the “lost” time sleeping in refreshment and productivity. It may take concentration and will to break the pattern, but you can get out of the habit of being sleep-deprived. When you are exhausted and feel too tired to even get yourself to bed, start telling yourself that you will feel much better if you go to sleep now. Allow yourself to make a list of what you still need to do, but then put it aside and go to bed. It’s worth it.

Remind yourself of your purpose in life, and figure out what your sleep deprivation is costing you. Envision yourself feeling good and rested. You might want to find out how and why you are staying up. Are you on the phone late catching up with friends? Are you leafing through catalogs? Are you watching TV? These are habits that you can break once you become aware of what you are doing. Get support. Tell your partner, family, and friends that this is a priority for you. Prepare yourself: when you first start getting enough sleep, you may feel worse, mostly because you are less numb and more aware of how you feel. But stick with it. You will start feeling better, being more productive, and completing the things that you want to accomplish.

 

EXERCISE

Once a day as you are changing your sleep patterns, visualize yourself going to bed a little earlier than you typically do. Imagine yourself in the middle of your late-night activity. Then see yourself deciding that it is time to go to bed one half hour earlier than usual. See yourself deciding to let go of your activity and getting ready for bed. Make a commitment to yourself to go to bed one half hour earlier than usual. When you are actually getting ready for bed, prepare yourself for sleep by thinking calming, restful thoughts. Perhaps repeat to yourself these comforting words: “All is well, all is well, all is very well.” As you practice your visualization, and soothe yourself with peaceful thoughts, it will become easier to go to sleep earlier. As with changing any habit, it may take several weeks or more of practice. Changing our body clock is not easy.

Eat

Sometimes your brain isn’t functioning because you are undernourished. Eat something nutritious. Feed your brain. You may find that skipping meals temporarily saves you time, yet later in the day, you can’t think very well. Food is good, healthy, and essential for focus. Try a high-energy drink if you are in a hurry. Go to your health food store and stock up on nuts and protein bars. Even if you are overweight, you need to eat. Also drink lots of water; dehydration can contribute to fatigue and make it hard to focus.

Create the Environment that Works Best For You

Dr. Edward Hallowell, the attention deficit disorder specialist, gives many helpful tips to those of us who suffer from distractibility. He says to make your work environment as “peppy” as possible. “Know that it is okay to do two things at once. . . . Often people with ADD need to be doing several things at once in order to get anything done at all. Know how and where you work best.” You may find that you work best with a lot going on around you. If you have ADD or are prone to distractibility, and work at home alone, try getting out of the house to get your work done. Find a restaurant or cafe where you can work uninterrupted, or try working in your local library. Some people work best in front of the TV. As Dr. Hallowell says, “Children and adults with ADD can do their best under rather odd conditions. Let yourself work under whatever conditions are best for you.”

Partnering to Keep Our Eyes on the Prize

It’s so easy to get distracted by work-style differences. As you have probably grasped, I fall into the group of distractible people. As fate would have it, I married a very task-oriented and organized individual. Our differences around organizing have been challenging (and distracting) for both of us, and we received some help from a framework that was introduced to us by the Learning as Leadership Group in San Rafael, California.

They distinguish between two types of people: D’s, who are drawn to a divergent set of activities, and T’s, who focus on accomplishing specific tasks. For instance, my husband loves to check things off his to-do list. I don’t even like looking at my daily to-do list—so I have learned to write it on brightly colored index cards in interesting colors. Although I place little boxes by the tasks I complete (to experience a sense of accomplishment), I often would rather do anything other than what is on my checklist. My husband, on the other hand, actually loves to check things off his to-do list, and he loves giving me items for my list as well. Another example: he feels great when he has plowed through his e-mail. While I feel okay about getting through my e-mail, task accomplishment doesn’t give me the charge that it gives him. And usually I have to bolster myself first so I can get through it.

D’s tend to be fuzzy about their goals, and T’s tend to be clear. When there is a task to be done, D’s tend to focus on the costs of doing it versus the benefits of not doing it, while T’s tend to focus on the benefits of doing it as opposed to the costs of not doing it. D’s want to feel good before tackling their task, while T’s don’t feel good until the task is accomplished. If a D misses their target, it’s not that bad as long as they had a good time getting there. For a T the outcome is more important than the enjoyment of the journey. D’s tend to respond to anxiety with inaction, and T’s respond to anxiety with action. D’s tend to criticize people who are too action-oriented, while T’s criticize people who are too enjoyment-oriented.

So D’s and T’s are quite different, and, as nature would have it, they often become life partners or close work colleagues. Without awareness of the distinct and valuable qualities that each person brings to the relationship, they can slip into criticizing each other. I would criticize my husband for being “run” by his to-do list and he would judge me for letting things go and not staying on top of my assigned tasks. What we often don’t realize is that neither orientation is the “truth” of how to relate to time and tasks. We could see that we both tended to avoid doing what are often the most meaningful yet difficult tasks for us in support of our goals. D’s tend to avoid difficult tasks through focusing on how they feel, while T’s often do everything but the most important (and hardest) thing for them to do. When we viewed our own approach as the one right way, we could end up just getting on each other’s case (and nerves) and not achieve what either of us really wants. What we most wanted to do was learn how to support each other in achieving our deeply meaningful goals.

Try to remember that each person’s weakness is also their asset—when viewed through an appreciative lens. Try to remember, too, that your partner or colleague may have something to teach you. D’s often can teach about enjoying life, and T’s have much to teach about accomplishing tasks. Both lessons are important. Moreover, each partner often needs support in doing what is most difficult for him or her to do, and often the other partner holds the key to providing that support.

The Wisdom of Focusing

We have so many choices. When we focus we give ourselves the gift of depth and presence. We can focus on what is important to us, and we can bring our attention to the present moment. Both of these types of focusing will deepen the quality of our lives. Life is a practice of coming back to the richness of the present moment, and coming back again. In the next chapter, we explore more deeply the power of focusing on the present, and the synergies of organizing and spirituality.