ATTITUDE: I’m a firm believer in the Attitude by Charles Swindoll. I believe it is critical to success and that we get to choose ours (granted some people and days make it harder than others).
Not only does attitude choice take belief, it also takes mindfulness.
Other than when we are triggered by something or someone – attitude degradation is more common over the course of the day vs. flying off the handle or a feeling of instant discouragement.
Make sure you create an attitude check habit.
Mine is 5 times a day – the check only takes seconds. If my attitude needs adjusting that will take more energy and effort.
- as I get out of bed
- midmorning
- lunchtime
- midafternoon
- before I stop and go to my non-work life
Sometimes I notice I’m doing my checks… yet don’t put in the energy and effort I typically do to adjust my attitude; bringing myself UP to my personal attitude baseline. That means by the end of the day, I have lost control of my attitude.
This makes managing my time a bigger challenge too.
The good news is I am in complete control and can (and will) remember that perhaps the most important part of checking in with myself is to adjust.
I know that to change my mind and attitude sometimes I need to get up and move my body, other times pushing through a task for that feeling of accomplishment is what I need, yet another choice to be made… which is why thinking ahead about what it takes to adjust your attitude, so you don’t have to think about it in the moment is critical.
TIME: Is a finite resource. Don’t let it get away from you, choose AND control how you spend it.
Time is a lot like money for me; it can be easy to waste in small increments.
$5 on coffee on your way to work… turns into $10 when someone asks if you’d like them to pick you up another cup on their way back from an appointment they are going offsite for…
becomes $50 each week.
5 minutes checking Facebook can turn into 15… 15 minutes x2 daily
becomes 2 1/2 hours wasted each week.
Make sure you use inclusive time where you limit a particular activity to a set amount.
- research on something; set up 15, 30, 60 minutes whatever is appropriate BUT if you aren’t done, move on anyway. Then choose what makes business sense.
- team meetings; don’t let them drag on and digress into chatter. Set a SHORT amount of time that will cover the important topics and then get back to other things.
Also, use exclusive time to BURSTfocus® your way to higher productivity. The human brain can NOT multitask. Pick blocks of time to focus on a single mission. The duration of each BURSTfocus® block is completely dependent on the result you’re trying to achieve.
Remember; Time & Attitude are yours to control!
Lynn