Photo Credit: Wand
When I was five years old I fell off a jungle gym and broke my nose. I don’t remember that, but I do remember the horrific reconstruction process later in my teens. I support all your life decisions - except elective nose surgery. That is one life experience I didn’t need.
It’s my fear of falling flat on my face (again) that restricts my progress with the bakasana pose I talked about last week. The pose literally requires you to suspend your face inches off the ground. One day I put a big bolster in front of me. Worst case, practicing this way, I end up face-planted into a pillow. That I can handle. More reconstructive nose surgery I cannot.
The pillow is a support that allows me to fully commit to the pose without fear.
This post is your burn-out pillow. What follows are five steps to support you in the chaotic practice that is your life. They do not require much change or additional work. Just little tweaks that will make your day, week - and hopefully eventually your life - much stronger.
Step One - Maker Time: Schedule two maker blocks in your day. Make them 90 minutes each. I like them at the start of the day and make sure you do these somewhere other than your usual workspace. Even your bed if you have to. This is your time to work on focussed projects OR just to have some space to think about what those projects should be. No phones, no email - just you and your project!
Step Two - Binaural Beats: If you are not using these, start now. Perfect for maker time or any non-meeting time you need to focus. They are abundantly available on youtube and spotify. They are better than a cup of coffee. And I love my coffee.
Step Three - Phone Management: Put your phone on silent and turn that thing UPSIDE DOWN when you are at your desk. You are creating constant interruptions with notifications and calls. Each time you are distracted your brain has to work twice as hard to get your back on task. Set up your family as favorites to make sure your kids can still get hold of you. Well, that’s optional <wink>.
Step Four - Social Time: Calendar specific times in your day for social media. Casual browsing messes with your brain in so many ways. Let alone your poor eyes constantly looking at screens. Of course you need a break; so do a breathing exercise, non-video call someone or take a walk around the block. The same goes for reading news all the time. Let’s not even go there with all the ways THAT messes with your brain.
Step Five - Self Audit: This is a pretty quick exercise. One piece of paper. Column A on the left and Column B on the right. Column A is all the stuff you are NAILING at the moment. Column B all the stuff you feel is sub-optimal (likely stuff like Me-Time, Exercise. Eating Well, Meditating, Breathing, Special (and important) Projects). Take one thing from Column A you care least about and switch it with the one thing from Column B you care most about. Your work is to implement the reprioritization of those tasks. For example, no online shopping till you have meditated!
BONUS STEP - Unscheduled Day: This was recently dubbed ‘Flexible Friday” as I have always kept my Friday’s unscheduled. I do NOT book meetings or frankly any commitments on a Friday. I probably get the most work and thinking of my week done on this day. The lack of commitments makes it effortless to focus on what is most important. Sometimes this is a project and sometimes this is being available for my team, my family or frankly me! One of my fav. add-on’s to this is to book a monthly massage at 4.30pm on a Friday and have that day dedicated to powering up your business. Genius idea!
Trust me. Test these. Let me know what works and what doesn’t. I promise, you will not fall on your face.