Integrate!

You might not think that you have an energy budget, but you do. Whether you call it energy or willpower or discipline or motivation, something drives you and sometimes, you run out of it. Whatever you call it, energy is both a physical reality and an emotional one. And either you manage it, or it will manage you. Here are three ways to think about your day: I do things when they are scheduled. I do things when I feel up to them. I go with the flow. Which of these does the best job of matching your energy to meeting your goals for the day? Probably none of them work very well. You're using energy but not necessarily generating enough so that you have the supply you need when you need it. You're probably either putting off stuff that needs to be done, or frustrated by having more energy than you need for some kinds of tasks. © Can Stock Photo / Ig0rZh Here's a better idea. Think about your day and ask these three questions: When do I have the most energ...

Buy it at Amazon It works every time, even if you're speaking a second language or working in a field that is new to you. Here's the magic formula for effective communication: knowing what you want + paying attention to other people = words that work.  I know this seems too hard. I know you are tempted by the people who teach another script, another voice lesson, another theory of body language that will supercharge your communication. I know that it seems easier to work on your words than it does to work on being so clear about the results you want that you are able to dedicate most of your attention to the people you want to influence. Attention is harder to manage and maintain than a script. But scripts don't work well without it. Your attention is signalled by energy: people notice when you're directing energy at them. They pay attention to it. And when they do, your words can ride that energy and land deeply and effectively. But if you expect the...

Do you have enough energy for what you want to do? So many people are busy managing their time, and yet they can do nothing to change the number of hours in a day or days in a week. The calendar programs and expert tips all talk as though 5 minutes were always 5 minutes. And yet, you have experienced 5 minutes as an eternity and 5 minutes as a heart beat. In NLP, we would say that your state determines how much time 5 minutes contains. When people complain they don't have enough time, I wonder if they are really saying that they don't have enough energy. It's a much different question and harder to solve with an app. It would mean that instead of auditing how productively you spend your time, you would need to understand your personal economics of energy. What if every activity consumes energy but some activity also produces energy? You know this is true. It always takes energy to get started. But sometimes you are so engaged in something that you become more energize...

You've been waiting for this day for weeks - actively preparing so that you'll be at your best when you need to perform. You've researched and rehearsed and you are ready. Until the bug hits, the one that has been going around the office or the school. You're all set and you're sick. Now what? There are times when there is no choice. You're too sick to carry on and so you miss it. Other arrangements get made. What I want to think about now are the majority of days, the days when you have a wicked head cold and you have to face a 2 hour commute before presenting to a room filled with important people you want to influence. You have choices. You could cancel and begin the long, hard process of preparation again.  You could muddle through miserable and hope for sympathy points from your audience. Or you could excel despite the bug. You could be so committed to your outcome that you show up fully and let go of most of the rotten feelings until after you'...

As I sit down to write, I feel rotten. I've been coughing for days, I hurt all over, and I'm not confident that all the pieces of my brain are in working order. My most vivid goal for the day involves sipping tea and watching multiple episodes of Doctor Who. Instead, I'm writing. The Olympics are ongoing and yesterday I watched a young woman do tricks on her way down a terribly dangerous slopeboarding course. Apparently, she has such a bad cold that her team has her quarantined outside the Olympic village. If it is the Olympics, you don't stay home and watch Doctor Who. You give more than you think you have racing headlong down a mountain. Sometimes I talk to my college business students about days like this. I say: "What if you went to work in the state you are in now and it mattered? What would you do to find the energy and focus you needed to be at your best?" They usually look stumped for awhile, and then they start to notice that there are choices. Ma...

What difference does it make if work is just a little bit fun?  Logically, fun is a distraction and there's no particular reason that a day with a little fun in it would be more productive than a day of focused, serious work.  Practically, we all know that we're more likely to be productive if we're having a little fun mingled into our task focus.  How does that work exactly? First, it helps us remember that people are not computers and they don't work the way computers do. Our thinking is a complex weaving of reason and memory and sensory awareness and emotion. Fun can involve three of those, and that means that it's actually quite a rich form of thinking. A little fun is likely to be using a lot of your brain, and that wakes up more resources for applying to your work. Next, it's useful to think about the patterns in your thought and work. Patterns work the same way over and over.  Real productivity involves doing more than repeating the same patterns: it ...

Have you ever had a day when what you wanted most was to laugh?  It sometimes happens that thinking through problems and solutions is overwhelming and grinding out work is exhausting and the only real solution is to laugh.  This is hard for introverts, since we laugh more easily in the company of others (we all know that laugh tracks work because the quickest way to get someone to laugh is to laugh yourself). Several times a week, I spend time with my laughter coach. She does not charge by the hour, but she does value obedience and full engagement.  My coach is my 18 month old niece. She is a giggle expert, but she has also mastered the grin and the chuckle and the bemused half smile that indicates she can sometimes suffer fools with good humour. Although spending time with C means lifting and moving and sitting on the floor, my back is strangely compliant while I am with her.  Some of this is the value of love and some comes from the therapeutic touch of small a...

Does it happen in your work?  There are many different reasons for ending up with a pile of work that bores you. It's a chore that needs to be done and you have to get through it before you can get back to doing something that engages your full attention and feels productive. There's lots of advice on how to tackle the mountain, from taking frequent breaks, to stressing out (a little stress is productive when the task doesn't require inventive thinking) to delegating the work to someone who will love it (there are some jobs no one loves).  Over my years as a teacher facing a mountain of marking, I have tried most of the advice.  It has all left me convinced that sometimes a chore requires a little mental toughness and a lot of persistence. You don't have to love what you do all the time. You do need to nurture two very different parts of yourself. One part is the one who runs conscientiousness and duty and persistence.  That part is habitually low maintenance but...

Have you ever known that you were absolutely in the wrong mood for what you had to do next? You know that your attitude changes your effectiveness.  The question becomes how you can change your own attitude. Your current attitude colours all your perceptions. That makes it very hard to perceive the differences that would allow you to build a different attitude.  Many people don't even try. They just wait it out, hoping that the next mood that hits will be more useful. Or they pretend that attitude is something that only happens to other people. A more useful approach has three steps: 1) Move your body. 2) Connect with a new rhythm. 3) Borrow the best available attitude. It's hard to change your own mind. It's easier to change your body.  If you want to signal yourself to get moving, try moving.  A walk, a run, a climb up stairs: any of them will get the blood flowing, adjust your breathing and rhythms, and suggest to your whole brain that it look for ways o...