This morning, shortly after getting up, I took a quick glance at the sports pages, then grabbed a book to read. I’ve found that 30 minutes of inspirational reading, early in the day, can lead to greatly increased productivity for the rest of it.
There’s a saying, “Readers are leaders.”
Then again, there are many people who read to avoid doing something. Reading is their way to resist what their heart longs for, wants and could have, if they’d eliminate all the distractions and make time for it.
Last night, while speaking to a group of people I coach, I told them to make a list of everything they do, want to do or think about doing each day.
This is not a “to do list.” This is not a time management list. This is NOT a list for you to organize activities into A, B, C categories.
This is a list of what you want to do as well as every friggin thing you think about doing, or do, to KEEP yourself STUCK.
With very little effort, I came up with 56 items. Fifty freaking six.
Now, how many of these do you think are important? How many do you think are urgent? How many are helpful to me or someone else?
At least half, and I’m being conservative, were total bullshit distractions, none of which amount to a damn thing when you examine your life.
Think of all the time people spend watching tee-vee. Think of all the time wasted as people are checking their Facebook, Twitter and the rest of their social media.
The ultimate time wasting rabbit hold is social media. All day long, nothing gets done, but boy oh boy, do I have a lot of friends and followers.
Truth is you got NOTHING DONE after spending hours surfing the web and crawling around on social media sites. Personally, I think it’s designed, in part, to keep you distracted from getting stuff done. It’s designed to keep you stuck.
A couple months ago I re-opened my FB page for a number of reasons – and I’m proud to say that I have spent less than 20 minutes TOTAL – since I re-opened the page. Yippee.
What most people don’t realize is that there are hard-core addictions, and there are “softer” addictions that only appear to be harmless distractions.
Regardless of whether the addiction is hard or soft, if you look at the amount of time you devoted to them, you’ll see that both are snuffing the life right out of you. They’re robbing you of becoming who and what you know in your heart you’d like to be, but are afraid of becoming.
And I’m no different than you in regard to the amount of garbage that is begging for my time and energy and de-focused attention.
Every day, a battle rages on. Are you going to get stuff done – or are you going to wimp out and give in to distractions?
Each day that I get up and read something inspiring, practice Theatre of the Mind and get busy creating, is a great day. Each day that I get up and wing it – well, “All bets are off.”
Holding on to the GOOD HABITS is nothing you can take for granted. They’ll slip away like greased lightning if you don’t continually remind yourself to practice them. If you don’t guard your good habits, before you realize it, your whole day will be preoccupied with distractions, trivia and worthless crap.
Tomorrow is Independence Day. Why not make it a day where you declare your independence from all the distractions that are vying for your time?
An easy way to do so is by following my Theatre of the Mind practice. Get up, put it on, follow along with me, then stand back in AWE as you take charge of your life.
Grab your copy now and watch your life get better and better and better.
Best,
Matt Furey
