Stop your Tiggering
How often do you find serendipitous things happening around you? Things like thinking about calling someone and they call you? Or seeing someone’s name somewhere and then you bump into them at the supermarket? Opening a book at a random page and finding that there’s an appropriate message there for you? I find this happening very almost daily.
Today I picked up the book ‘The To Be List’ by Latesha Randall and found it open at a page titled ‘Be Focused’. Hmmmm – how appropriate for me right now … With family events requiring my attention as well as business activities and domestic responsibilities, it’s easy to have a list and then bounce all over the place. Do you ever find yourself switching from one thing to another when you’ve got lots to do? Jumping from your email in-box to your FB feed, surfing TV channels, eating while on your device? Starting a task and getting caught up in something else that also needs to be done. And all the while feeling like there’s something else you should be checking on or doing even while you’re ticking this particular item off your list?
When I’m in this frame I know that things get done, however they’re not always enjoyable and although I’m in the ‘doing’ frame, my attention is ‘tiggerish’. Tasks get completed including some that weren’t on my list and at the close of my business day the list is often the same one I started with in the morning. I wonder if this is one reason why people are always ‘busy’ (a word I dislike a lot). Latesha talks about being aware when you’re bouncing between tasks, or ‘tiggering’ as I call it (you know how Tiggers like to bounce). When you realise you’re ‘tiggering’ or your attention is ‘tiggerish’ you’re in the exact right space to do something about it. All that’s required is a different choice. If you’re not aware, you’ll probably carry on ‘tiggering’ and get to the end of the day and wonder what happened, like I’ve done in the past.
From experience I know that when I focus on one thing at a time and complete it, I feel like I’ve achieved something important when it’s done. Dedicated focus to the task at hand is a key ingredient of success and you can’t start this part of the process until you’re aware of what you’re doing right now.
Next time you catch yourself ‘tiggering’ take a moment to pause, breathe deeply and re-focus your attention on the most important task. Right now. Give it your full attention and switch off everything else for the duration, or a pre-determined period of time. Your productivity will increase, your enjoyment of each task will increase and the number of tasks you ‘tick off’ the list will increase.