Besides learning to focus on the rocks each day here are some other suggestions.

  • Create some space, each week, where you can think about your future. No phone calls, no texts, no face book, just carrying out those important but not yet urgent tasks. Getting ahead of the game. On a Friday morning I work from a lounge chair, staring out to sea, focusing on upcoming speaking engagements or writing commitments. I call this day “Blue Sky Friday”
  • Embrace Peter Drucker’s abandonment. He said “Don’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me what you’ve stopped doing.” There are always activities that can and should be abandoned.
  • Plan your week ahead, this allows for connectivity to work, eliminates back tracking. Avoid having morning meetings, and ensure you have at least two 1.5 hour blocks of time each day. Replay in your mind what is on the agenda tomorrow as there will be a better way to reorganise the day and there will be some tasks that should be abandoned.
  • Consider multi-tasking as an activity “full of sound a fury signifying nothing” as William Shakespeare so elegantly drafted. Stay in the moment and complete the task at hand and move to the next one. Being busy for the sake of it will lead to a very unhealthy and unrewarding life. Let others take on that mantle.
  • Say “Yes” to events and opportunities that are on your journey allowing enough thinking time to create some synergy with regards the timing and to recognize the reason why and how it will help you on your journey.
  • Say “No” to meetings that have no purpose, to writing reports that nobody will read, to jobs that, while paying well, will eat away at your soul.