HOW TO HANDLE COVID RESTRICTIONS IN 2021? – SIMPLIFY AND FOCUS
It's nearly new year.. whoop whoop or perhaps weep weep if you’re alone and/or missing the party this year.
In my last blog, I spoke about the ‘One Word’ New Year’s resolution to help anchor and simplify your life for 2021. I’ve been reflecting that the need to simplify is a helpful tool for the times we are living in for 2 reasons:
1. We live in a loud world. Everyone is making their voice heard, their product known, their theory understood. It’s a lot of noise, perhaps even a cognitive overload. Every which way we look there is more information, more ways to be, more things to learn or avoid and more noise to harness our attention. However, this attention the world is demanding from us is causing us great levels of distraction. If we simplify the amount of noise around us we will iron out our distractions and welcome our focus and intention.
2. During Covid, the external world has physically slowed down or at points entirely stopped, in fact, you could say the external world has simplified. I have 4 kids and I am no longer running around like a headless chicken to football, ballet, playdates, scooter parks, school concerts, galleries etc. Even at work, we are no longer able to say ‘yes’ to visiting that office or whizzing off for another client meeting in Timbuktu.
A little like David Walliams "Computer Says No!" character in Little Britain, I too am saying to my kids "Covid Says No!".
Covid has greatly simplified the rhythm of my physical life. I am seeing this as a metaphor for what we need internally. How can we put areas of our lives into Tiers or lockdown? Not oppressive restrictions that we associate with control, sadness or frustration, but restrictions that help us STOP being bombarded with content, cognitive overload and internal hustle.
Simplify Definition:
To make (something) simpler or easier to understand.
In maths: Simplifying makes an algebraic expression easily understandable and solvable.
How can we make the algebraic expression of 2021 in our life; our job, project, task, goals or family easily understandable and solvable? How can we simplify and therefore focus in the coming months of Covid restrictions to solve the challenges we may face and/or make the most of hidden opportunities?
A solution:
Take an inventory of all your distractions and cognitive processes to bring simplification and focus into your life.
How?
Using a piece of A4 paper, create 3 vertical columns.
At the top of each column write:
Working on - Should be working on - Want to be working on (see below)
Then fill in every column. Write as much as you can, it may take a couple of days. Come back to it time and again as one thought will spark another. It can have anything from: listen to Ted podcast, make 3 healthy lunches a week, get fit, email CEO, take up an instrument, finish presentation to make more sales.
Once you have completed it, go through it vigorously and cross off anything that is:
Not vital, that doesn’t matter, is not your responsibility or is not a goal you have.
Be as ruthless as possible. Gone are the days of multi-tasking and spinning plates, there is enough research to show that being busy does not equate to productivity. Your focus and productivity will improve exponentially if your list looks like a well oiled simplified machine.
When you see links, put them next to each other. Less is more. Revisit this list daily/weekly/monthly to harness your focus and whittle out the distractions.
Your list becomes your simplification map and will help make this year a year of focus and intention where your brain has every chance of generating solutions and finding opportunities to make you thrive within the uncertainty.
To increase your focus and productivity in 2021 at work or at home get in touch: info@dollywaddell.com