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Breaking Up Your Day

by Jeff Davidson    

As I travel around the country speaking to organizations, I am struck by the number of people in my audiences who seem perpetually overwhelmed. The irony is that though these people could take breaks throughout their days and weeks, they don't. The biggest obstacle to winning back your time is the unwillingness to allow yourself a break.

I spoke to one group of executives and their spouses, and learned from many spouses that their executive husbands or wives simply do not allow themselves to take a break. Paradoxically, every shred of wisdom on the subject I have encountered indicates that executives will be more effective if they pause for an extra minute a couple of times each day. This can be done every morning and afternoon--when returning from the water cooler or rest room, before leaving for lunch, when returning from lunch, and so forth.

Seven hours and fifty minutes of work, plus ten one-minute intervals of rest or reflection in a workday, will make you more productive than eight solid hours of work. To insist on proceeding full-speed through the day, without allowing yourself ten minutes to clear your mind, all but guarantees that you will be less effective than those who do.

Most people already perceive this, but do not grant it to themselves; it is one of the several crucial things you can do to begin catching up with today (or at least this week). Many of the other techniques, like this one, are deceptively simple--but don't let that obscure the powerful results they offer.

To Stay Competitive

The Motorola Corporation discovered the hard way that a little instruction here and there didn't educate their employees the way they had hoped, and certainly didn't stick with their employees. Motorola now has their own university with its own staff of 300 instructors and a $60,000,000 annual budget. In addition, they have developed in-house programs and long-term alliances with local colleges.

Why do they have such elaborate procedures? To help the organization stay competitive. Similarly, for you to stay competitive, you need to pause periodically throughout the day, everyday. Infrequently applying the measures in this article won't give you a sense of control over your day, afford you greater peace of mind, or enable you to win back your time.

Some of the most productive and energetic people in history learned how to pace themselves effectively by taking a few "time outs" each day. Thomas Edison would rest for a few minutes each day when he felt his energy level dropping. Inventor Buckminster Fuller often worked in cycles of three or four hours, slept for 30 minutes, and then repeated the process. He found that in the course of a twenty-four hour period, he would get far more done than in the traditional waking and sleeping pattern. With this pattern of rest at shorter intervals, Fuller was able to extend his productive hours.

Most people are least alert, however, between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. Highest alertness is between 9 a.m. and noon, and from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Your alertness will vary depending on hours of consecutive duty, hours of duty in the preceding week, irregular hours, monotony on the job, timing and duration of naps, environmental lighting, sound, aroma, temperature, cumulative sleep deprivation over the past week, and much more. Have you ever taken the time to map your own times of maximum and minimum alertness during your typical workday?

Strategic Pauses Every Day

You'd think that entrepreneurs, since they run their own businesses, manage themselves, and are in charge of their own schedule, would be more inclined to take strategic pauses during the out the day. Too often, being in charge of your own schedule does not necessarily mean that you take strategic pauses.

Conversely, if you work for others, perhaps a large organization, you may erroneously believe that if you pause for the total of ten strategic minutes throughout a workday it would somehow jeopardize your standing. This misconception is unfounded.

The C.E.O.'s in many top organizations routinely take naps at mid-day to recharge their batteries. They have executive secretaries that shield them from the outside world, take their calls, and arrange their schedules. If you are not the C.E.O. of a large organization, the thought of being able to take a nap in the middle of the workday may seem like nirvana to you. Yet, the ten strategic minutes I have been speaking about provide a similar benefit if you can't take a flat-out nap.

Endangered And Vanishing

Take at look at the list below. How many of these terms have dropped out of your vocabulary? If you check more than three, the chances are you're trying to proceed through this life too quickly:

ENDANGERED TERMS

[ ] Take your time

[ ] Spare time

[ ] Taking the afternoon off

[ ] Lingering

[ ] Taking a long weekend

[ ] Seven day vacation

[ ] Complete rest and relaxation

[ ] Sleeping in

[ ] Leisure time

[ ] Leisure hours

[ ] Leaving early on Friday 

[ ] Chipper

[ ] A restful vacation

[ ] Well-rested

[ ] Awake and alert

[ ] Rearing to go

Vanishing Laughter

In addition to the above, how many times do you actually let out a good laugh during the day, especially the work day? Five-year-olds reportedly laugh 113 times a day on average. 44-year-olds laugh only 11 times per day. Something happens between the ages of five and 44 that greatly reduces the chuckle factor.

Once you reach retirement, fortunately, you tend to laugh again. The trick is to live and work at a comfortable pace and have a lot of laughs along the way--at every age. When you proceed through the workday without humor, the days tend to be long and difficult. Part of taking control of your life is being able to look at the big picture, and being able to see the humorous, lighter side of things. Some of your worst gaffs later become the things you pleasantly recall--or your best ideas!

Humor has its place in your life; don't get caught in the trap of thinking that what you do is so serious, that you have to look serious in order to appear professional. You're likely to look like a stuffed shirt. Step back and see the humor in your life; laughter gives you a break in the action, makes things less tense, and puts you back in control.


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Jeff Davidson, MBA, CMC, is a popular conference speaker and author of 28 books, including Breathing Space (Feb 2000). For books, videos, cassettes, or presentations, visit http://www.BreathingSpace.com, FAX (919) 932-9982, or call (919) 932-1996.