Written by: Katie Stoddart, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
What elements enable you to thrive in life & business? Maybe you think it’s money, a marketing strategy, or a business plan…
What if, instead, you looked at your: time, energy and attention? How do you think these affect you and your business every single day?
Optimize your time
To thrive in life & business, you need to gain control over your time. It doesn’t matter how much money you earn if you cannot: spend quality time with the people you love, craft out time for hobbies & interests you enjoy, or simply relax and unwind regularly.
It can be a challenge to let go of your business for an evening, a weekend, or even a holiday as a business owner!
Why is it that you are always rushing and feel that you don’t have time for anything? Let’s explore a few of the key components that can shift your relationship with time.
Victim mindset & ownership: How are you spending your time each minute of the day? This is always linked to a decision you have made: either now or in the past. Think about it for an instant. If you are reading this, nobody forced you – you chose to (either right now or in the past & saved it to read later). The more you acknowledge that how you spend your time is your choice – the more you take ownership, and you can shift & change how you spend your time.
Scarcity mindset vs. abundance mindset: Time is not something to hold & grasp – it is life. Instead of measuring time as a resource that is running out – what if you looked at the time as just you in the present moment? The book: The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, explains this concept beautifully. When you alter your views of time, the thoughts & emotions that you have around time, you no longer feel a lack of time but an abundance of time. If instead of thinking: ‘I never have enough time for what matters to me’, you change it to ‘I always have time for what matters to me’ – how do you think this would affect your busyness?
Boundaries & people pleaser: Once you take full ownership of time, and transform your mindset from scarcity to mindset, things will begin to change around you. One of these things might be your boundaries.
Instead of always agreeing and saying yes to others, you will find that you have more respect for yourself, and no longer invest your time in activities that are not aligned. This could mean saying no to projects that are not a good fit or turning down some opportunities.
Clear boundaries are essential to optimize your time. You know your priorities, what is important for you, and how you want to use your time – then you put in place the boundaries necessary to make this happen.
A few other useful methods to optimize your time are pareto & parkinson laws, time blocking, and clear priorities.
The transformation with time happens through shifting your views on time, your thoughts around time, and your daily actions.
This means breaking the auto-pilot habits (for instance saying yes too often, perfectionism, or scarcity thoughts) to take full ownership of how you use time.
Boost your energy
All time is not created equal. If you spend a full hour inflow reading a fantastic novel or an hour waiting in the supermarket queue, it does not feel like the same amount of time.
This is the paradox! We aim to measure time as if one minute had the same value as another minute – but they don’t.
Partly this is because our relationship with time is directly correlated with our state and our energy. Hear me out on this! If you are feeling tired and unmotivated, you will not accomplish as much in a day of work as when you are fully rested and energized.
Consequently, you don’t want to only focus on time management techniques, but also incorporate energy management!
To boost your energy, you need to consider the three levels of energy:
Physical level: If you are lacking sleep and living off burritos, your physical energy might be a bit drained. Investing effort into maintaining your physical energy is a must. This entails checking in with yourself daily: Sleep, Nutrition, Exercise. If you notice that one of these areas is not as optimized as you would like it to be – then you can benefit from designing a plan of action to improve this area.
Emotional level: Your emotional energy is the energy that is generated through your thoughts and emotions. Typically, if you are complaining, feeling like a victim, or low – this is draining a lot of your energy! Notice what thoughts & emotions you have and shift them around. For instance, you might need to change the environment or the people you see regularly. Start to notice the activities that fuel you and the ones that drain you. By auditing your energy, you will gain awareness of these different factors – and then transformation will happen!
Mental level: Your mental energy is linked to how you focus on your work at hand, being in flow, and enjoying your daily work.
These different levels of energy are all important and are all related. For example, working on your physical energy will also impact your mental & emotional energy. Self-leadership is a great part of managing your energy.
Once you begin to master your energy, time & focus will be a lot easier to manage effectively.
Improve your attention
Focus is power. As Nir Eyal explains in his book Indistractable, today’s greatest power is the ability to be ‘indistractable’, aka strong attention.
If you are struggling to be focused, then these three aspects can help you:
Single task & no distractions: The fastest way to improve your focus is to only do one activity at a time. As simple as this sounds, it is not always easy to implement. You will need to turn off all your notifications, put your phone in flight mode, and not toggle between different tasks. If you are not used to this, you might find it a challenge. To begin with 15minutes of single-tasking and then gradually increase it. Single-tasking and turning off distractions will do miracles for your attention span and your focus.
Intention & MIT: Before starting your day, have a clear intention & idea of what you want to work on. Set your MIT: Most Important Task and take action on it as soon as you turn on your computer, before even checking your emails (I have not checked my emails yet, and won’t until I’ve finished this article for example!) Setting a clear intention and taking action on your MIT sets the tone for the whole day. It shows that you are committed to being focused and productive.
Meditation: This part on focus would not be complete if it did not include a part on meditation. In some ways, meditation is to focus, what going to the gym is to building muscles. Meditation is the most effective way to train your focus & attention.
By improving your attention, you will change the way you work. This will impact your results and support you to thrive in your business!
The magic trio
So here you have it – the magic trio of time + energy + attention!
Once you can optimize these three resources effectively, this will support you to have a great impact in your field and to earn more profit.
Profit and impact are the results of well-used time, energy, and attention. Improving these elements is to improve the core of your business. Once you master time, energy, and attention, you will thrive in whatever you undertake, whether it is in your life or your business!
For more info, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and visit my website! Read more from Katie!
Katie Stoddart, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Katie Stoddart, founder of ‘The Focus Bee’ is an award-winning, international, high-performance coach, speaker and podcast host. Katie supports leaders and business owners to reach & sustain peak performance in their business.
For her weekly podcast ‘The Focus Bee Show’, Katie interviews leading experts in high performance. Passionate about living intentionally; Katie challenges each and every person she works with to re-focus on what matters most. Katie works primarily with entrepreneurs & executives through 1-1 coaching & workshops on: Focus, Leadership & Performance.
