This hyperconnected 12-hour-a-day dinging and chiming and buzzing and ringing and scrolling and browsing and clicking and refreshing and typing and texting and laugh-cry-emoji-ing? Is crippling your focus.
You need to chill, brah.
So you can process what’s happening in your business.
So you can recharge.
Refocus.
Here’s what I’ve been doing – maybe it’ll help you:
1) Not rolling over and immediately checking my phone in the morning. I have to be up for an hour before I even look at it.
2) Lots of slow, deep breaths throughout the day.
3) I started working with my BeatsX Earphones in. They’re even more noise-canceling than earplugs. To the point where, I almost got mowed down by an Escalade when I was running with ’em outside the other day. Seriously… can’t hear sh*t. So you feel crazy-focused when you work with these in. Then, if you need to listen to a video, you’ve got great sound quality too.
4) Neat-freaked my office. Which decluttered my mind.
5) Two-tab rule. No more than two pages open on Chrome at any given time. And usually it’s just one; but sometimes I need to bounce back and forth between reading something and taking notes – hence, two.
6) All simple sh*t gets pushed to afternoon. Mornings are for complex, creative tasks – the money-making stuff. Anything a drunk chimpanzee could do needs to happen after 2 pm. It’s a better use of energy.
7) An hour of cardio a day. Period. If I feel terrible, it might be a really slow walk, but it has to get done. I’m more positive and think clearer when I do this.
8) Fresh air. Whether it’s cardio outside or takin’ a drive with the windows down. Side note: if you’re in a funk, mentally, or low on energy, hop in the hooptie and cruise. There’s something about that movement. It’s calming. And I know it puts kids to sleep, but for me, it almost gives me a second wind.
9) Work less, read and reflect and think more. Never f*cking fails: the times I feel busiest and most stressed? Are the times I’m making the least amount of money.
10) There’s an audiobook I re-listen to, about once a month, during cardio sessions: The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch. I haven’t had too many ah-ha! moments in business; but this concept is one of ’em – and by far the most important.
