Monday, December 5, 2011

Listening Deep

I don't seem to be able to do and listen at the same time.  My wife and girls know this more than I do.  I especially can't be near a TV without going into that special zone of emptiness.  I can fall into this zone mid sentence even by infomercials and stuff I'm not interested in.

I tend to start my day with distractions.  My alarm goes off at 5:00 AM and I shut it off.  Well, it really isn't my alarm, it is my iPhone and it contains a whole host of things that distract me or make me distracted.  I typically check my email to see if anything is pressing and then workout.

Rather than starting my day focused on what I want to focus on, I end up starting my thoughts on what someone else wanted me to focus on.  It just goes from there, I let myself get on auto-responder rather than allowing my mind to focus on what it should focus on.

I'm not selling or getting rid of my phone but I've added a new discipline to my mornings.  Don't check my email or FB or Twitter or... until I've had a chance to focus on more important things.  I workout, connect with my girls, and eat, say good by, get coffee, plan my work and then I check my email.  I'm thinking about even adding some more things to the list of stuff more important than email.

So in the few days I've tried this, I've found that I focus on deeper stuff rather than allowing superficial stuff to invade my early morning time. 

I'm not Socrates, but I like knowing that I have more focus in my life.

What do you think?  Any ideas on other things I should try?

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the tip! I can fritter away a good 20 minutes in the morning this way. I keep telling myself that if I just get up and go I'll have more time later. I'm going to try this and see if my morning picks up.

    You could also make a "no gadget time zone" a specific period when you purposely avoid those goodies.

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