Getting Things Done : Reach Your Happy Place
We all have things that we need to get done, at some point or another. What we need to do is highly subjective but how we do it effectively is definitely connected. And, this is the premise for this post.
Suppose you have multiple jobs to get done and lets call them A, B, C, D and so on. With all these different items on your plate, you will need to prioritize first before heading into accomplishing them. We will keep the prioritizing part for another day. But, let’s first talk about how you can achieve what you have set out to do.
Let’s say you have an assignment that you need to get done before tomorrow morning. You get back home at around 8PM today and start working on it right away to give yourself the best chance of achieving it. One thing’s for sure, you have the time on your hands, but let me ask you this – are you in the right frame of mind to do it? Are you brains working 100% towards achieving this particular goal with all your brain cells in tip-top shape? More often than not, the answer is no.
When you get back home in the evening, it is obvious that you are tired and hence, would not be able to concentrate all your energies into getting your activity accomplished. How can you ensure quickly that you get cracking with all your aches behind you?
The answer is simple to put it in writing : reach your happy place. Before we move on, let’s watch this video from the movie Happy Gilmore.
In this movie, the coach stresses upon Happy reaching a place which makes him happy and this would in turn, get him started. It may be a pass time movie, but the concept behind it is profound.
You will need to find your happy place before getting started with the activity that you need to accomplish. This way, your mind gets relaxed and moreover, your stress nerves would be calmer than ever and will not interfere in your way.
I am sure we have all heard of the story of the wood cutter and the blunt axe which he used to cut down the trees. Sharpening the axe cut down the time consumed by a multiple times. What does this analogy help us? That a sharper brain can accomplish much more than a tired brain in a shorter period of time. Hence productivity increases!
Happy place (imaginary or real) will help you cut down the time that’s required to getting your activity accomplished (it’s proven, trust me). In essence, your happy place will only act as a catalyst at best, but the results will definitely take you to new places where you’ve never been.
Worth Reading : A Tale of Two Woodcutters
Personally for me, I work close to ten hours a day in my day job and when I get back home, I am totally exhausted. I spend some quality time at home chatting and watching TV for about an hour. This will take my mind off of my busy day (some extent). Later when I sit down to blog, I think about my happy place (which I am not going to share, excuse me!). My happy place further takes load off of my shoulders. Reading some of the twits makes me come into the world of web and blogging and finally, I feel set to start my blogging job for an hour or two. At this point of time, I am sharper than I was when I came back from work.
Reaching your happy place is not an one time activity. We are not built to switch on and switch off as and when we want. It is a process and the process is perfected as we start practicing it. You will have to grind and crawl and sweat to reach your happy place first time round, and it gets easy as the days go by.
My challenge to you this week is to try and reach your happy place and let me know how successful you were in getting there. We will not talk about how productive you were but as a first step, it is important to reach your happy place. Happy Journey!!!
On a different note, time management will not take you places if your mind is not in the right place.
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