A Cold, My Focus, Shout Out to My Wife and Lucy

I’ve had a cold all last week and I’m still struggling to keep my head above my work. Every time work tries to drown me I find this reserve of energy that pushes me back up. Looking back on the week I’ve gotten almost as much done as a normal week when I’m healthy and I can breathe without blowing my nose every five minutes.

I worked on the most important stuff first and everything else waited. We’ve all heard that we need to do our most important stuff first then bother with the knick-knack crap. It actually works.

My work isn’t as high quality, as you can see from my last post. I caved in. I wrote a quick piece, hoping to create reader interaction. It sputtered and tripped over itself. I forgave myself and hopefully you’ll forgive me too.

But besides that sub par post I got a lot done and only working at about 50% capacity. Yes, I know only 50% capacity! You’re wondering how I’ve found the strength.

Focused Mindset

I’ve been forced to focus as hard as I can without letting my ADD kick in and take over. Usually it takes me ten to fifteen minutes to get started on anything. I’m the work happy now guy, not the get it done fast guy. During my cold my start-up time has been reduced to ninety seconds. I created a little exercise to help me jump right in to my work. It really helped me avoid my procrastination. I’ll explain what I did in a little bit.

My cold has bottomed out and I’m on the mend, but my strength is only at 60% and I’m still working my full time job and pumping out some entertaining and informative posts. That was a little pat on the back from myself, but that’s what I needed and I gave it to myself. You should be patting yourself on the back too. Sometimes we just don’t get it from other people, so we need to fill in the gaps ourselves.

Making sure that you stay motivated helps keep your focus on task.

You can find this “focused” mindset too. Next time your energy is waning try this little technique:

Step 1: Take sixty seconds to feel everything that is going on within yourself. Do a body scan and check for weak spots and possible pockets of hidden energy.

Step 2: Gently pull on the bottom of both earlobes for five deep breaths. Remember to keep your eyes open, otherwise this might make you sleepy. This will have a calming effect and should help softly rise that energy back up.

Step 3: Then with that last deep breath decide what you want to get done and just do it for ten minutes. Promise yourself to work for ten straight minutes before you stop.

Once I got going I didn’t want to stop.

Shout Out to My Wife

My loving wife has taken care of me during this crisis. All right it wasn’t really a crisis, but I really appreciate her love and compassion. Even though she still made me wash the dishes after dinner. Our trade was that she would edit a few of my next posts. Believe me you wouldn’t want to read my writing without her help.

Lucy

I met Lucy at Blockbuster while renting “Iron Man.” Shh. Don’t tell me what happened I’m staying in tonight and watching it with my wife. A sick man needs his rest.

Lucy was working happy at it’s best. She asked me how my day was. Complimented my movie choice and tried to offer me an up sell, but not in a pushy way.

Great Article – Rock Your Day

I read this excellent article How To Get Through Damn Near Anything from Rock Your Day. Dave has such high energy. It’s a must read if you want to get your stuff done.

Wrap-up

Still enjoying my work while having a cold is a new experience. Usually I’m a big grump. It goes to show what passion (Work Happy Now) will do to find a little energy when you thought you were drained.

Sometimes we need to have a wrench thrown in the mix to mess everything up. It shows us that we can still be happy if everything isn’t perfect. This cold gives me another piece to my happiness puzzle. The next time I’m tired from a long day of work and I still need to post an article for all of you I’m going to do my “focused mindset” relaxation then jump right into my work, no hesitation, knocking it out for all of you.

How has your week been? Anything crazy? Any little pieces to the puzzle to help you see a more clear picture of your personal development?

An Uncle, Cousin or any other Related Family Member to Productivity is Right Below:

• Imagination Isn’t Just for Kids
• 6 Things You Should Never Say to Your Boss
• You Should be Celebrating Your Average and Tiny Successes
• Yes, I’m a Lucky Person – Then Click Here You Lucky Son of a Gun

*

Images courtesy of Pescod, Jiva, and Serrator