“You can grow if you ‘challenge what you are currently capable of on purpose and often” (Schwartz, p.89)
Take Care Of Your Body
I learned that in order to function better in life, we don’t need to do more or work longer. Instead, we just need to do better renewal. The first form of renewal is body renewal. Schwartz suggests that to function well we need 7 to 9 hours of sleep. Before sleeping, you could start preparing like 30-60 minutes beforehand and breathe deeply, you can write out your worries and ensure the room is dark and quiet. If you are interested you can log your sleep by going http://theenergyproject.com/sleeplog to track your sleep. Healthy eating is also important and to at least snack every 2-3 hours. Try eating nutritious snacks that are high in protein and low in carbohydrates. For example you could try fruits, vegetables, yogurt and nuts. Another effective body renewal method is exercise (There are three types you can try focusing on (Strength Building, Cardiovascular, Flexibility) Here is a link to the exercise log which you can use to track your exercising in each of these categories http://theenergyproject.com/exerciselog), it was suggested to try exercising 3 times per week for at least 10 minutes per session; Swartz suggests to exercise 30-40 minutes. Yoga is another method of renewing energy as well as breathing deeply several times a day. Swartz says “the deeper you breathe the more relaxed you are” (P.199). Other forms include, playing, laughing, taking a nap, sleeping and meditating.
What Types of Breaks Are Productive?
Taking breaks is important. Try to schedule mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks. Napping is also a good thing to try as it will refresh your mind and body. Schwartz suggested to take naps either between 1 – 3 pm for 15-30 minutes or 30-60 minutes or 90 minutes. Going on vacations regularly is important as well because it helps you take your mind off of work and is known to help decrease depression as well. To help you get a break during the work week you can set out one evening where you decide that it will be work free and you won’t do any work related tasks such as not checking emails!
What do the Experts do?
Being successful requires positive rituals! Repeated practice that is deliberate and uninterrupted and of high intensity is efficient. Schwartz mentioned in his book a research finding which found that the people who were the best in their profession, spent more hours practicing. They practiced an average of 3.6 hours a day and they practiced intensely for 90 minute sessions. Then they would relax and rest in between. For these positive rituals, set a specific and precise behavior that will be done at a specific time and location and which will help increase your functionality. Just choose one ritual to implement at a time (They also have a tool to help you do this on the website under the tools option). One really good ritual to have is where you reflect by using a journal to ask questions about yourself like why am I doing what I am doing? and how do I want to behave and what do I stand for? Another key component mentioned in the book in being successful is having belief in one’s abilities and a good affirmation. One example is the following: “I intend to be the best [you can fill in the role of your choice here] I am capable of being despite my [ you can list the disadvantages you feel you have here] disadvantages”(p.15).
How to have effective Meetings?
In order to have effective meetings, start and end them on time, have a purpose or goal for the meeting and a rigorous agenda; also schedule time in for Q2 (Strategizing, Brainstorming, and reflecting).
How to deal with the challenging situations?
When events occur in life, Scwartz suggests to try finding the good in each situation and know that each event that occurs is feedback that is helping me improve and move me closer to realizing my true abilities.
Whats better, Multitasking or focusing on one thing at a time?
It is important to improve our skills in focusing and paying attention to one thing at a time. Try to improve your attention so you can focus deeply and sustain your attention for long periods of time. Prioritize the tasks in terms of their importance and work on the important items first; you could prioritize one night before or even early in the morning as suggested in the book FOCUS. When learning something new it is better to learn it in small chunks daily and in spaced sessions than learning it all at once. Doing one thing at a time and focusing on that one thing at a time is effective. For example, when it is time to drive, just drive, even hands –free talking is distractive because you are forming images when driving and talking.
Effective practices to being productive?
In order to accomplish great things it is best to do work you love. If there is a task you really need to do and get done, schedule and enter a specific time, location and date when you intend to tackle that task. Second, work in uninterrupted bursts of 90 minute sessions without interruption (i.e. no cell phones and email). It is suggested to view emails at specific times during the day and put an away message for people to call you if it is very urgent. Third, if you are feeling annoyed by situations or people, Schwartz suggests breathing deeply and thinking before acting and speaking.
How to improve my relationships with key people in my life?
The other type of renewal is emotional and it deals with interacting well with people. Here is what I learned about how I can improve my relationships; people have a core need to feel valued and secure. So what can we do meet relationship needs? Here is a list of several suggestions and reminders mentioned by Schwartz about what we can do to improve our relationships with the significant people in our lives:
- Help people feel important (e.g. when talking/listening to someone give them your full attention),
- People want to feel accepted and appreciated,
- people have a need to pay attention to ,
- Take care of them and recognize them,
- Give gifts to show you value them,
- Pay attention to their needs as well,
- Respect them (e.g., talk to them alone if you want to talk to them about a behavior that you feel needs to change),
- Acknowledge them,
- Talk and react to them,
- Help them feel like they belong,
- Comfort them,
- Make them feel assured and wanted
- Trust and have faith in them and inspire them to have trust in us too,
- Increase their confidence by seeing qualities in that person that they might not even know about themselves.
- Encourage them
- Inspire them
- Be kind (e.g., When you want someone to explain their behavior, one suggestion is to say, “I’m just wondering why…you do or don’t…”(p.152),
- Be positive,
- Be supportive (e.g. with you wife you can try being loving, giving advice, reassurance, having humor and being optimistic)
- Listen to their concerns,
- Let them know you believe in them and know that they can get the job done,
- Admit your mistakes.
- More things we can do is to focus on serving others with the intention to improve their health, wisdom, and autonomy. Ask yourself, “What can I do to meet the needs of my partner?”.
- When you are having a conflict with another person you could say: “Here is the story I am telling myself about what happened [You could explain your view of the situation] …Have I got it right?” (p.173)
