I am a slow eater. I even drink water as if I am having a cup of tea, slowly and really getting the taste out of water. Isn’t a bad thing right? Earlier me would always say this is good because I am enjoying while eating my food, new me has some different perspective :)
Let me share how this post got triggered in my mind. Recently, I was talking to one of my very close friends and in casual talks, I mentioned about how some routine tasks are taking my time and I am not able to concentrate on my personal to-dos. His reply was — “ These are the basic necessities of living but if you would do these things like a lazy panda how will you get time for others”. I laughed it off and said yeah right because I love pandas.
Since then this thing is stuck in my mind and I have been reflecting back on what aspects of routine are making me a panda. Whereas laziness is good and appreciated in many ways but what about times when we really want to get things done and are struggling to find time for such tasks. I started noticing small things in my routine which seemed small but when I tried modifying them, it made me feel good and saved me a good amount of time.
Here are a few of the things which I changed in my routine —
Focus rather than multitasking
How I loved taking long to even go for a bath.
This is not my routine only now, but it has been always like this. I usually take around 2 hours in the morning getting ready to go out (unless it is the evening time when I am already half ready). What took me so long? My actual time taken was around 40–50mins whereas the rest of the time is spent on deciding clothes, moving from here and there for collecting stuff, doing other things in between. Why? Why did this happen? Because I wasn’t aware of the multi-tasking I am doing in between. This happens with other areas too. I was so used to do multi-tasking because of the fast-paced environments these days that it takes deliberate efforts to stop doing that. Research shows people do multitasking for most of their times. Many types of research have shown now that multitasking reduces brain power and increases the time taken to do activities.
I try to do one thing at a time now. Focus on the current task and keep others for later. This doesn’t mean procrastination, it simply allows me to finish quickly what I started and jump onto next rather than trying to finish 2 simultaneously. I try to do this in most of the aspects and trust me, I get done more.
Mindfulness
Mind is a bird, if not caged time to time it can fly to the other side of earth.
How many times it has happened that your mind wonders to altogether a different planet or country while doing some regular daily routine job. It used to happen with me a lot, 80% of times my mind was wandering somewhere else. The impact that I see is the current task at hand takes more time than it should. I love daydreaming and I will never leave that but what I try now is to be mindful of my present situation, my task and how I am doing it. To start practicing mindfulness, I started noticing each and everything. When I am doing something, even if that is as regular as washing dishes, I keep my mind there. It is a hard job and needs regular reminder/ practice. But once in the habit, I started seeing the difference not only on my time saving but peace in mind too.
Review & Pre-Planning
Failing to Plan is planning to Fail!
For regular work, it helps a lot when I do a little pre-planning and tries to reduce clutter for ‘in the moment’ decisions, like what to wear in the office, breakfast chores, what time to leave or how to commute. Even for my trips, I try to divide my basic itinerary planned and rest of it as I explore (Still need to apply effectively).
Being a project manager (and Engineering manager in past), one of my default focus has been to look for the things in the process that can be automated. With same concept, I try to see and find what is it that can be automated or optimized (pre-planned) to make room for faster execution.
If it needs 10m, Do it now
Repeat after me : “I can do this”!
I have heard and read it a lot of times if something takes less than 10 minutes of work, do it as a priority. I tried implementing it as this seems simple and it really is simple. Whenever there is something that needs to be done, either in my to-do list or work, in my mind, my first question is — Can I do it now or do I need to put it for later? Setting 10mins as a base helps me to make this decision. Key here is to stick to this and try following it most of the times. Procrastination does get into the picture and I want to actually think that I will do it later, but NO — a BIG NO. I swear by again and again that I won’t do it.
Last but not least, Have fun!
Sounds cliche but overtime when I started observing, I noticed that when I am in the flow, I really am not taking more time. Its when I am not enjoying or I am making it like “I HAVE TO DO” I take more time and end up being frustrated too. Anyways, It doesn’t hurt to enjoy what you doing ;)
Well, these are some of the pointers that I wanted to share. I am still on my journey to stop being a Panda (however I find them so cute).
Do share what is it that you do which helps you in doing things quickly :)
