focus

Slowing Down to Speed Up

January 15, 2019 By Kat

I used to have a tendency to live life a million miles a minute. If there was a blank spot in my calendar, where I wasn’t physically meeting someone, I would fill it up with something else. I didn’t account for driving to/from places, and I didn’t account for being tired from going to an event or driving somewhere farther away. So I would pile in many things into my schedule for a single day, and when that day came, as I was rushing from place to place, I would get so tired and wonder why I agreed to all of those things in the first place.

For awhile now, I’ve been working on slowing down my life. Although my mind is very curious and wants to try and experience all these great things, it’s hard for my body to keep up. I realize that scheduling so many things into my calendar wasn’t giving me time to rest or even sit down and breathe. And I needed that alone time to process what just happened or to think about what I wanted to do next.

Having such a full schedule also robs us of the chance for spontaneity in life. On one hand, having a full day of plans already booked is great and time-efficient, but on the other hand, there’s something wonderfully glorious about a blank day with nothing on the calendar. I love those types of days because they are full of possibilities and full of surprises and joy.

I’m not saying that we should just slow down to a sloth’s pace and be couch potatoes for life. I just believe that slowing down to rest helps us get back out there and do our work at a much faster pace. By recharging (before we burn out), we can re-energize and be productive, and then go back to resting – like a sinusoidal curve.

When we slow down, we become more intentional with our time. We may realize that certain things cause us stress or anxiety, so we can adjust or remove those things from our schedule. Then we can have more energy for things that we want to focus on – for that particular time in our life. And the things we want to focus on will also change over time like a sinusoidal curve. There are seasons of life where we focus more heavily on career, then we focus more on health, then family/friends, then back to career, etc..

So in a world where “being busy” can sometimes be a status symbol, I am rejecting that notion. To me, not being busy is a luxury. We don’t need to fill up all our time with activities. We don’t have to be 100% productive all the time. We don’t have to do everything we’ve ever wanted to try in this immediate moment. Instead of cramming 10 things into 1 day, we could aim to do 3 things slowly and but enjoy them in the process.

What speed are you operating at these days?

It is a mistake to think that moving fast is the same as actually going somewhere.”
Steve Goodier

Why Life is like Leaning In For a First Kiss

October 11, 2018 By Kat

THE FIRST KISS

In the movie Hitch, Will Smith plays a dating coach named Hitch, who teaches guys how to win over the woman of their dreams. It’s a fun romantic comedy, and there’s a scene where Hitch is teaching Albert about the art of the first kiss. Hilarious clip here.

They talk about the 90-10 rule, where Hitch says, “The secret to a kiss is to go 90% of the way, and then hold… Hold for as long as it takes, for her to come the other 10.”

Hitch explains that most guys make the mistake of going all in, at 100%, while his technique makes the girl work for it. With his move, the guy should be so irresistible that the girl leans in at least 10% for the first kiss.

LIFE LESSON

I think of this scene as an analogy for life, except we are the ones receiving the kiss, and we have to go the 10%.

I think about this a lot because I feel like life is giving me all these signs. First of all I have to be observant about them – or be quiet / reflective enough to realize these signs. The signs can include: go talk to this person, or go to this event, or write / create a video about this topic. There’s all these things that I get hinted about. And I write them down, but sometimes I don’t have time to get to them. Or maybe I get too intimidated and don’t want to follow up on them. But then we don’t get the results we’re hoping for.

ENTREPRENEUR

I think the mistaken belief I had as a new author and new entrepreneur was that good things would just come to me automatically – at 100%. I believed that they would just land in my lap.

What I’ve realized over the last year is that we must take that 10% step to meet life halfway – or not even halfway. Life already brings good things into our life, but we still need to take initiative to grasp them and make them ours.

For example, life will plant a seed in my mind about a certain event to go to. It may be through the form of an email in my inbox about the event, or it may come up when talking to someone. Then my curiosity is piqued. Then it’s me to register for the event on time, and then to get dressed and show up to the event. Life / fate / God can’t magically transport me to the event. I have to put in the effort to get myself to the event. What ends up happening is I meet someone new or something positive happens, and I’m glad I went!

SELF-DOUBT HOLDS US BACK

What makes the process difficult is that sometimes we’re tired and we don’t want to take that step towards our goals, or sometimes we’re too overwhelmed by self-doubt. For scarier opportunities that require more visibility, we may feel like we’re not ready for them and we’d rather hide in the shadows than be seen.

So I think sometimes our mind will rationalize all these excuses and try to talk ourselves OUT of going.

COMMITTMENT

And I think that’s where commitment comes in. Being committed enough to our dreams and goals, means that we are willing to do whatever it takes to seize each opportunity as it comes.

Because unlike the first kiss strategy, “the guy” or “the opportunity” won’t always wait forever. Sometimes the opportunity is only available for a limited time window, and then disappears. And all you get left with is regret for not acting soon enough.

I feel the tides are turning. I’m realizing the signs that God has given me, and that it’s really my choice and responsibility to act on them. Some days, He will give me wonderful surprises all the way, but I think He wants me to work for it and to learn what’s really involved in building a successful business from the ground up. There’s a long road ahead and I’m going to need lots of bravery and guts.

I’m going to say it here, so I am publicly accountable: Regardless of my doubts and fears, I commit to leaning in to life. Hurrah!

Thanks for reading. XOXO

Is there a time in your life where an opportunity came up and you had to lean in to accept it?

How to Stay Focused & Manage Your Time

October 10, 2018 By Kat

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a procrastinator. I’m also super ambitious and have tons of things on my to do list. But it’s hard to gather the energy to do what I need to get done, especially for the more challenging tasks that I’m not sure how to do yet.

I’ve tried all sorts of routines and things to stay on top of my tasks. These are the tips that worked best for me.

1. SETTING A COUNTDOWN TIMER

I use the countdown timer in Google search on my computer. You can use a physical timer or one on your phone if you prefer. I set it to 30 minutes and then start working on a task – like writing this blogpost!

That makes me feel like I have a short term deadline to get the task done, instead of feeling like I have all afternoon or an infinite amount of time. Otherwise the task will drag on and fill up the entire space that I allow for it.

If I start to feel antsy and want to do something like get up to get a snack or take a break, I’ll tell myself that I can do it after the 30 minutes are up. Hence it reduces distraction because the timer is running. Seeing the timer jolts me back to focus at the task at hand.

If the task takes longer than 30 minutes, then I can reset the timer, but then I’m conscious that now it’s taking me an hour. And so on, if I need more time. This is helpful rather than letting hours slip by unconsciously. If I reset it a couple times, then I realize I should hurry up because it’s taking longer than it should. Or maybe the task is too big and needs to be split up into parts that can be done in smaller time increments.

2. TRACKING TIME SPENT PER ACTIVITY

At the end of the workday, do you ever think, “Wow, where did the whole day go? I got nothing done!” Well, I’m sure you got something done, but maybe not the right priority item.

In any case, tracking what you did and for how long can bring you awareness of where your time is actually going. I use the Toggl website, which is a free tool. You can start/stop/pause the timer when you change activities. I’m not the best at remembering to always start the timer, but you can go back and add entries if needed.

I wish I could be better at tracking everything because Toggl has this cool aggregate report where they show you a breakdown of what you spent your time on for the week. As you can see, I got lazier with tracking as the week went on. It’s hard to remember to track things when I’m driving around and not sitting at my computer. In the column on the right, it also shows what you spent the most time on.

Anyhow, Toggl has a bunch more features like tracking multiple projects, tracking for a whole team, track billable hours worked for a client, etc… There’s so many features, I haven’t dug into them much yet. I use the basic free plan. I don’t know if Toggl has a countdown timer, so I use it in conjunction with Google’s countdown timer.

3. PLAN AHEAD OF TIME

In the SELF journal I use, there are 30 minute time slots to schedule each day from 6am – 9pm. The 30 minute slots are really important than just a big old blank space for the whole day. I find the 30 minute time slots force me to be very specific and account for what I will do throughout the day, instead of hand waving approximately how I’ll spend my time.

Hence I started planning my days the night before, trying to block out time for eating, gym, cooking, meetings, content creation, even accounting for driving time to get to places.

I definitely don’t follow the plan exactly, but sometimes I try to pencil in how long actual tasks took so that I can learn how much time to allocate for them next time.

One thing I learned is that my morning rarely goes as planned in the journal. -_- And that sleeping past my alarm makes me go off schedule as well. Ah well, tomorrow’s another chance to stick to the schedule!

CONCLUSION

Trial/error with these different techniques is the only way to figure out if they work for us or not. It often requires repeated attempts at the same technique to get it to work.

I’m still grappling with how to manage my time. Time is our greatest and most precious resource. So I hope that by all this planning, tracking, observing, and reflecting, I can get a more realistic view of how I spend my time and be more intentional about how I use it.

Alright, well checking the clock, I’m 10 minutes overtime already, so it’s time to wrap this baby up and go take a break! 😛

What techniques do you use for managing your time? Would love to hear what works for you!

The Self Journal

August 16, 2018 By Kat

I’ve been on the hunt for a better way to manage my time and priorities and goals.

Hence, I ordered the Self Journal from Amazon in the color Charcoal. It is a daily planner for 90 days, and includes places for you to track your weekly progress towards your overarching goal. I just started using it, but it seems very well thought-out in terms of the structure and seems like it aligns well with the psychology behind what we need to achieve our goals. It’s created by the company Best Self Co.

To see more of what’s included, here’s an unboxing video that I posted on my YouTube channel:

If you decide to try out The Self Journal too, let me know what your experiences are with it!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I purchased this journal on my own and am hopeful about it!