Gray Wolf Productions

Tag: brains

  • Finding That Perfect Brain Time

    Hmmmm Is there a perfect brain time?

    As part of the ongoing blog challenge, and honestly part of my almost every day personal/business challenge, is making a specific time to work only on a specific goal – usually part of a long-range goal. I do that during the day but I don’t have a specific time, it is more random from day to day and therefore on many days I let other things get in the way and then all of a sudden it’s time to go to bed and it’s the next day and I haven’t done the one or two things I know I need to do to keep working towards a specific goal. Another part of my problem is that my goal[s] tends to vary from day today – that’s me and that something I’m working on.

    But, and this is good for me, as part of the challenge today I am to figure out a 15 to 20 minute part of the day where I will work on my goals. Only 20 minutes or 15 minutes? I think I can figure out what times of the day that can happen and happen daily.

    Puppy Energy

     I’ve done something like this before and I know it works. But me, being me, stops using tactics like this after I finish one major project and I get into other stuff and then get off track again. So what I am going to do is go back to what I know worked before. That is to start my day with my coffee and my first 20 or 25 of focused activity. Given that I have a dog and I eat and I drink more coffee I will take a break after that 25 minutes and have breakfast. I will also have more coffee and then take the dog for her morning stroll. Then I shall come back and do another 20 minutes or 25 minutes. I know I work better with breaks so that will be session number two and I will take a break after that and do fun type stuff. Then I will come back and do another 20 or 25 minutes of work.

     I know my best work hours are between 9 AM and 1 PM so I shall do these 20 or 25 minutes segments in that period of time and not try to push myself past that 1 PM timeframe. I may do yoga in between some of the 25-minute work sessions because I also think yoga helps me get my mind back on track. It certainly keeps my body feeling better.

    What I will do that is a bit different than what I have done in the past is to spend the first part of the first 20 minutes session prioritizing what it is I am going to be doing that day. When I tried making myself a priority list the night before I forget about it – it’s written down and my brain considers it done. So I have to get back to prioritizing my day after I am awake and while I’m having my coffee.

    As it is now mid afternoon and I’m still on a roll I may get some of my focused work done today even though it’s past my usual work hour. Part of what I’m also working on is the ability to refocus at different times of the day or night.

    Thoughts? Ideas? Comments? Thank you!!

    This blog post is in response to Natalie’s 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 5

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  • Do You Make New Year Resolutions? Why I Don’t

    no_resolutionsOver the years I have learned how to deal with certain aspects of my own brain or mind.
     
    It does not like words that sound like “commands” and resolutions seem to fit into that category.
     
    Sentences that contain should, will, and ought fragments tend to create an opposite effect or they instill the idea that such fragments have already been taken care of.
     
    It’s why to-do lists don’t work for my head – once I write down the list of what I am “supposed” to do – my mind treats the list as “things already accomplished.”
     
    Worse is that the phenomenon is not one that happens 100% of the time – but it happens often enough that I’ve had to find ways to deal with my own type of brain. And I do that mostly by making lists of “suggestions.”
     
    Instead of calling a list “to-do” I mentally call it something like “it would be great to get these things done this week, month or year.” On paper the list has no real title and on my computer the document is often called “ideas.”
     
    Believe me – I have read and tried most gurus fail-safe ways to organize and plan – and they don’t work or they work for a bit and then stop working.
     
    With 2 major degrees in hand I know I can actually accomplish scheduled things – so I have finally stopped reading and trying “how to get and stay organized” material and have adopted a more casual approach to my work life.
     
    And I feel like I need to add a warning like they say on TV – “don’t try this at home.”
     
    Maybe unless you too have tried all the other ways of working?
     
     
    comments? thoughts? thank you
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