Want to manage your days better? Start by managing your mind. A few things to remember:
- The main obstacle to time management is not how to manage time more effectively it is how to manage your brain optimization.
- There is another hidden secret that most people do not think about. Do read on to discover this.
- Your energy levels also depend on how well you manage your brain state.
- Your ability to negotiate, sell and market effectively depends on your brain optimization.
There are at least 10 factors that reduce brain optimization, where you forget your daughter’s name, call your dog by your business partner’s nickname, spend an average of 4 hours per day being spaced out and feel terrible at the end of your day when you know and feel that you have got nothing done.
I am going to give you the most important of these factors and what to do about them.
So what are the factors that affect your brain optimization levels and allow for more time, money and energy?
Too Many Plates in the Air
Every time you switch from one task to another, your glucose level in your body goes down. It takes energy to switch from one thing to another.
When you have too many plates in the air or too many things to do at one time, that leads to a reduction in glucose which even if in small amounts, can result in what some scientists call ego depletion or its close cousin, decision fatigue when you make too many decisions in one unit of time.
Glucose of course gives you energy but it is also used in making neurotransmitters vital to proper brain optimization and functioning.
It is expensive to you, your mind, and your business to have too many things on your plates or too many plates in the air.
Also if you are making too many decisions in one shot, you may notice that you are beginning to sound loopy even to your own pet dog whom you are now calling by your business partner’s name.
Solution: Pace your projects over the day
If you know you have a brain intensive project in the day that requires more attention and more decision making, you will want to take a break before and after that time period and be sure to keep most other distractions at bay a little bit of mixing it up is okay but too many things at the same time, will spoil your brain optimization soup.
The Eradication of Guilt: False Expectations
Dopamine is a lovely naturally occurring chemical in your brain that helps you feel motivated. When you set up false expectations that you do not hit, your dopamine levels go down and you feel very demotivated.
The opposite occurs when you set up more realistic expectations of your day or even slightly lower expectations so that you appear to be on track ahead of the day.
If you put in the right amount of challenge without going into stress in your day, you will be operating at your peak brain optimization (outside of new technology or special drugs.)
Solution: set up realistic expectations
The day before, spend about 30 minutes maximum going over the goals and schedule for the day making sure that you have enough time, bandwidth, and energy throughout your workday to hit the main and most important objectives.
The Secret = The Future
Most disappointments in the day stem from a poor relationship to upsets, breakdowns, and disappointments. When these occur, it is easy to be distracted by the pull of the past.
When people experience upsets, breakdowns, and disappointments, they typically get stuck in ruminating or at best trying to force an outcome. Either way seems to be energy draining.
When you are automatically dictated by your habits or responses that you have ingrained in yourself from past events, habituation, or training you are pretty much stuck.
Solution: Create a compelling mission statement for yourself that invigorates and calls you forward.
My mission statement gets me to snap out of my ruminations and move steadily towards making that mission statement real rather than ruminating on all the reasons to give up or why it just won’t work.
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Since 1991, I’ve been reflecting on, designing, and implementing methodologies and systems for bringing a transcendent, creative and innovative approach to critical aspects of entrepreneurship.
