A simple and smart way to make time for yourself
Often I heard myself say that something didn't work out because I just didn't have time. This was never about work, never about obligations to others, but always about something I wanted to do. Take my Greek course, for example: in the first week I was still student-like at the kitchen table learning a new alphabet, but by week two I had already postponed it a few times. So I still can't get further than kanéne próvlima. Which means that something is not a problem, but it is.
In the book Control over your attention I found the solution: schedule appointments with yourself and put them in your calendar. If someone then asks if you have time to work on Tuesday evening, you can't because you have Greek class. Or your book club. Or the beauty salon. It doesn't matter at all (pardon my French) that you have that appointment with yourself, because a date with yourself is at least as important.
Why can't we make time for ourselves? Because we act recreationally and therefore always do first what we see or what someone throws at us. You prioritize a question from a colleague, a mountain of emails, or vacuuming the living room because guests are coming. Literal translation: we let our agenda be determined by others.
Read here immediately why you want to stop with checking your email all day.
Making time for yourself doesn't only work when it comes to your free hours, but it's also smart to apply it in your work. Sometimes you need extra focus to do or create something, and multitasking is then incredibly inconvenient. What am I saying? Multitasking doesn't exist at all, which drives your brain to madness with switching between tasks. As a result, you get less done because you are asking something from your brain that doesn't make it productive.
How do you succeed? Make a general plan that isn't thrown off by one phone call with a colleague. First, focus for two hours on something that needs your attention (or that you enjoy), then take a short break, read your email only at the end of the morning, and above all: that reward. We are so simply made, because when we have something fun to look forward to, we get into that concentrated mode faster. And that can of course just be that book club or beauty salon, you've tackled that right away.
