Being fully present frees you for your best work
When you master presence, here’s what you get:
Better work
Better relationships
Better use of time
A spiritual experience
Gratitude
Start the day with a plan.
Keep the plan in sight — literally. Plan the day but keep the number of tasks few. Four major tasks.
Work in bursts. Do everything in bursts. Work through the plan.
A burst is the length of time you can maintain focus. Start with short bursts. 10 minutes. Use a pomodoro timer. Instead of the classic 20 minutes of work followed by 10 of ‘rest’, just keep doing 10 minutes bursts of what you want/need to do.
Do it for two hours.
Treat this like meditation. Start meditating if you don’t yet do so. Start with 10 minutes.
When starting out with presence, don’t be tempted to run a series of 10 minute sessions into one long one because you really want to crack on with something. If it’s that important, come back to it later. Get into the habit of intense presence for 10 minutes at a time. So, intersperse work with reading or listening to your spouse or children. Call a friend. But do each new thing with the same level of presence.
Master that and you master each day. You’ll go to bed feeling grateful for a day well spent. You will sleep better.
The spiritual experience is harder to gauge. It comes, I think, in direct proportion to the amount you manage to get out of self. When we’re fully present — for our work or with those around us — we are most selfless and available to perform our best work.
It has taken me many years to learn that when I am present, the present is a rich and rewarding place to be. When I’m not fully present, the past and future take up all the free space in my head and worries, doubts, resentments, and regrets sabotage all the good work I might have achieved.
Choose the present. Choose presence.
