Alexander’s struggles 7 – The battle for attention and how to win it and focus on what is important
I joined the battle for attention. It´s simply me against everything that wants to get my attention. From the media up to the tasks I got to do. Everything demands attention. But we have limited attention. Hence, we got to be careful using it. It´s a bit like a limited resource we have each day.
That´s why I focused on improving my morning routine a lot. In the morning, this reservoir is filled and it´s easiest to focus. Sadly, it´s not that easy but I try each day again and remember this quote:
“To a wise man, every day is a new life.”
My routine is far from perfect but it´s getting better. For example, it would be better if I would plan my day already the evening before but that´s difficult to achieve since that would mean doing that before going to bed but by then I am mostly too tired and unfocused. I will continue doing it irregularly and trying my best to improve the regularity. Maybe I will also find another method but until then I will keep failing and retrying the next day.
Everybody is different and so should be the morning routine. However, I believe that a routine is better for everybody. Just depending on the person it can be quite short and loose, or a bit longer and more tightly planned. And here are some ideas for your morning routine, or when you want to start one. Just pick the one habit that you think would be most advantageous for you and implement it over the next weeks: Meditating, journaling, getting into the habit of doing a task for your job/career in the morning, stretching, daily reading, tracking your habits, eat a healthy breakfast, track your habits, visualize your goals, etc.
If deciding is difficult for you, I would suggest you start with sport/stretching or reading something new. I think those two are keystone habits that will improve many other parts of your life as a side effect.
A tip for implementing the habit. Try to combine it with something you are already doing in the morning, or that you enjoy and at best both. For example, I make myself a tea and drink it while I write my journal and for my blog. That makes it easier for me to stick to my habit.
However, don´t forget that we are not perfect. If you don´t succeed at implementing your chosen habit right now then don´t worry. Just try it again. It´s not important how long it takes to get it implemented. Try to enjoy the process and remember:
“Do what is easy and your life will be hard, do what is hard and your life will be easy.”
Another tip that helps me a lot is to keep the habit small. Hence, instead of telling yourself to work out each morning from tomorrow morning for an hour, you aim for working out some minutes. Many times you will automatically do it a bit longer since you already prepared yourself and started but even if not, at least you started to build your new habit.
“How do you eat an elephant?”
“One spoon at the time!”
Let´s go and get active making this our own life!
All the best and a wonderful day,
Alexander