Do you ever have so much to do that you feel like managing what you have to do stops you from doing anything? Do you ever walk into a room, or look at a particular setting and immediately notice 5 things out of place or needing to be done? How about saving things to read for later until they are piled in the thousands? Have you lost the ability to focus or get stuck in a slowing “I need to be doing something other than what I’m currently doing” mindset?
I felt like this and I recently cracked.
As we renew our life and lifestyles, we tend to get caught up along the way. I’ve been getting the bare minimum done because when I walk into a room I need to fix physical things or I sit down and need to clean out all the inboxes from Facebook, Twitter, E-mail, Dailymile, ect. I know better, I know so much better…so do you. This is phase one stuff! Yet we still get sucked into such things whether we’re forging new trails or our regular routine and it becomes a mental RAM sucking cycle. Here’s the story and a strange and powerful way to break it. There’s no ultimate fix by the way, it is a cycle, but the quicker we can recognize and respond, the more we can minimize it.
No Escape
I was distraught….every thought I had was about something that could be fixed or changed or needed to be updated. I made notes in calendars, stickies, Google docs and so on to try and get it out of my brain and into existence so I could accomplish something, from personal fitness goals, to lifestyle business goals….but trying to get ahead of it just perpetuated the mind sucking cycle. I didn’t get it, I was using all the great “getting things done” tactics, what gives! I busied myself with trivial tasks like it was my job. I wasn’t playing games or watching tv, I was organizing the files and the ques. Oh man….
Somehow I was stuck in this mode of process where everything could be better, and I had to capture how it could be better, or fix things constantly, which in essence meant I got nothing important done, but the kitchen dishes were always washed. I couldn’t break free despite knowing better…
This was obviously not helping with the big strides I need to be making in entrepreneur land right now.
The Miraculous and Strange Recovery
I finally caved. Screw it all! Who cares about productivity, or getting in shape, or saving good articles, or this online crap. My mind was a cage. I sat down one night with a bottle of Pepsi Max and started playing a game I bought a while back and had neglected for my other more “worthy” tasks. I didn’t care this would be a “complete” waste of my time. Yes I said Pepsi Max, don’t judge.
I went through a few days of binge playing Starcraft II four to five hours at a time. It was bliss. The game if you haven’t played, demands every ounce of your attention when you’re playing. If you lose focus for even a minute (literally), the battle is lost. Nothing else could distract me, I felt free. How insane!?!
I started to realize something…after I was done playing, I actually felt more relaxed than I had a few days past, even while some e-mails and dust collected. How could this be? I was doing less “productive” things, yet my brain felt lighter after playing. I was more productive after playing than if I hadn’t at all. The focus inducing game eradicated the entangling life things and their constant pull.
Finally it clicked why I was freed from the consuming “manage everything” mindset, because the game forced me to focus on one thing only for an extended period of time. It broke the cycle I was aware of but couldn’t seem to get out of.
I was able to pull myself away from the rather fun game and zero in on important things I wanted to accomplish again. I could block out the unimportant and life minutia long enough to get something real done, get motivated and act. All those management things came with ease as well and at appropriate times after I got my focus groove back.
Find Your Starcraft
Go buy Starcraft. Ok not really.
Doing something that emerses all of you actually frees your mind from the management passion killing suck that’s so hard to avoid in our world. It’s unintuitive but true. I know Srinivas from BlogcastFM (awesome lifestyle designe podcasts) and The Skool of Life constantly attests to his best writing and interviews after long surf sessions that demand his full attention.
It may sound crazy, but if you find yourself unable to zero in lately, find something you enjoy that takes all of your attention to do and do it whole heartedly until you pass out. Something that engages all your senses and leaves no room for anything to creep in. It will release you. We tell ourselves we’ll take a few days off, but this often doesn’t stop our brains from thinking about everything we have to do.
It’s not hanging out with friends, or watching tv, or more busywork. You can even tune out things like Yoga, running, listening to music and so on if you try hard enough. I know I run all the time and unless I’m dying for air, I’m thinking of everything I need to do. I’ve been sprinting a lot lately.
I’m glad to have this “focus freedom” tactic as I look to work internally on relaunching my lifestyle business. Recap and action items on that development soon.
Sometimes it just takes a break in the cycle to put things back in their place. What are some things you do to get yourself out of management “stuck” mode? Surfing? Playing Music? Share some ideas in the comments below.