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💚 Wellbeing Wednesday 💚
This week’s wellbeing lesson has been a simple one for me… slow down.
After having last week off and being away from the office again next week, I came into Monday with what felt like a mountain of things to catch up on. My usual instinct would be to run at 100 miles an hour, juggling 10 different priorities at once and trying to get everything done as quickly as possible.
But this week, I decided to take a different approach.
Instead of focusing on doing everything quickly, I’ve focused on doing one thing at a time and doing it well before moving on to the next.
What I’ve found is quite surprising… but it really shouldn’t surprise me at all.
Every time I manage to slow down and focus on one thing at a time, I feel calmer, clearer headed, and less overwhelmed. This week I’m actually making really good progress with my workload, and at the end of each day I’m leaving work with a genuine sense of accomplishment and satisfaction rather than feeling like I’ve spent the day firefighting.
It made me realise how often we convince ourselves that rushing around means being productive, when sometimes slowing down is exactly what we need and we actually get more done when we slow down.
So perhaps the real question is… if I know this works, why don’t I do it more often? 😅
I think many of us fall into the trap of believing that the busier we are, the more productive we are. We tell ourselves that if we just move a little faster, juggle a few more things, and squeeze a bit more into the day, we’ll get more done.
Yet time and time again, I find the opposite is true. When I slow down, focus on one thing at a time, and give it my full attention, I actually achieve more and feel far less overwhelmed.
So this week’s question is:
👉 How much of your time do you spend rushing from one thing to the next?
And perhaps more importantly…
👉 What helps you slow down, refocus, and concentrate on what really matters?
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences 💚
Rob Fryer, Josephine Rowe and Hannah Logan5 Comments-
gosh, so much time rushing. Well, mainly the rushing is in my brain, but you know what I mean. I have learnt to slow things down though, and can see the benefit of this. I love this post, as people forget how important managing our own wellbeing is. 😍
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@Hannah I know exactly what you mean 😅 Sometimes the rushing isn’t even what we’re physically doing, it’s what’s going on in our heads!
It’s amazing how much energy that constant mental juggling can take up.Thank you for your lovely comment. I think wellbeing is one of those things we all know is important, but it’s so easy to put ourselves at the bottom of the list when life gets busy.
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Think we’re all guilty of overloading the to do lists and all feel the need to be ‘busy’ every minute of the working day. Busy doesn’t always mean productive though so in order to be more productive. perhaps we should be taking these breaks and moments to recharge and refocus. Good reminder Claire and glad you had a relaxing Birthday week.
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@robfryer-brandstorm Exactly this! 💚
I think we’re all guilty of trying to squeeze just one more thing into the day 😅
Thank you for the birthday wishes 😊 I think having a week away probably helped me come back with a different perspective.
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I once took a week off from a project which was customer facing, and generated at least 10 highly sensitive and time-constrained emails per day that I had to deal with. Very real-world issues, with real-world PR/Optic repercussions. I had to take tome off, and delegated my role, but knew there was still going to be stuff in my inbox when I got back.
I couldn’t put an out of office on – or rather I could but the emails would still come, and pile up and people’s tempers would still fray.On my return I found a complete shambles – I don’t think any of my plans had played out, the team had tried their best but my overriding rule was “respond and ask for more time – explain I am away”.
I then triaged my emails into three piles (in my mind).
1) People who mattered (tax payers and councillors)
2) People who didn’t matter but could make my life difficult.
3) People who didn’t matter but couldn’t affect me.1) I worked through asap. Were my priority.
2) Got an initial – “sorry been away and my team had been swamped” (they had, it was a bit of a Production du Merde due to external forces.)
3) I rounded them up and dumped them in a “archive” – to be looked at never.Not a single person in group 3 ever wrote again, complained to a senior or in anyway did any follow up – we eventually caught up, but I started triaging the inbox like that from then on and we managed everything a lot better.
Top tip – when someone sends you two pages of expletive laden invective, and no question. There’s no response required…
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