Thanksgiving has come and gone, and if you are like me, you have a laundry list of both professional and personal to-dos before 2014. Productivity is the key to accomplishing every demand placed on us while still enjoying the holidays. For many of us this is not just about managing our time, but also about being more focused on maintaining the needed energy levels throughout the day to succeed.
In The Power of Full Engagement, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, they discuss “life as a series of sprints” and identify stress management and downtime as important factors to success. While there are so many good take-aways from their research, they primarily encourage their readers to structure their time in a series of activities that match their attention level and allow for scheduled downtime to recharge.
I can’t help but think that some of the skills we teach in our Facilitation Skill’s workshops mirror the advice given by Loehr and Schwartz. When running a meeting or presenting to a group, we know that our audience’s attention dips and we need to insert a change in the class to regain their focus and energy. From encouraging small group discussion to using media as a break from the speaker, these “change ups” allow your team to not only maintain their attention to your topic longer but also retain more information.
If we think about our day in the same manner as we do our meetings and work to insert change ups to restore our enthusiasm and ability to focus we can be much more productive and successful… And maybe even schedule in a little extra time to really enjoy the holiday season. Happy Holidays!