فصل چهارم

CHAPTER 4

CLARIFY FOCUS

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

COCO CHANEL

It’s the end of the day and I feel worn thin like an old T-shirt. I’m quick to snap at John and the kids because I am so busy fighting off the tears of frustration that I don’t have any more of me to give. I don’t even have time to sit down. I keep working, I keep pushing forward, pretending to be happy when all the while I wonder, Why? Why is life like this, where I feel so caught up in the current that I can barely breathe? I feel like I’ve got to hold it together; I cannot let them see me fail. The pressure of holding it together is making me anxious and irritable.

I wake up in the morning feeling like I’m already behind. There’s no time to linger under the warm sheets because I feel like my day has already slipped out of my grasp and I’m scrambling to keep up.

I found this rambling scribbled on a piece of paper wedged like a bookmark in an old book I was rereading. The edges of the paper were smooth and flat like the pressed four-leaf clovers in my family Bible and the word cannot was underlined so many times the page had torn slightly under the weight of my frustration. I took a minute to read over this fragment of my former life, and I wondered what day I had written it. Was it on a hot Tuesday in the middle of July or a cool Sunday early in March?

There’s honestly no telling because at that point in my life I was pinballing from task to task throughout my day, with no true direction. I kept myself busy, filling my day with tasks that felt so important at the time, but now I can barely remember a single one. I was living my days in a constant state of not knowing where to focus.

I worried about saying no, I fretted about keeping up appearances, and I stressed that I wasn’t doing enough—even though I was running myself ragged. I was afraid to miss out on any opportunities, so I was saying yes to anything and everything. My attention was scattered like leaves in a windstorm. I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed to discover the joy that comes when we center our lives on what is truly important and learn to let go of the rest.

TOO MUCH IS SOMETIMES JUST TOO MUCH

For too long, I had no idea where to spend my time or how to spend my energy. I wasn’t productive—I was simply running around being busy, filling my days but not my soul. I was lacking focus, one of the three key elements of true productivity that allows us to choose how we spend our day.

To be genuinely productive, we must master our focus. That can feel difficult, though, I know. We are pulled in a thousand different directions through the pings on our phones, the blips of our inbox, and the endless opportunities we have before us. In our digital age, we have more information at our fingertips than ever before in history. We have watches that tell us our heart rate and apps that tell us precisely what time we should expect rain this evening. We have alerts on our phones to tell us about traffic and more access to news than we ever even thought we wanted.

It seems like this abundance of information should make life easier, but when we are bombarded with so much of it, the paradox is that decision making becomes more difficult. This is when the feeling of overwhelm begins to settle in and we simply don’t know where to start.

It’s been estimated that we receive approximately 11 million1 pieces of information every second from our nerve endings, but our brains can only process a mere forty bits. In his book Smarter Faster Better, Charles Duhigg referred to this phenomenon as information blindness. He wrote, “Just as snow blindness refers2 to people losing the capacity to distinguish trees from hills under a blanket of powder, so information blindness refers to our mind’s tendency to stop absorbing data when there’s too much to take in.” In other words, it’s like processing a few snowflakes3 in the midst of a blizzard. There seems to be no easy way to wade through the information and choose where to focus, so our natural reaction is simply to stop filtering. We choose not to choose.

We have to become comfortable with some doubt because oftentimes the problem isn’t discerning between good and bad—the black and white—it’s choosing between two good choices. It’s when the black and white blends into gray. It’s the good, better, and best—how do you decide where to focus? I hear you.

I received a letter from Amanda in Salem, South Dakota, who described this dilemma well:

I have all these thoughts and ideas . . . but I STRUGGLE in the action portion, I feel like this massive paralysis comes over me when I actually need to put ideas to work. I feel like I don’t know where to start in getting my life organized to better enjoy my family and work.

Amanda is not alone in feeling this way—and neither are you.

WE WANT TO BURN THE BOATS

Archimedes was a Greek mathematician and inventor in ancient Syracuse. There are many anecdotes about Archimedes, but the legend of his defense of his hometown against the onslaught of conquering Romans is one of my favorites.

Archimedes knew his countrymen were far outnumbered and did not have the sophisticated weaponry needed to defend their coast, so he devised a simple weapon constructed solely of mirrors, which he placed high on the cliffs. This effective tool did one job: it reflected the rays of the sun. Directing the rays toward the oncoming boats, he was able to ignite4 every enemy ship before it reached the shoreline, keeping his country safe. What’s important to note is that it wasn’t the sun alone that protected the coast—it was the focus of the sun’s energy.

As Alexander Graham Bell once said, “Concentrate all your thought5 upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” It’s not about creating a huge effort; it’s about focusing like a magnifying glass in order to burn the boats.

One way to help ignite that fire is by setting goals. Similar to Archimedes’s mirror, goals focus our energy into a powerful motivator. Goals, when done correctly, are the magnifying glass we need to concentrate our energy and sharpen our focus. They help us weed through all the information and center in on the steps we want to take to move ourselves forward.

This is key in moving us along the path our North Star is guiding us toward. Goals are an extension of the foundation we have created, and they help shape our choices to get us to the end result we want.

If you are anything like most people, you may find yourself questioning whether goal setting really works (especially if it hasn’t for you in the past), but I’ll share a study that shows the power of setting goals.

Researchers studied Harvard MBA students before graduation and asked them, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” They found that 84 percent of students had no goals set, 13 percent had goals in mind but didn’t write them down, and only 3 percent had goals written on paper along with clear plans to accomplish them.

Ten years passed, and the researchers checked back in with the graduates and discovered that the abstract goal setters were making twice the amount of money as the students who had set no goals. Impressive, right? But the real success story was in the 3 percent6 who had written their goals; they were taking home ten times the amount of the other 97 percent combined.

Why does setting goals help? Because it helps us clarify what we want to accomplish. In other words, it tells us where to focus. It enables us to clearly see the path we want to take and triggers our behavior. When we set a goal, it naturally directs our focus to where we want to expend our energy and our time.

Without goals, how do you know the trajectory of your path? Goals tell us exactly where to aim. As Zig Ziglar said, “If you aim at nothing7, you’ll hit it every time.” We don’t want to hit nothing, do we? No. We have the power to burn boats if we stay focused.

When we lose focus on our priorities, we are simply along for the ride, going wherever the day takes us. The act of focusing is that—an act. It’s a verb rather than a noun. And this focus requires making choices. Choices may feel difficult, because when we eliminate options and “miss out” on purpose, we feel that we are limiting ourselves, but in reality, that’s what allows us the freedom to live the life we really want.

SETTING BOUNDARIES OPENS NEW POSSIBILITIES

We have to cut in order to really grow and flourish. I know this seems counterintuitive, but think of a garden: Do you plant the flowers one on top of another? Do you squeeze so many in that there is no room? Or do you allow each plant to have space—space to receive the rain and the sun, space to spread their leaves and grow? That’s what we need: space to allow ourselves to focus. The only way to have that space is to actively create it for ourselves. We need boundaries.

Often we hear a word like boundaries and believe that we are limiting ourselves and our choices. What we don’t realize is that boundaries are actually a source of freedom. Solid boundaries allow us that space we need to focus.

Some time ago I heard an example about boundaries that helped put all the puzzle pieces in place for me. I want to share it in hopes that it does the same for you. Imagine a school nestled close to a busy road. When the children go out for recess, they have to stay close by the building where the teachers can keep them safe. But if the very same school were to build a fence—a boundary—surrounding the playground, what would happen then? The children would be free to run and play. The options for kickball and playful games of tag would open up for them. The boundaries would give them the freedom to explore and move.

That’s what we need in our lives too—not a fence to protect us from fast-moving cars maybe, but clear compartments that allow us the freedom to dive deeper, explore, and focus.

When we compartmentalize, we give ourselves that space and freedom. In the first section of the book, I talked about the three buckets in our lives: work, home, and personal. Creating boundaries allows you to focus on each area within its own time so that each is treated as a priority in its dedicated space.

The time we spend doesn’t need to be perfectly equal for each. Sometimes we want to spend more time in one compartment than another. Remember, it’s not about balance—balance doesn’t exist—it’s all about creating harmony.

Each compartment is a part of our whole selves, but when we allow the parts to exist separately, we are able to focus completely on each, giving it the space it deserves. Each one receives the priority treatment. As we move through our day, we close one compartment and open the next one—like a door we close behind us before we open the one ahead. It’s important to note that it’s not a revolving door—I firmly shut one in my mind before I open the next. For me, when I leave the office I’m shutting the door to my work compartment behind me and I’m opening up the one to my personal compartment. This allows me to be fully present and available for my family, giving them the focus they deserve.

I know this can be a challenge—we all are tempted to crack open a compartment just slightly, like a quick check of our work email while chatting with our spouse. But what’s the message we are sending?

Sometimes we are our own worst distraction.

You know what I’m talking about—we’ve all done it. We check our email on our phone, see nothing there, and then inexplicably check it again two minutes later. Did we expect something to change in there? Or the bigger question is, what do we expect to see in there? One study found that one in three people claimed8 to check their email every fifteen minutes, but in reality they were checking every five minutes! This means we are constantly interrupting ourselves and we’re not even aware of it.

We have to stop checking our email incessantly, like we’re hunting for a prize at the bottom of the cereal box when we know there’s really nothing more than cereal there. I don’t know about your inbox, but mine is more like Grape-Nuts than Lucky Charms—not a ton of fun and excitement to be had in reality!

It’s not as simple as blaming technology, though; this tendency is actually hardwired into our DNA. According to that same study, most people who check email every five minutes are not receiving any sort of alert—they are simply feeling the pull to check in. Our brains are designed to constantly scan for new information, which was great for our cave-dwelling ancestors who were always on the lookout for food, water, and predators. But it’s not helpful for us in today’s digital world where9 distractions are everywhere. In fact, researchers estimate that workers are interrupted10 every eleven minutes on average. Distractions take almost twenty-five minutes to recover from, so most people spend about one-third of their day trying to get back to their deep work.

So how can we focus in today’s 24-7 culture? How can we possibly get to the deep work? The ability to focus seems like a luxury, but it’s not—it’s essential to true productivity.

When we create strong borders around our time, we are able to become the best we can be. Think about it. When you are at work, you are a business-person. When you are not, you play all the other roles: wife, mother, best friend, aunt, neighbor. Give each role in your life the opportunity to shine. Boundaries allow you to do that.

When we don’t clearly stake our boundaries, we end up being overrun by the demands others put on us. And to be honest with you, it’s not really their fault. If we don’t communicate our boundaries, how do others know when they’ve crossed them?

CLEAR AND DIRECT COMMUNICATION

I walk to the front of the room and carefully select one folded sheet of paper from the bowl. As I unfold it, I see the words Peter Pan scrawled in black ink. Relief fills my body and a smile creeps across my face. Simple, I think. They’ll guess this in no time and we will be crowned the charades champions. In my family, winning charades is a time-cherished honor, establishing bragging rights for the rest of the holiday weekend. We must get this right.

I walk with confidence to the center of the room and make the gesture to indicate it’s a book. I laugh to myself because this is just going to be too easy. I stand with my feet apart, my chest expanded, and place both hands on my hips—you know, Peter Pan style.

And they shout, “Wonder Woman.” Really? So I shake my head no, but still they repeat, “Wonder Woman!” I am being crystal clear—How can they not know I’m Peter Pan? This is so obvious! I shake my head emphatically again, certain they will get it right. But they are already off and running, calling out comic book characters.

And there I stand, with hands on my hips, wondering how in the world we got to Spider-Man when I’m clearly Peter Pan, not Peter Parker.

It’s frustrating when we feel we are telling people what we want but they just don’t get it. Isn’t it? But that’s the trouble with boundaries. We think we’ve created boundaries for ourselves, but we don’t accurately communicate what we want. We get frustrated when we find that people have invaded our sacred spaces. They expect emails at eight o’clock at night or phone calls on the weekend, but because we have not clearly set our borders, it’s not their fault our boundaries have been crossed. It’s ours—we have to make sure we communicate them. But just as I discussed in section 1, our stories may be telling us that it’s rude or selfish to clearly define our borders.

Allow me to sprinkle a little truth on you here: being kind and being assertive are not mutually exclusive. We are allowing our old stories to tell us that we don’t have the right to our own time.

If we are constantly answering emails, texts, and calls from others, no matter the time, we are setting an expectation. Without meaning to, we are communicating to others that we are always available. All it really takes is a little gentle training. Set boundaries with work and family so your work knows when you’re spending time with family and your friends and family know when you’re focused at work.

Let your work team know that you won’t be responding to email immediately when it’s outside of work hours. Many of us do feel the need to check in after hours, and that’s okay. We just don’t need to be at the beck and call of our business at every hour of the day. We can set aside a block of time to intentionally check in with work after hours; just make sure you don’t leave that block open-ended. Set a start time and an end time for you to jump back into that work compartment.

The same holds true for friends and family while you are at work. It’s important for them to respect that boundary as well. After all, you can’t tell your boss not to call you while you are on vacation if you spend half your workday on personal calls.

My best friend never calls me during the workday, and I don’t call her. We allow each other to focus on our work, which then allows us to fully enjoy each other (and our families) during our personal time. Because we have this mutual respect for our boundaries, we know that when we are spending time with each other, we aren’t also trying to read an email or squeeze in a work task. We are both fully focused on our conversation, making it more meaningful. Separating my compartments allows me to give each the attention it deserves.

I know this might feel difficult to do, especially if you don’t work at a traditional office. Maybe you work from home or run your own business, so people think that you don’t have set hours—this is when it’s even more important to set up these compartments and clearly define them. Yes, it may take a few gentle reminders, but I promise you, they will get the message.

BEING KIND and BEING ASSERTIVE ARE NOT mutually EXCLUSIVE

Your kids can also be taught to allow you to focus. Listen, if people can train a monkey to ride a tricycle, then your kids can be trained too. I taught my kids at a young age the sound of my work ringtone, and when they heard it they knew that was their cue to quiet down and allow me to talk on the phone. When I tell people this, they seem amazed that a four-year-old could do it, but have you ever seen preschoolers during a fire drill? They line up quietly and follow directions.

Do preschoolers know to do this right away? Absolutely not—they’ve been trained. As a former teacher, I just use the tricks I learned in the classroom—like doing pretend practice runs and rehearsals, acting out different scenarios, and giving my kids options and choices so they feel empowered to know what to do while I’m on my call. I made training fun so my kids thought we were playing a game, but they were learning.

We found ways to make boundaries work and you can, too, but you have to communicate. You have to set expectations and follow through. Kids can be a big asset to your productivity if you allow them to be.

BUT THAT DOESN’T WORK IN THE REAL WORLD

I can see the critics already—their mouths open, ready to argue that there’s no way setting boundaries works in a typical workplace. But it does. Standing tall and staking your boundaries at work requires courage, but it’s the only way to effect the changes you need.

I first met Jordan through the nonprofit where she works. With a ready smile and a beautiful laugh, she is generous and thoughtful. She has spent the majority of her life pushing forward causes she believes in and working tirelessly to improve the lives of others.

Jordan was excited to sign up for the liveWELL Method course, but when I started to talk about boundaries at work, she thought, That’s all fine and good if you work for yourself and can set it up. How does that work, though, if I’m not the one in control of my calendar? I work for a nonprofit that’s always rapidly innovating as we go. I’m always in a place of doing urgent tasks and don’t see that ever changing.

With big donors and a leadership team that works tirelessly, it’s easy to tell ourselves the story that this is impossible: our bosses won’t allow it; our workflows are fixed and can’t be changed. But Jordan humored me (those are her own words) and took a look at her typical day.

She opted to block off the first two hours of her day on her shared calendar to focus on deeper work. She also decided that she would not check email until after her block was finished, because she felt that her inbox had the power to lead her astray, affecting the flow of her day and her mood. She liked the idea of a series of small wins first thing in her day—but didn’t think the strategy would really work. It’s a pipe dream, she thought.

Here’s what Jordan says today:

Because people have access11 to my calendar, they will discuss it with me if they need to meet during my focused time. Because it’s blocked, though, they often don’t ask—they schedule around it. And now, I’m far more able to conquer what’s important to me. I’m getting to be more strategic.

I’ve also come to realize my important work is also important to others. I am living my values beyond my working life. I remember before my first child, my whole identity was tied to work, but after I became a mom it felt confusing—I didn’t want work to be my only role. By setting my compartments, I’m able to tell myself at five o’clock that work time is over. With a five-year-old who goes to bed at 7:00 p.m., that time is precious. I would miss most of my evening with him if I didn’t set my boundaries. That’s time I want to spend with him.

Did you notice the words I did? Conquer. Strategic. Values.

The other benefit Jordan has experienced through boundaries? She ends her day with a full marble jar. She shared, “I can really see the good I’ve done. In putting boundaries in place and getting those small wins with one or two projects out the door before checking email, I can better acknowledge myself. I get to focus in, do meaningful work, and feel satisfied with what I got accomplished. It’s amazing how one small change can have a ripple effect—simply adding that two-hour morning block to my time has helped me find harmony.” Was there pushback? When Jordan first shared her plans with a coworker, she heard the response, “But as a nonprofit, we’re in the business of customer service!” Jordan, though, set her boundaries and replied, “Our donors are going to get a much better response from me if I’m purposely carving out my time to address their needs. Having boundaries allows me to be more effective.” Her productivity boost is working, and it’s showing in her work. She’s now noticing that others on her team are starting to do the same with their schedules.

I often hear the excuse, “I don’t own my time.” But you do. We just feel guilty doing it, as if we don’t have a right to our own calendar.

Researcher Brené Brown has discovered that “the clearer and more respected our boundaries12, the higher the level of empathy and compassion for others. Fewer clear boundaries, less openness. It’s hard to stay kind-hearted when you feel people are taking advantage of you.” And I couldn’t agree more. Work becomes a happier place each day when you feel you can conquer what’s important.

There’s no need for us to spin around like a top, feeling so uncertain, as I used to do. When we have clear boundaries in place, we are able to focus our time and our energy so we can be more present for our priorities. Stop spinning and start living.