Do you have a “prime” time for working? A time when you can get things done, one after another?
For me it has always been early in the day – I am much more productive between 4am and midday. Lately I have changed my working hours to accommodate some other activities (the gym, in fact) meaning that my productive time around work has not been starting till 11.30am. I do work later into the day and night but I don’t get the same sense of satisfaction as I did from my early hours working. It’s not that the work is not getting done, I just don’t get the same feeling of satisfaction.
What to do? I enjoy the gym (strange as that may be to some) with the morning visit the time that suits me best because it is not as busy as later in the day/night. But it is important for me to feel satisfaction with my work efforts – it gives me momentum to get more tasks done and this in turn gives me more drive and energy for life in general.
We all have patterns of doing tasks or working through the day. We wake up/get to work and have a coffee, we do the grocery shopping at the same time/place each day/week, we eat at the same time each day, our daily work routine is set by an order of tasks………you get the picture. What happens when the pattern is interrupted?
Pattern interrupt can be an empowering move. It can break you out of a rut and open up opportunities to explore new ways, new thoughts, new processes. My pattern interrupt has allowed me to recognise that I like early morning work and that I can accommodate my need to get things done early by getting up and doing things before I go to the gym. Yes it means a much earlier start to the day than I have been having but the benefits to my mental wellbeing far outweigh the initial inconvenience of the early start. I actually don’t think I will notice the earlier start – I am excited by the idea of getting things done more than I am concerned about losing an hours sleep.
I’ll let you know how it goes!
