Mindful in 5 Podcast

Productivity Hacks for Focus

• Spiwe Jefferson • Season 5 • Episode 148

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Ever wonder why your productivity plummets halfway through the day? Discover the transformative power of the "Power Hour" technique that promises to revolutionize your workday with focused intention and structured breaks. Join me, Spiwa Jefferson, as I guide you through science-backed mindfulness strategies tailored for busy professionals seeking a harmonious blend of calm and efficiency.

In this episode of Mindful in 5, we explore how adopting a beginner's mind, infused with childlike qualities like trust, authenticity, and creativity, can breathe new life into your daily tasks. Learn how to set a 60-minute timer for concentrated work, followed by a 15-minute recharge, and see how tools like Microsoft Outlook's "My Day" feature can help prioritize and accomplish your most important tasks with joyful intention. Let's transform your work experience into one of peaceful accomplishment and cheerful progress.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Mindful in 5, where busy professionals find your peaceful oasis to thrive in complex work environments. I am Spiwa Jefferson attorney, certified mindfulness practitioner and author of the Mindful in 5 book series. Here to guide you to a clearer, softer and more supported life. Join me and your fellow Mindful Ninjas as we explore science-backed mindfulness strategies for successful leaders that you can implement, starting with just five minutes a day. Elevate your work, empower your life, work higher, live stronger. Let's go.

Speaker 1:

Do you often feel your workday slipping away, your mind clouded by an endless stream of tasks, leaving you yearning for a more peaceful and productive approach? Low productivity can disrupt the joyful flow of your work, leaving you feeling unsupported and disconnected from the cheerful satisfaction of accomplishment. Today, our topic is productivity hacks for focus. We are exploring productivity hacks bringing a clearer, more peaceful approach to your daily tasks. And if you're wondering about the cute kids in imagery this season, we are embracing the beginner's mind by channeling childlike qualities trust, authenticity, creativity, resilience and optimism to transform our mindfulness practice and daily lives. Let our playful cover art inspire you to approach each day with fresh eyes and open heart and, hopefully, joy. Now on our topic imagine moving through your workday with calm efficiency, tackling each task with joyful purpose and clarity. By mastering productivity techniques. You, yes, you, mastering productivity techniques, you, yes, you can transform your work experience into one of peaceful accomplishment and cheerful progress.

Speaker 1:

Let us explore a calming technique called the power hour. Here is how it works. Step 1. Choose your most important task with joyful intention. Step two set a timer for 60 minutes, creating a peaceful boundary for focused work. Step three engage with the task, maintaining clear concentration and cheerful determination. Step four take a 15-minute break to recharge, embracing a softer, more supportive rhythm. So here's the thing so many professionals feel like we have to power through the day and we cannot take a break and we have to go from one thing to the other thing, to the other.

Speaker 1:

Now, personally, I find that I can feel my brain getting fatigued. I can sense when I get to that place where I just I can feel the drop off in my concentration, and the thing that I know and know that I know is that if I try and power through that, my productivity will be diminished. I will get less done. You know how sometimes I'm sure maybe you can relate to this sometimes you read a page, you get to the bottom of the page and you don't remember what you just read. So you got to go read it again. And this happens to me if I'm tired. I'm a morning person, so if I'm trying to read, something like super late at night and I haven't taken a nap sometimes, I just struggle and I keep falling asleep and I keep trying to read, and then like an hour's gone by and I'm staring at the same page and then I think to myself self this would have been much more productive if I had just spent the hour sleeping and gotten up in the morning and just done this thing right. And so taking those breaks matters. They actually make you more productive when you take the break than when you don't.

Speaker 1:

So what is the most important task that you can choose with joyful intention? I like to. We use Microsoft Office at my job, so I use Outlook, and Outlook has these amazing productivity tools. There's this thing called my Day, and then you can. This is for your tasks. You can first of all just create a huge list of tasks. You can star the important ones and then you can use this my Day.

Speaker 1:

And when I first started using it, I was like, wow, this seems like it's layered in unnecessary ways. But now I understand it's a way to prioritize. So I take my tasks and I decide what are the three most important things that I have to do today, and those become the three my day tasks. And I try to limit my day tasks to just three because that allows me the focus to know what do I need to do now, what do I need to do next? Then, when I'm done with those three, I go to the high importance task that I have put a star, that I put the colored star next to. So then I know that of all my tasks, these are the next ones that go into the my day section. And so when I think about what is the most important task that I have to do today, and when I think about what are the top three, I think of what are the three things that I have to do today that if I don't get done they're going to keep me up at night or I'm going to have to stay up late to do those. And then I do those first. And so then you set a timer for 60 minutes. If I'm going to answer all of my emails, I give myself 60 minutes because it keeps me focused, and then I go back to step three. When I am now engaging with the task, I am cheerfully determined because I know I only have 60 minutes to do this thing, so I better keep with it.

Speaker 1:

Email is hard and it takes constant vigilance to actually get through it, because it's so easy to get derailed into actually performing tasks that I did not designate as the most important things, because I start thinking, oh, I can do this in five minutes. Five minutes turns into 10, turns into 15. Now I've got dependencies. Oh, I got to ask this person about this task, and now 60 minutes goes by and I haven't finished going through my emails and I haven't gotten to the most important things because, by the way, I still haven't gotten through all my emails, and that was the first, most important thing I set to do. And so what I find really helps for email is put a flag on it If you can't respond inside of two minutes, if you can't delegate it, delete it, defer it. If you have to do it, can you do it in two minutes or less? Or is it just a way of do you just need to respond and say I got your email, I'm on it, but put all of those things in a folder.

Speaker 1:

Do something with the emails that you have to act on, but do not get derailed into performing the task that is in the email when you're trying to just get to the bottom of your emails. I used to struggle with this so much I at one point I remember I had 3,000 emails in my inbox and I just it was just. This is not this job. This was you know jobs ago. But it was just awful because it's so discouraging, because I feel like my whole day is just spent doing emails. And, of course, more emails are coming in every day. So you have to find a way to discipline your ability to get through all your emails so you stay on top of them. These days I have an affirmation. My affirmation is I am a zero inboxer. I've been saying that affirmation all year and it has made such a huge difference in my ability to just be focused and get through those emails.

Speaker 1:

So there are lots and lots of ways that you can tackle your inbox, but that is an example of how you engage with your tasks in a way that makes sense. You can take a 15-minute break to recharge. You can take a five minute break to recharge, but make sure that you get up and you walk away and you go do something else and you just refresh your brain Because when you come back it's going to be much easier to do that focus in sprints. You can set a timer for 60 minutes. There are studies that show that actually 25 to 30 minutes is about all that you can do and remain in focused concentration. So if you want to try a 25 to 30 minute sprint and then take a five minute break and just reset your intention email, this is good. If you get derailed and you're starting to get into tasking in your inbox, taking that five-minute break allows you to reset your intention. Wait, I was only going to read through them. I was supposed to be flagging them for follow-up. I'm going to go back and do that and so for the back half of your 60-minute email task time, you may find that actually you are now focused and you're able to stay on task with getting through that inbox because you did take that five-minute break to reset in real time and just get back to that intention.

Speaker 1:

Research shows that focused work sessions like this can dramatically increase your productivity, fostering a more joyful and peaceful work environment. Every episode I try and leave you with a thought-provoking perspective. So here's the thought for today you with a thought-provoking perspective. So here's the thought for today. True productivity is not about doing more, but about bringing clear intention and joyful energy to what matters most. There is a reason they keep paying you to show up at the job, and it's because you can't do it all in one day. So don't try to do it all in one day. Here's your cheerful challenge for the week Implement the power hour technique daily. Notice how it brings a softer, more supported rhythm to your workday. That is at least my wish for you, if you are ready to supercharge your productivity while maintaining inner peace.

Speaker 1:

I have prepared a series a growing series of downloadables that you can leverage at spewageffersoncom, and if you hover above the shop section, there is a subsection called downloadables, and in the downloadable section you will find free overviews that you can download, and you can find paid downloadables that give you blueprints for mastering a particular topic, usually in a 20 to 30 day session. It takes. There are studies that show that it takes about a month to 30 day session it takes. There are studies that show that it takes about a month to create a new habit, and so the 20 days are intended for you to do them during the weekday and you can take a break on the weekends, but they will last you about a month, and 30 days is certainly.

Speaker 1:

You know. You're doing something every day for a month. So remember, productivity is a skill that can be cultivated with gentle persistence. By approaching your tasks with clear intention and joyful focus, you are creating a more peaceful and fulfilling professional journey. Creating a more peaceful and fulfilling professional journey. May your work be filled with clear purpose and joyful accomplishment Until next week. This is Spiwe saying be mindful and be well.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for listening to Mindful in 5. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Listening to Mindful in 5. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend, follow and rate it on your favorite podcast platform. Pick up your signed copy of the book and journal from spewayjeffersoncom, or unsigned copies from Amazon, barnes, noble or wherever you get your books. Visit spewayjeffersoncom to download sample chapters of the book, watch videos and become a mindful ninja. Join us on the LinkedIn Mindful in 5 group and share your thoughts. Until next time, be mindful and be well.