Autofocus in time management: boost your energy | Clear Business
Autofocus is a practice for improving personal effectiveness. It also helps to love your business! It's suitable for all working people, regardless of the field, who feel overwhelmed by tasks and don't enjoy their job. It will help those engaged in partner business for sure! Because partner activity is a business that gives you freedom of action, makes it easier to regain your motivation. The practice was first introduced by Mark Forster, the British specialist in task management system.
Time management is full of tools, know-how and techniques on how to achieve productivity. There is hardly a person who has not heard the words: resource, prioritisation, balance, etc.
The only thing is that all these techniques do little to help you cope with stress and are based on self-compulsion, and compulsion takes up too much energy and aggravates stress. Autofocus offers a different approach. Its principle is use your gut, choose with your heart.
You should try it if you often have these thoughts when working:
• I've had enough of you all
• Why is it my responsibility to do it again?
• I want a holiday
• It is better to start with the most unpleasant tasks and then to be free
• I am so tired
• I've taken a rest and I am tired again
• I want to do everything, I just don't have the energy
• This task should have been completed yesterday
• Leave me alone
For starters: don't worry, you're not the only one with these thoughts. And now you're going to feel better 😊
Let's practice autofocus in a few very simple steps.
• Make a to-do list. For a day, a week or other period of time as you like. Include as much detail as possible - everything you do during the day or week, including taking your dog for a walk. Make a note of the list - you will need it for the next steps.
• Re-read the list. Are there any tasks in it that you would like to focus on? If there are none at all (and even a walk with your dog only makes you tired), you're probably not doing your job, you're not in the right place and your surroundings don't make you happy. Sooner or later (sooner rather than later) all this will have to be changed.
• Does it feel good to think of only one task on the list? Start with it! Even if it's not the most important. It will energise you and inspire you to tackle the rest.
• Want to focus on several tasks? Try to understand what they have in common. Maybe you've just picked the ones you'll do quickly. Or they relate to what you are good at.
• And the last step. Remove from your list those tasks that take away your energy (you just don't want to do them or you're not happy with any of them - the process, the result, the speed of implementation, the people you need to communicate with in the process). Keep the tasks that give you energy (or add if there is nothing on the original list that you would like to do). These are your tasks. Start every day of your life with them. Let yourself enjoy and be energised by the first activities of your working day. Nothing much will happen if you do an unpleasant but urgent task second rather than first.
Autofocus helps automatically. You seem to have just made a list, and in doing so you excluded a lot of unnecessary things that used to get in your way. Or you finally admit to yourself that you don't want the job you are doing at all. And in a job you love, you'll want to distribute tasks and time differently; this will reduce daily stress and improve relationships with those around you. Or you might just want to change your environment. The key is to listen to yourself. Give yourself the right to choose something that fills you with energy rather than drains it.
This practice does not need to be repeated often. Perhaps it will all work out the first time. Or you will need to repeat it every time an unpleasant thought about work comes up. The result of autofocus will be engagement. You'll become passionate about your work again, or you'll realise exactly what it is you're passionate about. Make the right choice - money and success will follow.