Do you ever feel like you have ten-thousand things to do but only ten minutes to do them in?
Not only that, they are ten-thousand things that you REALLY want to do. (This is after you’ve considered all the things you NEED to do, which more often than not, are not the things you WANT to do).
I’m still in the early stages of running Unusual Connections, so you can imagine the amount of stuff that needs to be done: new website, newsletters, creating materials, designing workshops, looking for clients, looking for partners… oh and don’t forget, staying on top of my own learning and remaining creative.
My imagination tends to run wild when deciding what to do next and at certain times, it gets jammed, stuck in a loop of “I have to get done this week” thoughts. As I practice what I preach (most of the time!), as soon as I begin to feel overwhelmed, I make myself STOP and NeuronSqueeze.
What is neuron-squeezing?
Last Autumn I attended 8fold’s From Apps to Zen mentoring group, led by Sinead MacManus. One of the first things we were asked to do was a “brain dump”: dump on a piece of paper (via a pen, of course!) all the things we needed to do, big and small. I’ve come to call this “neuron-squeezing” as, by the end of the exercise, I found myself trying to force the ideas out of my brain. But “neuron-squeezing” goes beyond the “dumping” stage, requiring even more idea extraction.
In order to advocate for the need to stop and take stock, I have attempted to describe neuron-squeezing in five (easy?) steps. Below is a simplified version of the five steps – for a full guide, visit the Resources page.
1) The Dumping Stage
Dump all those things, big or small, you need to do or want to do, onto a piece of paper.
2) The Visionary Stage
Put your paper away and on another sheet, write down what you want to achieve over the next 12 months.
3) The Connecting Stage
Decide which of those things you identified in stage (1) are going to help you achieve what you thought of in stage (2).
4) The Prioritising Stage
Plan when you will carry everything out. Week by week.
5) The Final Stage: Combating Procrastination
If you keep leaving things until later, it’s time to begin to think: why?
If you think this list has the potential of helping you organise your thoughts, I invite you to download Neurosqueezing in 5 (easy) steps, from our free download area.
Happy squeezing!
[with thanks to Foti Bobolas for his photo]
