Sometimes I’m aware of it and how it’s affecting me; sometimes I’m in control of it, using it to my advantage; at still other times it seems to run on autopilot affecting my moods and decisions without me intervening.

As we begin each day, we’re talking ourselves into something, whether it’s a mood or a decision. For some it might be either talking themselves into taking a sickday or going to work. For others, ruminating on their back pain unwittingly drags them into a downward spiral of further stress, pain and unhappiness.

And for yet others they spend their day talking themselves into feeling good and behaving in a way that’s actually helpful to them…

“Today I will exceed the expectations of others”

“Today I will take that risk … even if it doesn’t come off, I’ll learn, I’ll grow, I’ll be stronger! Let’s go for it!”

“I’m not lazy, I’ve just been distracted. I’m going to cut off some excess baggage from my life and focus on what’s important”

“I know what I’m doing. I don’t have to get it right. I just have to get it done!”

This is not that shmalzy warm-&-fuzzy hyped-up positive-thinking thinking that many of us distrust and can see right through. This is a naturally occuring process between mind and emotions, between thoughts/actions and the way our body feels and responds. It’s a snowball effect as one of my dear friends – a fitness trainer – calls it.

To use another metaphor, you and I get to set the track that the train of our thoughts will run on for the day.

If I set it on the track of Grace, Self-respect, Adventure, Persistence and Optimism then I can already predict where I’ll be emotionally by the end of the day. I’ll be in a good space. I can’t predict the way the cards will fall, or the people that will willingly or unwittingly get in my way, or what’s going to happen with the Dow today. But if my thoughts are running on that wholesome track, I may well be surprised at how many of the circumstances of my day bend themselves to my advantage … and how others that might otherwise have caused me stress, are like water off that duck’s back …

So. What are you talking yourself into today? What are you talking yourself out of? Try it: set the train of your thoughts running on the Grace/Selfrespect/Empathy/Adventure/Persistence/Optimism track.

And reflect at the end of your day on where that train has lead you…

I help managers manage themselves so they can manage their “cats” better.

At one stage of the story, they note that Gulliver’s pocket watch is probably a god. This is because he rarely did anything without consulting it. He called it his oracle and said it appointed the time for every action of his life.

“Travels” was written over 200 years ago. [Great book by the way!]. This was a comment about the “modern” preoccupation with time. But has anything changed in 200 years? Gulliver sure sounds like me sometimes: preoccupied with routines and deadlines.

Of course, life wouldn’t flow so well if we DIDN’T keep some kind of order to it and use time well.

Still, our preoccupation with time is one of the factors contributing to our life of hurry hurry hurry. I like this quote from Carl Honore’s incredible book, In Praise of Slow:

“The toll taken by the Hurry-up Culture is well-rehearsed. We are driving the planet and ourselves toward burnout. We are so time-poor and time-sick that we neglect our friends, families and partners. We barely know how to enjoy things anymore because we are always looking ahead to the next thing…

“(E)ach of us should try to make room for Slowness. A good place to start is with reassessing our relationship with time … Try to think of time not as a finite resource that is always draining away [ouch! I need to reconsider my opinion on this, given what I have written about it], nor as a bully to be feared or conquered, but as the benign element we live in. Stop living every moment as if Frederick Taylor [inventor of the Time and Motion philosophy] were hovering nearby, checking his stopwatch and tut-tutting over his clipboard…”

Feeling hurried? Stressed? Take a deep breath. Let it out slow. Go to a window and focus on something far away from where you are. If your “horizon” is the next office building 30 feet away from you, head out to a park in your lunch break and do “nothing”.

May Time once again become our environment, rather than our mean and demanding god.

Bill Wilson of Gold Coast, Australia was going up to bed when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window.

Bill opened the back door to go turn off the light but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked “Is someone in your house?” and he said”No”.

Then they said that all patrols were busy, and that he should simply lock his door and an officer would be along when available. Bill said,”Okay,” hung up, counted to 30, and phoned the police again.

“Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I’ve just shot them.” Then he hung up.

Within five minutes three police cars, an Armed Response Unit, and an ambulance showed up at the Wilson`s residence and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to Bill, “I thought you said that you’d shot them!”

Bill said, “I thought you said there was nobody available!”

How much information do you have to manage each month?

Sometimes there’s so much coming at you that gaining anything from it is like drinking from a fire-hose! If you can’t turn down the volume of info, here’s some tips for absorbing the best from it without drowning:

1.    Have a specific reason for taking on the info. Getting clear on the “Why do I need to know this?” question can be a great place to start. Try a question (as simple as “How can I do XYZ more effectively?”) which you continually ask as you listen or read; this will enable your mind to draw out the most relevant bits from the torrent.

2.    Design your process of interaction with the info: will you journal, blog, mind-map or talk it through with someone else? In other words, how are you going to engage with the information and make the good stuff stick? (This is like chewing your food)

3.    Categorise it. Don’t try to absorb info from different categories each day. If you can, devote your learning and sifting to one category in a day, rather than splitting your attention. (For instance, your report-reading on one day, personal development the next)

4.    Don’t hoard interesting info: filter it, file it, then throw it away after a few weeks or months if it’s no longer where you’re at.

5.    Leverage your learning style: do you learn best by reading, by action then reflection, or visually? You may be better off to forget the book and buy the CD or DVD of the material, or to diagram your notes rather than scribbling bullet points.

6.    When you’ve finished that book, article or DVD – write yourself a one sentence summary of its relevance and/or application to your situation.

7.    Ask yourself again, “WHY do I need to know this again?”

A Minute of Coaching

• If you were to cut out the least important material that you find yourself reading every month, what would that be?

• So why do you read it?

I keep forgetting to take it.

Piles of paper on your desk and bookshelves. Books double-stacked. Your computer “desktop” covered with files, folders and shortcuts. Your hard-copy diary filled with documents requiring action; while Microsoft Outlook throws up a dozen reminder-notices every time you open it.

If you left your office looking like this last Friday, you might want to consider some small changes for the new week.

I’m serious when I say that I’ve met more than one ”professional” who seriously believes that other people see this mess and think,

“My, what an important, busy, resourceful and productive person!”

In reality, those people’s thoughts sound more like: “What a mess!” or “Her office looks as bad as mine!” or even:

“If this guy can’t keep this level of work organised, how can he be trusted with more?”

Chaos, clutter and incompletion in your workspace leads to chaos, clutter and incompletion in your headspace.

It makes your work harder to do well.

Saying “I don’t have the time to clean it up or organise it” is a nonsense; this disorganisation wastes your valuable time!

If you’re not convinced, then send out a confidential survey of your colleagues and ask them these 3 questions:

• “What do you think when you look at my desk/office?”

• “How does my level of tidiness or organisation affect you and your work?”

• “If you were going to advise me to change anything in my office or filing system, what would you advise?”

You may be unpleasantly surprised.

A great friend of mine – Angela LoValvo – is a coach & trainer who often finds herself helping people organize from chaos. I’m indebted to her for helping me compile this list of suggestions for fixing the mess:

1. Make your workspace look attractive to you. If it’s attractive you won’t be as inclined to ruin the look.

2. Keep all your jottings and notes in a small notebook that you carry with you – rather than on beer coasters, post-it notes and scraps of paper. (I can personally vouch for this one!)

3. Invest in a filing system and a label maker. Sort out your filing arrangement (e.g. short term / long term), make it simple and easy to recall.

4. Give Every Object a Home. Create a space for everything and put everything in its place. In my own office, I have a file holder which is about 12 centimeters deep. It holds the 6-8 files I dig into most regularly. One of these is called Works in Progress where I store my scribblings and drafts of workshops and articles.

5. Systematise common decisions. For instance, if you find that a large proportion of the paperwork on the desk is of a certain type, make a decision about how you will process those documents in future. Then trial the process intentionally for 6 weeks.

6. Clear everything from your desk except for essentials, ie. telephone, computer, calculator, pens. They don’t need to be piled on your desk! If you are afraid you will lose documents etc when you take them off your desk, then there’s a different issue that needs addressing. This is one I have had to face up to myself.

7. Exterminate your attitudes which justify the messy and lazy approach to your working life. They. Are. Not. Helping. You.

8. Plan a regular 30 minute block (at least once a fortnight) where you tidy and organise. You might even grow to like it.

And if you’re still stuck, hire Angela to come help you fix it!

It’s morning, my family has left  the house and so begins another day of self-directed work.

Like many days when I am not out of my home office training or coaching people, I am planning to begin with a time of “getting centred”, but wander into the home office for “a second”…