Twenty Four Hours (Only 1440 minutes) a Day?

How present are you…

It seems no matter where you look, the news is reporting statistics.  Some of them, I must admit,  seem ridiculous and make me wonder why are we wasting the time and space to report such things. Today, however, as I read the Sunday paper, there was an article on attention spans and how they have changed over the years.

It reported that the average person is interrupted every 6 minutes and that it takes 6 minutes to get yourself refocused.  The result being you jump from one subject to another without really getting deep enough to finish anything.

As I thought about this statistic, it made me wonder.  And I have to admit, I wanted to dismiss it as “not me” and only applicable to my kids.  But when Monday rolled around, I decided to do my own kitchen research and see if it fit me too.

My office door is always open and my teams know that you don’t need an appointment.  However, my assistant is just outside the door.  For 4 hours, I paid close attention to my time and the interruptions.  Much to my surprise, the 6 minute statistic applied to me too.

WOW!  I had no idea.  As I continued to be very aware of the interruptions and their impact on my ability to finish a thought, a project, or more importantly, not “lose” a thought in the process, I was able to make choices to stop the interruptions and allow more focused time to move the ball forward.

It was amazing how turning the sound down for text messages and emails so I didn’t hear them, scheduling time to “think” and “do” the work vs. leaving my calendar open with just a “to do list” made a difference.  I must admit, it took practice and still does.  I am committed to being both diligent and disciplined because I can see the results already.

It is a choice we all have every day.

We only get 24 hours or 1440 minutes a day.  I want to optimize how I spend them to improve how I lead my life.  Don’t you?

Do your own kitchen research and tell me your results.  Then let me  know how it effects you and the management of your 1440 minutes every day.