In a world, which is always so distracted, solitude can be a competitive advantage.
In 2010 Google’s CEO: Eric Schmidt shared a concern with the world that every two days, humanity created as much information as we all did from the beginning of time till the year 2003. He believed that the world was not ready not the technology revolution that took place, and asked himself weather as humanity we are ready to process such volume of information deriving from endless amount of distractions, each day.
Seven years later, with even more stimuli coming our way on daily basis, we are certain, that as human beings we are not capable of processing all that data.
It has been proven that our IQ drops by 5 to 15 points when we multitask.
Distractions reduce your brains ability to filter out irrelevancy from its working memory.
There may not be a direct solution to the problem of information overload and it’s effect on our brain.
However, there is something that may help us more than anything else on this planet to stay away from the noise, and that’s turning into solitude.
In the recent weeks many people around the world were forced into solitude, because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Solitude has one fundamental advantage above many others mind calming practices and it directly relates to gaining clarity and focus, where the mind can work through a problem on its own.
The ability to focus is a competitive advantage in the world we live in today, and after over a week in solitude, I can tell you, it gives you a sense of clarity related to your goals and reasons why.
But how to get to a place where your lifestyle during solitude can actually benefit your healthy outlook on life and in return also your work.
Here are some things you can do yourself, today to utilise this period of working in isolation to your advantage and take the best out of it.
Here are few things you can start on today to help you walk through your days with more focus.
Build periods of solitude into your schedule
With most of us working form home, we may find ourselves actually talking and processing even more information that we did form the office. Our social media may be burning with people trying to tell their story or sell solutions, our coworkers may be calling us more often than usual with troubleshooting ideas and we may have to respond to more emails than average, all leaving us equally overwhelmed.
In times like this best thing to do is to schedule in time for work, and time for solitude and keep to it.
If we spend our entire workday attending to people, producing work and responding to endless stimuli we will feel drained and this tiredness and new level of intensity coming form the laptop may prove to be harder than we are equipped to handle. Hence, starting early and scheduling in time for solitude can be very beneficial.
What can you do with your free time?
Anything you like. Stretch your legs on the sofa and read, maybe take time to enjoy a tea, cook, and watch Netflix, if you can and have access to nature: go for a little walk, exercise or meditate.
Analyze where your time is best spend
Many of us still overbook with meetings and conversations. In reality half of them we can just communicate with a use of an email of just a WhatsApp text. If you can, minimize on ways you spend your energy on talking and attending others. Try to put your energy into the most productive moments of your day.
Starve distractions
When you work, at times when you try to stay focused: just switch off everything that might prove a distraction. Social media can be extremely distracting and time consuming. It is not bad when balanced, but it carries the danger of taking away the most valuable time of our day, which we spend on mindless browsing. With every click, a new article or a video content can potentially steal our precious time, leaving us tired for when we need to invest our brain energy for creativity. Make sure your social media feed is providing you with inspiration and feeding your productivity, by joining my Facebook group for entrepreneurial architects.
Don’t be too busy- rather learn to be effective
Sometimes, keeping busy might give us an illusion of doing much. But in reality when you ask yourself about your progress through the day you might struggle to really see much of it. When you fill your schedule with too many commitments, you seem to prioritize urgent tasks over important ones. Do not let the tempo of work get in the way of evaluating weather what you’re doing gives you a good development opportunity or does it take away from you?
Create stop-doing lists
A couple of days ago I wrote an article about how to work guilt free in isolation, which focuses mainly of the topic of intelligent management of to-do lists.
Unfettered access to information may fool us into distraction, but despite this all, there still exist endless amounts of opportunities for calmness.
The benefit of gaining clarity in this time may be a key for better time management for yourself as well as your teams. In reality, before you can lead others, the first person you should learn to lead right: is yourself.
Before you go and enjoy your solitude, don’t forget to connect with me and other architects on Facebook.