The power of pause-itivity

The world seems to be crashing down around my ears today. I haven’t held the tiny child enough, my inbox is overflowing, there are three fires to put out in the office, I know I left a letter half written open on another staff member’s computer, I’m waiting on a bunch of people to get back to me so I can complete jobs and to top it off I snapped at my husband within 10 minutes of walking in the door.
Pause… deep breath… stop.
Hold the tiny child, cuddle her, hang out with her uninterrupted for a half hour til she goes to bed. She looks at me with her big blue eyes and giggles.
Pause
Apologise to husband for snapping, take a minute to just give him a huge hug. Mood calmed significantly already.
Pause
Categorize my emails, prioritize my to do list for tomorrow, move anything I don’t need to work on tomorrow into a folder called “do after tomorrow”. Tomorrow’s list already looking do-able.
Pause
Fire off a few more emails and tick a few things off tomorrow’s to do list.
Pause
Take 5 minutes and send out an email to two of my team who do a great job, but that I haven’t acknowledged enough lately.
Pause
Have a long relaxing bath.
Pause
For me, multi-tasking only leads to more confusion. I know I’m not getting anything done when I’m mid-way through 5 different things. I know I just need to pause and do one thing at a time and do it well. If I just take the time to pause, the list doesn’t seem so overwhelming. A huge and insurmountable list can be broken down into more achievable chunks by simply taking a moment to pause, stop, breathe, reassess and start on (and finish) one thing at a time. Do you need to pause?

By Kirsty Dunphey with No comments