Is putting work and happy in the same sentence an oxymoron? Yes? Let’s challenge that thinking and reconsider four things at work that can actually make you happier.

1.    Routine tasks.

Conventional thinking says that routines are boring. How can something boring actually make you happier?  Well, it is not the routine tasks that actually make you happier, it is the time you gain when you routinize your tasks. Neuroscience has shown that developing routines for tasks you do the most frequently embeds them in your brain creating a pattern. As a result, you actually spend less time and attention on that task. Now, think about what you can do with that extra time in your day?  Doesn’t that make you smile?

2.    Embrace challenging or stretch assignments that leverage your strengths.

The project that seems overwhelming, the promotion that would require you learn an entire new division within your company or the opportunity to transfer to your firm’s London office could all be considered challenging or stretch assignments fraught with anxiety, not elation and happiness. However, it is in these challenging or stretch assignments that we most often experience flow. Dr. Csikszentmihalyi described flow as the optimal state between too much stress and boredom. Dr. Martin Seligman, a psychologist, asserts that the flow state is one of the three main drivers of human happiness.  When it gets too easy or too comfortable often times you are not in the flow. Go with the flow to find your happiness.

3.    Turn off your email notification alarm.

Constant interruptions, “emergencies”, always on and working on someone else’s agenda are not the ingredients for happiness at work. Turn off your email notification alarm, the notification that alerts you to a new message by pinging, moving your cursor or popping a message up on your screen. When you turn off this incessant interruption two things happen. You take back control of your time, and control has been shown to be important for happiness, and you can focus your attention on your priorities. You’ve got mail does not equal happiness.

4.    Say yes.

Traditionally, we are told to be happier we need to say no more often. While I agree with this, I actually think that to be happier at work we need to say yes more often.  However, there is a caveat. When you say yes, you say yes with your full heart and mind. You know in saying yes what you are saying no to and you also know how this yes will make you happier.  Say yes today and really mean it and see if you don’t smile.

How often have you thought if I only had one more hour, another colleague to support me or less email to process I could take a deep breath, get caught up or not work on the weekend? In today’s overwhelming, overstretched, over scheduled world, we are not only asked, but often required to do more with less – less time and resources. So, how do you really do more with less? Stretch the hours that you do have and make those minutes work for you.

Batch or group like tasks. Batching or grouping like tasks increases our efficiency without any extra effort on our part. For example, make all of your phone calls at one time, process your email at one time, or review project proposals from vendors. Switching between disparate tasks is highly inefficient because it takes our brains so long to reengage with the task we switched from and remember what we were actually doing. Work on the same type project or task and increase your output.

Work in vacation mode. Have you ever noticed what happens before a vacation? Your inbox is magically cleaned out, projects are wrapped up, and your desk is cleared off. I call this the vacation phenomenon. The vacation is a hard deadline. You are going to be on a sandy beach holding a drink with an umbrella in it on Saturday afternoon. As a result, you have to get the work done before you go. Consider working in vacation mode even if you are not going on vacation and create hard stops to your work day. For example, schedule a fun activity after work that has a hard start time – a movie, a play, or a sporting event. Watch what happens to your productivity during the day

Create a stop doing list. As our responsibilities continue to expand at work, we keep adding tasks and projects to our to do lists. But, we never take anything off of the list. Take a hard, critical look at your projects and tasks and ask yourself if each project is still relevant, directly tied to the organization’s strategic goals and has a significant return on time investment. There are probably a few tasks and projects lurking on your list that need to be moved to the stop doing list. No one is going to miss them.

Decide what is good enough and stop. Do you know what good enough is for each of the projects on your list? This is good enough for the organization and good enough for you. Overthinking, over editing and over tweaking wastes valuable time and is not necessary. Do good work and then stop.

Do more with less by making your time work for you not against you. Leverage the natural efficiencies that can be gained by completing work in groups. Set and adhere to hard stops in your work day. Remove tasks and projects from your to do list that are no longer aligned to your goals, nor your organization’s goals. Know what good enough looks like for you and then stop when you reach good enough. Stretch your time today and enjoy your extra minutes!  

What are you going to do today to stretch the hours you have and do more with less?

Procrastination can be a high performance tool. A procrastinator can be admired and respected. Procrastination can be a high performance, efficiency tool.

How, you ask?

Procrastination empowers others to solve problems.

Have you ever received an email from a colleague or a direct report alerting you to a problem or an issue? I imagine this happens frequently throughout your day. Now think back to a time where you read the email and then did not respond. You let the email sit in your inbox. As the hours wore on, the problem was resolved –without your input. Miraculous! Your procrastination – your lack of action – created the space and the opportunity for your colleague or direct report to resolve the problem. You empowered them to solve the problem.

Procrastination helps us cull our to do lists.

How often have you looked at your to do list and seen for the one hundredth time that pesky task and or project that has been sitting, lingering, growing mold on your list and taking up psychic space. You avoid it – like the plague! You procrastinate! However, your procrastination around this item is actually very informative. How important is this task or project? Is it connected to one of your goals or a broader strategic goal of the organization? Cull your task list and let go. Procrastination points you to the tasks and projects that probably need to go.

Procrastination aids us in initiating work at the ideal time.

I’ll get to that later. No, I am not going to work on that project today. These are the familiar refrains that run through our heads as we put off, yet again, that task or project because it is too hard, too overwhelming, boring – you fill in the blank. However, procrastination actually assists us in getting the work done at the ideal time. The high performance procrastinator waits to be inspired. Inspiration does not strike on a timetable. High performance procrastinators use another task or project to stimulate their thinking on all of their projects and tasks. So, yes, they could be said to be procrastinating, however, they are actually leveraging their brain’s systems to provide insights and ideas on multiple projects at once. When inspiration strikes, they will be ready and complete their task or project at the ideal time.

Procrastination shows us what has real meaning, purpose and interest for us.

Procrastination opens a window to look inside ourselves. There is a reason you are procrastinating. Procrastination shows us what we fear, do not want to do, what does not have our attention or interest, and/or does connect with our sense of meaning and purpose. This is very useful information – high performance information. If I can name my fears, examine why I do not want to do a project, or why I am not interested – then I am able to take a step forward.

Try it. Embrace procrastination! It can be a high perform

What moves you? 

Do you know what moves you? Do you know what you want – I mean really want. It is hard to have it all if you don’t know what having it all means to you. Not to your colleague one cube over, not to the neighbor down the street, not to your partner, nor your dog. What moves you? Answer this question first and then hold the image of a more successful, happier you in your mind. This is your road map.

Flex your unique ability muscles.

Do you know your strengths and unique abilities? We all have them. What do you do really well? What are you doing when you are in that place of effortless flow? Notice what people compliment you on – both professionally and personally –  for clues. Now, do more of this. The most successful people in your organization are consistently flexing their unique ability muscles. The happiest people in your neighborhood are doing the things they do well. Your goal by the end of 2013 is to have bulging, I mean bulging, unique ability muscles.

Move beyond busy.

Decide to give back that busy badge you earned in 2012 when you joined the masses in your office exclaiming “I am beyond busy!” Did the membership in the busy club move you forward in 2012? Being busy isn’t cool in 2013. Being busy is not the same thing as being productive. Busy is running on a treadmill going nowhere. Being productive is working on tasks and projects that enable you to reach your goals – remember that vision of a more successful, happier you – and your organization’s goals. Move beyond busy.

Dance on your fears.

Literally. The world, your boss, your partner, your kids, your goldfish are not holding you back. You are. Your fears are standing between you and that vision of a more successful, happier you. Try this little exercise I learned from Sonia Choquette. Turn on your favorite dance song and dance. Jump up and down. Wave your hands in the air. Dance. As you dance, see yourself dancing on your fears, over your fears and around your fears – the fear of not getting the raise, your child not getting into the college of their choice, the fear of not ever fitting back into your favorite pair of jeans. Stop and notice how you feel. Do you feel lighter? Do you feel like you can look your fear in the eye and step on it, around it and over it? Now, take one step forward.

Stop fighting nature.

Our brains are hardwired to function in very specific ways. So, no matter how much you try or wish for your brain to function differently it will not. Recent advances in neuroscience have shed light on how the brain functions and these recent insights can help us embrace and work with the natural functioning of our brains instead of fighting against it. For example, according to David Rock, your capacity to make decisions and solve problems is limited by your energy-hungry prefrontal cortex. There is a limit to how much information can be held in the mind and manipulated at any one time. So, don’t ask your brain to remember the 15 items you need at the grocery store, your schedule for next week and your ideas for your new project at work. It is not wired to do this for you. Use a task list. It is ultimately more efficient and it enables your brain to do what it does best – think about things not of things.

Make your technology work for you, not against you.

Today’s technology is powerful – very powerful. However, we often abdicate our own power when we are working with technology. We let it guide and direct us. It pings, dings, or rings and we jump. What if, this year, you made your technology actually work for you? You made it make your life easier, not more complex and more stressful. What if you turned off all of the pings, dings and rings so you could actually focus and be present to the person in front of you or the task you are working on? What if you used your technology to help you achieve what you really want this year? I just downloaded a meditation app – now that is making my smartphone work for me!

Let the sunshine in.

What is your sunshine? What makes you smile? What makes you laugh? How can you add a little more of that in your day? There is a reason that so many of the videos that go viral are funny and silly. They make us laugh. How can you laugh a little more each day? My daughter is funny.  She says funny things and does funny things. I have a few videos of her on my phone that I watch when my day needs a little sunshine. It is amazing what laughter and a smile can do to your mood and your spirit.

Choice is yours.

Choice – you always have it. You can choose to say yes and you can choose to say no. So often, our clients forget that they are actually at choice and can choose to do something different. As you think about 2013, what will you choose to do differently? What one small choice could have a significant impact on your success and happiness this year? The choice is yours.

What are you going to do differently in 2013 to be more successful and happier?

However, New Year’s resolutions do not need to fade into the background, forgotten and unfilled. There is a way to keep your resolutions. 

Realistic – Is your resolution realistic?
Does it affirm the REAL you? Can the fulfillment of this resolution bring you joy, or improve your physical or mental health? If not, then make a resolution that can.

Energize – Does the resolution energize you? 
Are you passionate about fulfilling this resolution? Why have you made this a resolution?

Simplify –How can you simplify your life this year? 
Can your resolution help you simplify your life? Think about small changes that can save you time and money. Could you get up earlier one morning a week to spend time with a favorite book? Could you pack your lunch two days a week?

Old – Is this an old resolution you keep making over and over again? 
If so, it is probably not realistic, it does not energize you, nor does it simplify your life. Let an old resolution go.

Let Go – Let go of resolutions that are societal or cultural expectations that do not affirm you and your values. 
What do you want to do this year? Drown out society’s expectations and focus on your own fulfillment.

Utilize outside resources – Who can help you achieve your goals? 
What do you need to achieve your goals? Do not allow yourself to be limited by an apparent lack of outside resources – time, money, or educational opportunities. Think outside the box. Have a friend help you watch the children, hire a young adult to run your errands, pack your lunch to save money, look for educational courses offered at the library or local non-profit.

Tools – What tools do you need to achieve your goals? 

Information – Do you have all of the information you need to achieve your goal? 
If not, where can you find additional information? Can the Internet, books or people help you fill any information gaps?

Outcome – What is the outcome of your resolution? 
Why are you making this resolution? If we cannot imagine success we cannot achieve success. 

Now go do it!
Remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.

Now go do it!

Gifts – Consumable gifts. I am not talking about the fudge and cookies that leave a permanent mark on our thighs and backsides – I am talking about simple gifts that our friends and family can actually use. What about personalized notepads or stationary? How about an advent candle for all of the children in your life? They can enjoy burning it (supervised, of course) each night leading up to Christmas. What about making bird feeders from pinecones? How about a membership to a gym? A membership to a books on tape club? (The tapes are returned after use.) How about tickets to the theater, the opera or movie passes? Each of these gifts can be used and enjoyed by the recipient AND they do not leave any “stuff” behind.

Individual – Think about the person. What makes your friend or family member an individual? What is unique about them? How can you honor them and give them a gift that reflects who they are and how they live? 

Family and friends – Family and friends can help you with the gift purchasing, wrapping and delivering. If you have children they can help you make pinecone bird feeders. Babysitters can wrap presents and address holiday cards. Is there a young adult who could deliver gifts? Could you watch your friends’ children while she shops for both of you? Who can help ease your gift buying burden? 

Time – Instead of giving a trinket, token or other item this year give your friends and family the gift time. Create customized time certificates for each person on your list. Could you give a friend a lunch date certificate? Could you give an overworked friend a gift of a few hours to help her around the house? The most precious gift we can give others is our time. Show someone you care by spending time with him or her.

Spread the joy! Decide not to purchase gifts this year and give donations in honor of your friends and family. Or what about volunteering your time to a family or friend’s favorite charity? Or ask your friends and family to join you and spend the day feeding the homeless, building a house, or spreading cheer among homebound seniors. A donation of your time or money is a consumable gift, focused on the individual, and your friends and family can help you spread the joy.

Live simply this holiday season. Spread joy to your friends and family by honoring them, their interests, their charitable causes and give them the most precious gift – you and your time.

Working Simply will be taking an unplugged vacation from blog posting this holiday season. We hope you will be able to take an unplugged vacation as well and enjoy those around you. Look for our posts to continue January 9, 2013. Happy Holidays!

• Purchase “consumable gifts”.
  Gift certificates, gifts of your time, buy items in bulk that can be parceled out for various people (personal or business recipients).
   

• Tap your outside resources.
  Hire baby sitters in the neighborhood so you can shop or plan (or even stay in another part of the house working), teenagers may be able to run errands for you. 
   

• Delegate to your family visitors.
  Each person brings one thing for the meal. That means they bring dish and take it home. Saving you the clean-up.
   

• Cook big and freeze.
  Instead of one casserole for diner tonight, double it and divide the second one into four individual servings in the freezer for later.
   

• “Pack it up”.
  Use stores to wrap gifts and ship them for you. Never bring the gift home. Use store gift registries, even on-line, to choose your gifts to save travel time to the store.
   

• Divide and conquer decorations.
  After the holidays, repack decorations into containers by room, so they are ready to easily unpack next year.
   

• Draw the line on spending.
  Money makes people nuts, put that issue aside. Set clear limits on gift costs or even restrict where everyone has to buy gifts.
   

• Make a “break date”.
  Call a friend today and set a non-negotiable time for coffee or lunch during the holiday. That time is specifically set aside without phones as “time off” for you.
   

• Just say “no”.
  Decide what you are NOT going to do this holiday. No holiday parties the week before Christmas? No end of the year business newsletter? Who says you have to do everything?
   

• Learn from the past.
  Keep records of what you do this year (How many dozen cookies for the office? Where did you buy the best Poinsettias?) Keep the information on file and streamline the holidays next year.
   

• Set “task times”.
  My clients get more done when they schedule a set time to do a task. They are forced to be more productive. Set a hard start and stop time for work; have an office mate remind you and make you turn off the light and go home.
   

• Energize e-mail: 
  Vow to read e-mails only once and while the e-mail is open, write your “action” step in the subject line, close it, and the reminder stays with the note.
   

• Turn off your Blackberry, TREO, PALM or other device. Really. Pick some times and turn it off.

Scavenging - Scavenging for items never goes well. One of my small business clients called me in December panicking because she could not find all of the information she needed to complete her books for the year – receipts, bank statements, client reimbursement records. Her accounting system was a disaster and no help at all. When I got to her office it looked like every container had exploded paper. Needless to say this was not very good year end planning. What can you do? Prepare and create an effective retrieval system.

Prepare – I know everyone talks about preparing for the upcoming year. But, what I have found with my clients is that they run so hard towards the finish line they are exhausted and unable to adequately prepare for the New Year. They never stop and THINK. As a result, the first few weeks of January are spent reacting not proactively initiating business. What can you do? Prepare by THINKING before you DO. 

For the most part, all of us are engaged in knowledge work which requires that we think before we do. Often we want to just jump in and DO and our “to do” lists reflect our need to be productive, DO SOMETHING.

• How can we build an effective to do list?  THINK then ACT
• Collect – papers, voicemail, email and all of the thoughts in your head
• Process them – what is it?  What is the next action step?
• Organize – by like items, categories, actions in ONE place
   

When January arrives, you will have an effective to-do list that allows you to get a jump on your competition.

Retrieval System – Build an effective retrieval system. Notice I did not say a filing system. No, it is a retrieval system, a system that will save you time and money and prepare you for the upcoming year. If my small business client had built an effective retrieval system we would not have been digging through her papers. How? Keep it simple. 

When you are building a retrieval system it is all about what the first thing that comes to mind when you look at a piece of paper – whatever that name/idea is – that is the name of your file. For example, one of my clients has a file called – Things my Clients Complain About. 

Here are some suggestions for retrieving frequently accessed items:

• Receipts – Keep a zip lock bag in your purse, work bag and drop receipts into it after       each purchase. 
• Paid bills/invoices – Don’t file them by vendor. File them by month. Purchase a pre-labeled accordion file folder. Place the paid invoice in the monthly file. Put your receipts in the monthly file as well. At the end of the year, you have all of your receipts and paid invoices in one place. Collect them and store in labeled manila envelopes.
• The goal is to be able to put your hand on a piece of paper within 5 seconds.
• Create standing files 
  - Bank Accountants with last 4 digits on the label. Don’t date it. You will then have to    create a new folder. Just empty the contents Dec. 31^st and you are ready for the New Year.
  - Credit card statements – if not in your monthly file
  - Tax Prep file – Holding zone for your tax preparation materials charitable contributions, etc.
  - I want my clients to be able to go to 4-5 files, remove the contents and be prepared to meet with their accountant or complete an expense report.
   

Intentional Acknowledgement – Differentiate yourself from your competition by intentionally acknowledging your clients and vendors. What sets you apart? We are all inundated with holiday cards, cookies, candy, invitations, etc. How can you say thank you? For example, one client sent tickets to a local holiday choral presentation to all of her clients with children. She was acknowledging their families and encouraging them to rejoice during the holiday season. 

New habit – Kick the email addiction! 

When my client called me, she was working 80-90 hours a week, had no time for her family and was not executing in her job. She is the COO of a large organization. She must execute. The first thing we changed – her email addiction. She would open her inbox and read her email messages multiple times, respond to a few, but not all and never get to the higher level, strategic projects. Here’s what we did.

• Do not start your day with email – reactive, not proactive.
• Fully process email.
  - Read it and execute on anything you can respond to in 2 minutes or less. 
  - Read it and DECIDE on NEXT ACTION – what is required of you. Type your action item in the subject line. Do not want to change the subject – type your action item above the email greeting so when you open it again you can see exactly what you have to do. Or read it, decide on next action, put the next action in your task list and copy the email message to the task.
  - Action folder
  - @Waiting For – to track delegated items, close project loops. Each time you send an email to someone delegating a task or asking for something in return, cc: yourself. If you are interested in setting up this rule, email us for help.
   

My client told me the other day, “I do not open my email unless I know I can fully process my inbox.  I now maintain an inbox of no more than 30 emails.” She used to have over 400 in her inbox. And during her last performance review, she received the highest ranking. 

Commit to not starting your day with email and when you check email you fully process your inbox. Start the New Year with a new habit and kick the email addiction.

Tailored tools – My clients that successfully end the year and begin a new year have developed their own tailored tools. They have developed the habit of preparing for the upcoming year by thinking before doing, using their retrieval system, intentionally thanking clients and vendors, and adopting one new habit that will save them time – like email management. What types of tools are using? How can you tailor them to work for you not against you?

Now, you tell me. Have you experienced some of these obstacles as you sprinted towards the finish line? What have you done to plan for the upcoming year?

Let this be your guide as you intentionally reexamine your daily and weekly work flow practices to ensure a productive season.

Plan – Plan now to save time later. Look at your calendar through the end of the year and note due dates on projects, when house guests are arriving, school plays, and holiday parties. Schedule time to complete your work and include buffer time for those last minute emergencies and fire drills. Just by looking ahead you can minimize stress because you now have a picture or an idea of work and social commitments you have made AND can now make more informed work and social commitments.

Realistic – Be realistic. I know, it’s hard. However, it is absolutely vital during the holiday season. If you’re hosting Thanksgiving dinner and also have a large sales pitch the same week, what will give? Can you cater Thanksgiving or is that sacrilege in your family? Can you move the sales pitch to the following week when you have more time and energy. What is realistic for you? Does everything on your task list really have to be completed prior to your holiday break, or are there some things that can wait until January?

Outdated – Are you harboring some outdated ideas around a productive holiday season? What thoughts and ideas are no longer serving you? Do you always intend to complete your final budget before Thanksgiving but it always happens the first week in December? Ok. Let go of that outdated idea that is no longer serving you. It will eliminate significant stress. 

Delegate – Divide and conquer on the holiday preparations. Have your brother bring the turkey and you provide the dressing. Let Amazon do all of the wrapping, packing and shipping for you. Support your colleague on their vacation and ask for them to support you on your vacation. College and graduate students are on holiday – can you leverage these students as resources to support you on a project at work. One of our clients engaged his niece during her holiday break to build their order entry Excel spreadsheet that they then uploaded into their inventory control system. No one had found the time to build it – it was necessary – and in one week they had their Excel spreadsheet and the inventory control system was fully functional.

Unplug – Turn it off. Enjoy an unplugged vacation. Or just enjoy an unplugged morning to work uninterrupted on an important project or task.

Collaborate – Divide and conquer on as many tasks and projects as possible. What do you do so well and effortlessly that you could do for someone else with no additional stress? I love to bake cookies – it is enjoyable and easy for me. I collaborate on holiday gifts with a friend. I bake her cookies and mine at the same time and then she wraps them up and delivers them.  It is a perfect partnership. 

Time – Time is a commodity. How might your time investment decisions change at the end of the year? If you are in sales, you might spend more time converting prospects to clients to ensure that you exceed your yearly sales goal. If you have requested additional funding in your budget this year for an exciting new initiative, you might invest your time lobbying and building support for your initiative to ensure funding. How does the time of year affect your time investment decisions? Does your calendar reflect these, potentially new, time investment decisions? If not, what might you change or add to fully support you during this season?

Individual – There are no one size fits all productivity solutions. We are all unique individuals with different cognitive preferences, different challenges and opportunities. If you are a visual, expansive, synergistic thinker instead of fighting against your preferences this holiday season, work with them. Instead of making a list you will never look at – build a list out of colored sticky notes, draw a mind map or put up a white board and post your to dos. If you are an analytical, sequential, linear thinker, pull out that legal pad, use Outlook’s task function or use that Excel spreadsheet and build your holiday list.  Don’t make it harder than it has to be.  Work with your natural style.

Value – Reflect on the value you have brought to your organization this year. How have you contributed to your organization’s bottom line? How have you helped your team and department achieve their strategic goals? Now, ask yourself, what do I want to start doing in the new year to add more/additional value, what do I want to stop doing that is not adding value, and what do I want to continue doing? 

Exhale – Our brains are waiting for us to exhale – literally. According to Dr. Jessica Payne, at the University of Notre Dame, high stress impairs insight and decision making. Additionally, stress selectively damages parts of the brain critical for insight and creativity. You knew there was a reason that you did not do your best thinking during the hectic end of the year season. So, what can you do to minimize your stress so your brain can literally create the connections and make the decisions that are critical for you in your daily work? Do you need a 5 minute stand and stretch break a few times during the day? Do you need to go out to lunch at least once a week? Do you need to listen to only music during your commute instead of leading and listening to conference calls? Or do you just need to give yourself the permission to exhale.

Have a productive holiday season!

The wait is over! Or, at least it has become more tolerable with the new virtual queue apps that are changing restaurants’ wait times. This is according to the September issue of Fast Company. There is a new app, WaitAway, that can send me a text message when my table is ready and can provide me access to a real-time visualization of the virtual line so I can see how far back I am. Wow! As you can imagine, I definitely got a little excited. Talk about efficiency! This is efficient and allows me to invest my time wisely – every minute of every day.

However, it also made me stop and think. When did our schedules reach the tipping point that we can no longer just wait for a few minutes? What happened that there is now the need – maybe it is a new cultural norm – to effectively use and account for every minute in our day? And is this change really in our best interest?

What if, instead of filling our wait times by playing games on our smartphones, completing one more task or sending one more text, we used this time to think and just be in the moment? What would happen if all of your wait times were reimagined to be think time? How many new ideas would you have? How much less time would it actually take to get your work done?

One of the most common complaints we hear from our clients is that they do not have time to think. Their schedules are full to overflowing, they run from meeting to meeting and never stop. Last week, I suggested to an executive that he use his waiting time to think. Think while you are standing in line at Starbucks, think while you are at a stop light, and/or spend half of our train commute time just thinking. He looked at me incredulously (which happens frequently!). I asked him, what do you have to lose? This is time that is in your day and instead of scanning emails that you are not responding to anyway, what if you just think. Try it. You can always go back to your old waiting habits. He agreed and did try it. On day three, he had a breakthrough insight in the Starbucks line about a current issue. Waiting think time has just paid off.

How might you reimagine your waiting time this week? What do you want and need to think about? What might happen if you just breathe and stay in the present moment? 

Watch what happens when you reimagine waiting time and dedicate this time to thinking.

The wait is over! Think time has arrived.