OK, I admit:

I have to take baby steps.

That doesn’t sound so terrible, but it’s tough for me to come to terms with sometimes. I often feel that just acknowledging the challenge will automatically lead to overcoming the challenge, but that’s rarely the case. Why do I think that? Is it the perfectionist in me? Is it the part of me that thinks (or hopes!) that doing something tough doesn’t take “work”? Or maybe I’m not as committed as I think I am?

Hmmmmmm…………..

I’ve learned that I have to take away some temptations so that it’s easier for me to stay focused. When I take a class over the phone, I can’t put myself at the computer. When I’m in my bedroom with just my phone, my pen, & my notebook – no computer, no TV, no real distractions (unless you count tidying up your bedroom a distraction, which I don’t) – I can stay focused. I’m committed enough to not check my email or my calendar on my BlackBerry. My mind sometimes drifts, but I stay with the class.

Today I convinced myself that I’ll need the computer during class, as the teacher will probably take us through some examples of what we’re talking about online. So I opened my Google notebook and closed my Gmail and lasted exactly 40 minutes before opening new tabs & starting new Google searches. Now that’s triple the time I lasted when I first started this challenge, but it still left me wandering for 33% of the class. That’s a lot of class time to lose!

Lesson learned: I need to embrace the baby steps. They’re what takes you from a challenging Day 1 to a successful Day 30. And I might not be “cured” on Day 31, but at least I’ll have a firmer idea as what I can and can’t (yet) do.

Tags: Powerful Productivity

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Happy Hooplah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.