I have a friend who has a beautiful flower garden. As I was appreciating the beauty, I really wanted to know how she kept it weed-free so that it continued looking beautiful. She said that she weeds everyday and only spends a few minutes doing it and picking 10 to 15 weeds a day. She uses these small and consistent actions to create great results. And I seem to be finding these micro-moment opportunities throughout many avenues in my life lately and appreciate how these small moments in time can add up.
Consider one of my favorite micro-moment productivity tools, The Pomodoro Technique. It uses small bursts of time to work on a project. The key is to stay focused solely on the task at hand by eliminating or minimizing distractions. When the 25-minute moment is complete, you follow with another 5-minute micro-moment of activity or focus on something else. When I discovered this tool 5 or 6 years ago, it was a godsend! I find that I use it for three purposes:
to work on a task that I really don't like to do but really need to do. After all, I can do anything for 25 minutes!
to become laser focused on a project that needs my attention. Once again, most things are not so critical that they can't wait for 25 minutes.
to race against the clock, so to speak. I challenge myself to complete something in 25 minutes that I could drag out for double that.
I am not the only one who seems enamored with the idea of micro-moments. Google has research for marketers about how consumers are using their mobile devices to find immediate information in “the I want-to-know moments, I want-to-go moments, I want-to-do moments, and I want-to-buy moments.”
The learning and development field uses micro-learning as a way to deliver focused and quick learning moments during an employee's moment of need. This is a great way to follow up after a training session for practice and recall.
There is compelling evidence that using microbursts of energy in the form of physical, mental, or other types of activities have a positive effect on the overall energy a person has throughout the workday.
When I was trying to figure out how to "have it all" with work, husband, kids, house and all of the tasks associated, I found FlyLady, who much like my friend and her beautiful garden, advocated for small, focused, consistent moments that took out a lot of the overwhelm and made managing all of those tasks, well, manageable.
I know there are projects that need to have flow and more than micro-moments, but I work best in micro-moments and over the course of a day find myself much more productive than if I try to find flow and long moments of productivity.
What works best for you? Micro-moments or flow? I love hearing how others work best!
Opmerkingen