Mind reset: from doing more to doing less.
Before I left for vacation, I was literally in a total panic trying to get everything done so I could leave the business for two weeks. It was extremely stressful and all I can tell you is thank goodness my husband is a very tolerant human.
I arrived at my parents’ home still in this state of hyperactivity, knowing that I only had two weeks to do as much as possible with my aged folks. We immediately left for a four-day classic car tour – the Prologue Tour organized by BritAssist.
We had a lovely time and drove around 500 miles in beautiful countryside. When we got back to their home afterwards, we took them out to lunch a couple of times and on a day trip to The Eden Project. Then we left for a three-day trip around Wales.
The weather in Wales was atrocious! We had planned to do so many things and mother nature did not cooperate at all. The Snowdon Mountain Railway could not even make it to the lower station due to high winds, we could not see a thing anyway because of the fog and rain, and we were forced to pare back our whole itinerary to only the things that really mattered. In the meantime, my parents were recovering at home from the whirlwind we had subjected them to in our first week. They were exhausted.
When we got back from Wales, we realized we had had a mind reset: from doing more to doing less. We still offered to take my parents out, but they were too tired. We did not protest or try and change their minds – we stayed home and cooked for them. We also got the opportunity to share a couple of new recipes with them that will last long after we are gone. We took time to decide what would have the most impact and focused on doing that really well – rather than trying to do everything at a less than optimum level.
Resources
A fellow consultant and friend of mine, Chad Bareither, has written an excellent book on applying this theory in a work environment. His book Improve LESS: The Focus and Align Framework for Sustainable Continuous Improvement is designed to be read in a weekend and will give you a framework you can immediately implement. Getting the Right Things Done by Pascal Dennis is another good resource for creating and implementing strategy that focusses on things with the biggest impact.
My thoughts
What I was reminded about during my enforced mind reset in the wild Welsh weather were two things:
- Focusing on what will have the greatest impact is just as important (if not more so) in our personal lives as it is in our work lives
- Taking time for a vacation and a mental reset is not a luxury – it is essential
Going forward I will keep trying to move from doing more to doing less in my business, my home life and my leisure activities. I hope that this realization stays with me and doesn’t get overrun by my long-established operating mode of trying to do everything.
What kinds of mind reset have you had on vacation? Have you even had a vacation recently?
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Eli Sharp.
