"Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don't so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head." - Joe Henderson
When faced with a task, if I spend too much time in my head, I'll convince myself I can't do it and won't even try. In the mid-1980s when I read Natalie Goldberg's best-selling book Writing Down the Bones, I learned to use a timer to combat this problem. She set one for ten minutes, said "Go!" and wrote without stopping. This practice still works three decades later. Whether it's keeping my hand moving in writing practice, editing a manuscript, or tackling a cluttered shelf in my office, the timer produces results.
First, I choose a task. It must be specific. Once the task is defined, I set the timer and Go! It might be reading part of a manuscript until the ten minute timer goes off. If ideas for changes come, which they often do, I'll start the timer again and begin revising. Sometimes it means reading page edits someone has given me. It's daunting to see what another person thinks of my work. So I set the timer and read until it goes off. I don't give myself time to think, just read. Once I've gotten started it's easier to make notes as I go. The key is to get into motion and stay out of the negative place in my head. With the finite period set by the timer, I can do nearly anything.
I keep kitchen timers all over the house, one in every room, to help me with all manner of tasks. It creates a pressure cooker effect that expands time and helps me focus on the task instead of worrying about how many minutes I have to go.
Other programs use this technique. Pomodoro has an app. HIIT exercise (short for "high intensity interval training") is all the rage. For me, it began with Natalie's simple suggestion of ten minute intervals. I can do anything for ten minutes. The timer is the "gym boss" at my desk turning difficult tasks into manageable ten-minute interval workouts.
Do you use a timer or some other similar technique? I'd love to hear about it.Labels: HIIT, Natalie Goldberg, negative thinking, Pomodoro, ten minutes, timer, Writing Down the Bones