Timeless

This is an edited version of a post I had published couple of years ago. 

When was the last time you didn’t look at the time? I mean can you think of experiences from your past? May be you were dancing your heart out the song and before you knew it the dance floor was closing? May be working on your most favourite project, it was long hours, but you didnt know until the janitor passes by? May be you were running till your feet could run and there was a path in front of you and then realized that sun was way up above you?

Remember the time you were doing something you loved with all your heart and never bothered to look at time?

When was the last time you did look in to the time? Waiting for a train? Waiting for the lecture/meeting to get over? Signalling everybody in the room that I am done, its boring!? Waiting for a result of a exam you took which is very important to you? Waiting for your first client to show up and it’s been a month?

 

From the above two different scenarios, we can understand one thing. How often we look at the time, indicates our interest (love) for the task we are doing, don’t you agree? In other words, we don’t look at time when we do what we love, and we look at the time very often when we are doing things we don’t love. Don’t we?

Imagine working on your dream project. You are lost in time. 4 hours have gone by and you didn’t notice. Suddenly, you have the urge to look at the time. It’s 11 PM. Immediately stress starts building up – you missed an appointment with your accountant, didn’t pick up your groceries for tomorrow, you forgot to inform your partner that you might coming home late, you have several missed calls on your phone. And in those 2 or 3 seconds you have travelled from past to future and already distanced yourself from the project you were doing. The dream project is not a dream project any more, because it is causing imbalance to your routine work.  Hence the enthusiasm doesn’t stay for long period time. That’s why there are few finishers .

Is there a way to hack in to this behaviour? Oh yes!

1. Close your commitments: Best way to go about is, is to close your commitments. For example, shift the appointment with your doctor, call your partner before sitting for the job and say you will be late. Make sure you are absolutely free for next 8 hrs or even more. (Don’t underestimate your passion 😉 ).
2. Stop: Yah, stop whatever your are doing when you have the impulse to see the time. Take a 15 minute time out. Close your appointments, go for a walk, meditate, take a nap. Understand, that you are looking at time because your body or mind is showing little weariness and that’s why it is most often an impulse and may be not an habit.
3. Distraction less environment: As soon as you get the adrenalin rush for your dream project, close everything else down. Get rid of your smart phone. Keep it in silent mode (no vibration) and keep it in the back of the bookshelf that you never use. Get rid of notifications in your laptop (if you are going to work on it) else its best if it’s closed. It’s going to take you less than 30 secs to do given every single thing that’s going to distract you is within the reach of your hands (It always is! Irony is it not?). So you are not actually hitting the breaks on your enthusiasm . May be more like changing gears ;).
4. Keep drinking water: Water is said to energize the system, that way you don’t get weary too often. That way, the impulse won’t be too often, you can go on for hours and just be in that absolute state of bliss where you and your project are the only two things that are breathing in this entire planet. 🙂

If your dream project is not taking major chunk of your time! It’s time you stopped looking at your watches. 😉

Image credits:

Featured:wonderfulengineering.com
Inline:QuotesNSmiles