Today I went to a client presentation, conducted seven meetings with clients, and had a brainstorming session with a good friend. While at the first meeting, I arranged for the introduction of my speaker at another meeting simultaneously happening. I drove 95 miles in the process, and that was after a moonlit run of four miles. I went to bed last night stressed over today, and now I am sitting here knocking out this blog and ready to keep the energy flowing. What happened?
What happened is the Law of Forced Efficiency met the Law of Prior Planning. The result was a stretching of my time management skills and a positive self-awareness result. By putting myself in a position of having to be focused, my interviews went better and my anxiety subsided. Because I looked at this schedule for two days, my mind worked on it while I was sleeping and seemed to signal to me when to keep the interviews going and when I needed to wrap up and run. I was late for one meeting and managed to find ways to alert the client that I was running behind before the meeting was due to start. By the end of the day, I found my energy rising, and my last meeting, a marketing brainstorming session, left me pumped.
Sometimes the best way to raise your level of play is to schedule more than you can do, and then just go after it. Realizing I could always do a little more has stretched my expectations of myself. Like a rubber band once stretched, I will never be the same. That’s the best reward I could give myself.
It’s never crowded on the extra mile.