CONTROL YOUR TIME AND FOCUS IN QUARANTINE

Click here to watch the video on controlling your time and focus during quarantine. Here are the notes from the video, along with reflective questions to help you gain control over your schedule and your goals:

1. The primitive part of your brain (the archipallium) wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and do what is easiest/most habitual. The more evolved part of your brain (the prefrontal cortex) has your true best interests in mind and is responsible for making more evolved, long-term decisions that sometimes don’t feel good in the moment. Example: your primitive brain wants to lay on the couch but your evolved brain wants to file your taxes and submit them because that serves you in the long-term. In order to consciously create the life you want, you need to be willing to choose your long-term benefit over any short-term pleasure/comfort that your primitive brain wants you to seek. Remember: you are the boss of your brain, not the other way around!

2. Don’t wait for inspiration to strike: CREATE the feeling of motivation for your long-term goals but thinking amazing thoughts that pump you up. Who will you be after the compounding effect of the habits you’re trying to develop? What will your life look like after you’ve disregarded your primitive brain’s requests for you to choose short-term pleasure over long-term benefits? How amazing will you feel after you’ve accomplished what is in front of you? Let that motivation fuel your actions.

3. Calendar just 1-3 hours per day for one week to start. Keep your commitments to yourself. Be realistic, congratulate yourself for wins, recognize and observe when your brain wants you to abandon your tasks for food or cleaning or netflix, and choose to keep your commitments to yourself instead of abandoning them! List out every single one of the things you have on your to-do lists for the week, choose the most important ones, put them on your calendar during the 1-3 hours/day that you will schedule, and let yourself be a beginner! Let yourself practice the habit of keeping promises to yourself. Let yourself practice valuing your goals and your time over comfortable/pleasurable distractions in the moment.

4. Ask yourself: “What kind of relationship do I want to cultivate with my time in the long term, and how can I start behaving this way with myself now?”