Say Goodbye To Your Mind Clutter

In this video, I talk about the most important time-management skill you can develop: focus. There will always be people who want you to spend time on something you may not think is important, and you will have to learn when to say no. The question is: am I scheduling time to get my most important things done?

Transcript Highlights

Lauren Simonetti:
Hi everybody, I’m Lauren Simonetti. The most important skill that we possess in this infinite world of distractions is focus….We need to learn to say no far more often than we do, and here to give us some tips in order to help get that mind clutter out of our head is FoxBusiness.com contributor Peter Bregman. Hey Peter, how are you?

Peter Bregman:
Hi, I’m good. How are you Lauren?

Lauren Simonetti:
Thanks for coming on the show. De-clutter my mind, go ahead.

Peter Bregman:
We have never been in an environment, in a world that is so distracting. We all get a million emails. Half of them are trash and spam. Half of them don’t seem like they’re trash at the time. Then you end up spending time on them, and you realize at the end of the day they probably were. It’s really, really hard to get the things done that are most important to us. In order to do that we have to de-clutter our minds. We have to say what am I not going to focus on? I think probably one of the most important time management skills and life management skills that we have now is the ability to say no to things that are not most important to us.

In fact, I have the three steps to this process. I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine who works here. We’ll call him Jim. Jim is taking the day off tomorrow. He’s taking the day off tomorrow in order to really look at everything he’s doing and figure out what’s most important. That’s a great thing to do. That’s something that should be advertised. Everybody should take some time where you take the day off….Take a personal day to get your head around what is it that you should be spending your time on, and where is your focus and what should your focus be.

Lauren Simonetti:
After you figure out your focus, then you have to sustain it?

Peter Bregman:
Know your focus, then you have to sustain your focus. In order to sustain your focus, it means you have to be strong and deliberate and intentional about what you’re going to say yes to and what you’re going to say no to. That’s really hard to do…Don’t get enticed and seduced by people needing you…Because people need you and want you to do things, and can you spend some time on this and can you spend some time on that. You have to be really, really deliberate.

Lauren Simonetti:
Don’t feel guilty.

Peter Bregman:
Don’t feel guilty about it, right. You have to take care of what’s most important to you. Then the third is to protect it. You’re going to sustain it day in, and day out, and you have to really be conscious and aware of: am I always blocking out time for me to get done the most important things to me. One quick example of this is I’ve recently done this. I’m working on a new project, which is a really big project for me, and it’s going to come to fruition probably in about a year around our leadership school.

I really have to look at everything on my plate. One of the things I really want to do is write a book of fiction that I have been working on. I had to look at that and say you know what, it’s enticing, it’s sexy, it seems like it’s fun, I feel cool, I want to do it but it doesn’t have a place right now in terms of where my biggest passion is and where my most focused work has to be. I have to say no even to myself at times, not just to other people but … to myself. Actually, it makes me feel great. I feel so engaged building this leadership school. I’m so excited about it. It suddenly feels like I could actually spend the time doing it, that I’m not trying to spread myself so thin that I’ll never get it done, that I’m really going to focus on this one thing.

One last thing I want to share is in terms of leadership programs that I’m doing, I’m running a program at Kripalu at the end of June, on June 27th.

Lauren Simonetti:
Where is Kripalu?

Peter Bregman:
It’s in Lenox, Massachusetts. It’s a retreat center. It’s a beautiful place.

Lauren Simonetti:
Very nice.

Peter Bregman:
It’s about finding your focus, mastering distraction, getting the right things done. Go to my website, www.PeterBregman.com, and it’s right on the top.

Lauren Simonetti:
It’s up on the screen. Thank you. Good to see you, and thank you everybody for watching. See you later.