Tick Tock

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Some of you know that I have a new phone.  I love my new phone.  It has revolutionized my life.  I use it for everything imaginable... storing my grocery shopping list, reminding me of birthdays and meetings, alerting me to jobs I have to do on a weekly basis, giving me an hour's notice before Top Chef is on, taking notes on phone calls from my boss, sync-ing my multiple calendars, tracking my employees hours... the list seriously goes on and on and on.  And on.

One of my favorite features of my new phone, however, is the timer.  It has a normal clock.  It has an alarm clock.  It has a stopwatch.  And it has a timer.  It's a normal countdown timer.  Nothing super special about it (although it does look pretty cool graphically I think...).   However, I have been inspired to use this timer for some of my most-hated tasks.

Every once in a while I have a whole list of work items, generally boring writing projects, that I simply cannot force myself to do.  These projects sit in my email in-box staring at me... taunting me... calling out for me to complete them.  But I just can't do it.  So in my in-box they sit until one fine day I get a brilliant moment of inspiration and energy to tackle the daunting tasks at hand.  It is rare, however, that I get a brilliant moment of inspiration and energy.  So my agony continues as I stare at the unfinished chores that await my attention.

With the timer, however, these hated items suddenly receive a new lease on life.  I have been setting the timer on my phone for 15 minutes.  And then I dedicate myself to 15 uninterrupted minutes of work on each of the pending tasks.  Fifteen minutes goes by so quickly and is easy enough to garner the energy... both mental and physical... to get something productive done.  "I can do anything for 15 minutes," I encourage myself.  And so for 15 minutes, until the beloved ringer sounds on the phone, I hack away at that which I must do.

And then I can generally force myself to go for another 15 minutes.  And sometimes a third.  Not much beyond that.  

However, when I step back and look at what 15 minutes of concentrated, uninterrupted work has done, even in a time period as short as 15 minutes, I am pretty impressed with myself... and with my phone, my new best friend, my coach, my inspiration. 

I love my phone.  And I think I have convinced myself that my phone also loves me.  Thanks to Kevin for getting me the new phone.  Talk about transformed lives and communities?  My life has certainly been transformed through something so small and so simple it fits in my pocket or in the palm of my hand.

~lk

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