18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done
Book Review
“One way to keep the momentum going
is to have constantly greater goals.”
– Michael Korda
As
I began reading the book ‘18
Minutes’, I pondered
over my life; where did those years go? Instead of focusing on my strengths and
devoting time to the responsibilities that really mattered, I struggled with physical,
mental, or emotional strain. The book, “18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master
Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done” written by Peter Bregman helped
readers to find solution to their struggle and frustration. Peter Bregman has
worked with CEOs and senior leaders for over 30 years to
develop their leadership skills and personal growth and collaborative team work
to bring organizational change.
18 Minutes is an essential guide, providing
comprehensive approach to how to manage a day, a moment and a year. Its goal is
to teach us how to keep focus on to achieve meaningful work. If we look back
and analyze our whole day, week or year, we simply say, Time Flies So Fast! How
we can slow it down.
I
quote the inspiring words of the author,
“Time is the only element in the
world that is irretrievable when it’s lost. Lose money and you can make more.
Lose a friend and you can patch up the relationship. Lose a job and you can
find another. But lose time and it’s gone forever.”
The author’ words, “Somehow I was
missing that feeling of I’m doing the right things with the right people in the
right way to make the most of who I am” stirred me to think since we are highly
obsessed with achieving success, we hardly reflect upon satisfying our inner
joy and happiness. We are engaged with personal obligations and probably spend
less quality time with family and friends.
“How
can we work less and survive? Stepping away from your work might just be the
key to increasing your productivity.” the author expresses.
Stepping
away from work can boost our mood, reduce anxiety and spark productivity.
Some
suggested tips in the chapter are to get involved in multiple identities, enjoy
dinner with family or play tennis with a friend are meaningful activities that
helps to make a modest life style. Bregman evaluates how he’s spending his time
as according to him, “Most important, be
consistent—doing the something repeatedly over time solidifies your identity”.
The
book 18 Minutes is divided into four parts.
Part 1: Pause
helps us to focus on the right things, follow a daily plan and avoid
inevitable distractions that cause hindrance in achieving our goals. Reading
part one was stimulating for me. I learned how to enjoy life and happiness and
unlock my hidden potentials. The chapter focuses on building momentum and
consistency of adopting positive habits that helps to accomplish goals. Peter
Bregman in his book suggested two ways to pull back momentum. If we start to lose
its force, gently begin to change direction. Slow Down and Start Over.
Part 1 discusses how to control emotional
response “If you take a breath and delay your
action, you give the prefrontal cortex time to control the emotional response.
A brief pause will help you to deviate from impulsive behavior to rational.
Here
I would like to quote the case study given in the chapter.
When Luigi yelled at me in the
hall, I took a deep breath and gave my prefrontal cortex a little time to win.
I knew there was a misunderstanding and I also knew my relationship with Luigi
was important. So instead of yelling back, I walked over to him. It only took a
few seconds. But that gave us both enough time to become reasonable.
Similarly,
I learned another tactic of settling down any important matter. Take a pause
and ask yourself a single question: What is the outcome I want? Instead of
reacting to any event taken place in the past, react to the future outcome. If your
aim is “An improved relationship,” don’t yell back. Respond to the person in a
normal voice; ask some questions which diminish his anger. This is the reaction
that will help to boost up better relationship. Positive attitude will help to
embrace weakness, focus on strengths and follow your passion and succeed.
– Michael Korda
Part 2: What Is This Year About? states how to organize and prioritize things
in our life.
I
quote author’s words, “We’ll look at the
four elements—your strengths, weaknesses, differences, and passions—that form
the foundation of your success and happiness.”
I
learned the significance of staying flexible while planning. Opportunity,
persistence and luck helps you to move towards the right direction. After analyzing
the plan for the day, we need to carry over for tomorrow’s plan. We should
prioritize our tasks for the next day. What’s
no longer important need to be scratched out.
We
model ourselves and our businesses after other people or businesses! The book
highlights the fact that we need to develop self- analysis, analyze our
thoughts and behavior. As author says, “If
you look like other people, and if your business looks like other businesses,
then all you’ve done is increase your pool of competition. Self-
Reflection and personal development help us to stay focused on our priorities.
Peter Bregman says, “One way to recover
your passion is to pursue your desire. As you choose your focus for the year,
pay less attention to “shoulds” and more attention to “wants.”
Explicating this strategy, he said we need to reschedule our tasks by developing
our passion to accomplish it. We need to ask ourselves the following questions, “What about our daily
work, does our daily life matter to us Why
are we doing it?
Three
essential conditions should be followed:
·
You
want to achieve it.
·
You
believe you can achieve it.
·
You
enjoy trying to achieve it.
I
quote the inspiring words of the author,
“This is why you’d better enjoy
trying to achieve your goals. Because you’ll never spend ten thousand hours
doing anything you don’t enjoy. And if you don’t enjoy the trying part, you’ll
never do it long enough to reach your goal.”
“To home
in on your passion, think about what you love doing—what’s important enough to
you that you’re willing to persist over the year, even when it feels like
you’re not succeeding.” writes the author.
At
the end of part 2, the author emphasizes that demotivated
people can be encouraged to pursue their goals if the goal is challenging and
they are provided with the opportunity to achieve. The fear of failing may
detain us from moving forward, however, if we comprehend the meaning of failure
in our life, we will have great opportunities of success.
I
personally feel failure is a process of learning. As I ponder over my success
in life, I know it has not occurred over night.
My efforts were recognized and valued in
different challenging environment, hence my learning boost up.
“If you believe your talent grows
with persistence and effort, then you seek failure as an opportunity to
improve. People with a growth mind-set feel smart when they’re learning, not
when they’re flawless.”
“Failure is inevitable, useful, and
educational. Just don’t give up—stay focused over the year—and it will pay off.”
Part 3: What Is This Day About,
emphasizes how we focus into an 18-minute daily plan, make sure that the right
things get done at the right moment. We need to prioritize and focus on five
big things for the year ahead. Consequently, we need to create a to-do list for
this purpose. The chapter begins with motivating words that really touched my
heart, “If you pay attention to what’s happening
now, the future will take care of itself. Don’t regret the past; don’t worry
about the future; just be here now and all that.”
The
author elucidates the idea by giving the example of driving a car. Distracted driving
causes violent collusion. When you are driving, you never pay attention to
where you are; you always pay attention to what is happening on the road ahead.
As
author says, “Plan your day ahead so you
can fly through it, successfully maneuvering and moving towards your intended
destination.” We should know where to focus and what to ignore .So the
author suggests creating another list of unimportant things that can be
ignored.
As
Bregman says, “To get the right things done,
choosing what to ignore is as important as choosing where to focus.” The author
further suggests three-day rule. This rule ensures that no task stays on your
list for more than three days.
Part
3 ends with thought-provoking words,
“Spend a few minutes at the end of
each day thinking about what you learned and with whom you should connect.
These minutes are the key to making tomorrow even better than today.”
The
last part 4: What Is This Moment About?
elucidates how to master distraction, you will
learn how to get motivated and how to follow through even when it’s tempting to
give up. How to protect yourself and your time by creating the right kind of boundaries.
This section is divided into three subsections: Mastering Your Initiative,
Mastering Your Boundaries, and Mastering Yourself.
The
chapter emphasizes to “Create
an environment that naturally compels you to do the things you want to do.”
We need to focus on real problems and opportunities. “What’s important is that
your moment of choice is when you are in the right state of mind—when you need
the least willpower—to make the best decision.”
Part
4 provide guidelines to help you stay on track.
- Resist the temptation to say yes too often
- When you say no, mean it, and you won’t needlessly lose your time
- A few moments of transition time can help make your next task shorter, faster and more productive for you and others
- When you take vacation—or any other time you want to be undisturbed—schedule a specific time to take care of the things that would otherwise creep into each and every available moment
- Distraction, used intentionally, can be an asset
- Don’t try to get it right in one big step. Just get it going. Smaller steps give you the opportunity to succeed more often
- Stay alert and adapt to changing situations
Finally,
I learned to embrace change in life. Change is inevitable. Change is constant.
We must analyze ‘self’, the self- knowledge help us to maximize our efforts for
change. Change in our approach leads to for personal growth and success.
As we master ourself with flexibility, we should
stay on track and continue to move forward.
I would end
by quoting the words of Simone de Beauvoir,
“One's life has
value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love,
friendship, indignation and compass.
