SISTER WISDOM

Persistence, however, is a trick worth nurturing. If you can keep at something, if you can find and rekindle that little spark of faith that you’ll figure it out, then you can rebuild again and again. Persistence is the art of building continuity. It’s the deliberate action of doing something, doing it again, doing it again, until you get it right, and maybe doing it over and over after that, too. - Chris Brogan

1: figure out what the next thing is before you need to do it.

The best way is to have some sort of plan; that could be a calendar hung on the door, a planner on your desk, a scratched-out list on a paper scrap. If you don’t know what the important items in your day are, you can’t move from one to the other. Instead, you’ll just float here, slog there, wallow a while, and even what you accomplish won’t feel like an accomplishment because it was done by-the-way, not deliberately.

2: give yourself some time buffers.

Moms know about set-backs and repetition, and how much longer it can take a child to do a 2-minute task. Spending time pointlessly in transitions doesn’t help anybody, but understand that there are the simple tasks of cleaning up or clearing out or refreshing the brain or, you know, going to the bathroom or refilling your coffee cup. The important step is to know where you are headed even when you’re in the in-between. If you don’t know what the next thing is, you’ll just stay in the in-between. You’ll get caught up on a detail, on the phone, on Facebook. If it’s not time for those things, don’t let them interrupt. Do the necessary stuff and keep moving toward the next important point of your day.

3: set up and start quickly.

The most difficult part is getting started, so give yourself a time limit on getting down to business. Set a timer for five minutes and set up and actually start doing within that time limit.

4: talk it up.

Let other people hold you accountable, whether they know they are or not, by talking about what you’re going to do next. This will also help your kids/spouse/friends/dogs/etc to know to get outta the way, or at least minimize the interruption, when you’ve got something important on the brain. Rule of thumb: the younger your kids, the more you’ll have to talk it up and you’ll still have to deal with interruptions. Check that. Age has nothing to do with interruptions. Just keep coming back to talking about what you’re doing. Eventually they’ll get the message. If they hang around, make them help.

Image: spring siesta by Muffet