I rather like this 18-minute plan for focus – not just because it helps us to feel more organized and calmer, but also because ritual frees us up to do better creative work and serve one another more fully. Here’s the plan (it’s a short read!):
We start every day knowing we’re not going to get it all done or fit it all in. How we spend our time is really a function of priorities. That’s why Peter Bregman argues in 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done that we need to plan ahead, “create a to-do list and an ignore list, and use our calendars.”
“The hardest attention to focus,” he writes, “is our own.”