You now have a wealth of tools that will help you reach the goals you set, and in record time. In this chapter you’ll find useful techniques for maintaining your new-found focus. As you’ll discover, these include having a balanced life, allocating enough time for rest, exercise and recreation, and maintaining a playful and creative attitude to life and work. These are the secrets of the truly successful people who work to live, not live to work.

Is your life balanced?

At the outset, you saw how the 80/20 principle can be applied in order to bring you the results you want in all areas of your life. However, our world tends to define success in very narrow terms, mostly involving money and the appearance of glamour. This, despite the fact that most people who attain fame and fortune say it comes at a heavy price. That’s why many people end up putting all their efforts into career or business success and forget that they also have the tools with which to create a great family and personal life.

If finding a balance may be a problem for you, come up with some goals for all the areas of your life and make sure that all of them are getting a fair share of your time and attention. These areas include:

• Health and fitness. Usually we take good health for granted – until we don’t have it any more. It’s difficult to enjoy the other parts of your life fully if you’re ill. Creating some goals for yourself around exercise, healthy eating, and rest and recreation makes sense.
• Family relationships. If you miss your children’s early years because you’re working too hard, will the gain be worth the sacrifice? Even if you think you’ve struck a good balance in this area, ask the experts: your spouse or partner, your children, and other members of your family. If their answers are different from yours, it may be time to reconsider how you’re apportioning your time and energy.
• Friendships. Are you taking the time to stay in touch with old friends and make some new ones, especially with people outside the orbit of your work? Sometimes it’s easy to think you’ll do those kinds of things “later”. If so, when will “later” be?
• Your religious or spiritual dimension. Only you know what form you’d like this to take, but are you giving it your attention?
• Community involvement. This can also take many different incarnations, from volunteer work to donations to your favourite charities, to just getting to know the neighbours.

Your non-work goals

Jot down at least one goal for each of these areas:

Cutting back on sleep or exercise: a false economy

Some people are so driven or just so enthusiastic that they think getting less sleep is a good way to free up more time for pursuing their goals. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for sleep deprivation to kick in. You may not even notice it at first, especially if you’re trying to make up for it with increased doses of caffeine, but without enough rest your brain’s ability to function quickly deteriorates. The effects include reduced concentration, loss of memory, irritability and slower reaction times. Over time, it can even contribute to heart disease, hypertension and tremors. Recent research also suggests that a lack of sleep may promote obesity.

Experts agree that the individual’s need for sleep generally is between seven and eight hours a night. If you are getting less than that and often feel a low-grade tiredness, sleep deprivation may be the cause. Furthermore, it may be inhibiting your ability to come up with creative ideas. Experiment by adding some sleep time and you will be able to work out how much you really need.

If you need to make a change in your sleep habits, summarise it here:

Similarly, some people say they are too busy to exercise – this at a time when 60% of people in the UK and the USA are overweight or obese, which we know can have grave implications for health (pun intended). This isn’t a fitness book, but it is obvious that anyone who is not in good physical shape is going to have a harder time focusing and working effectively. If you are worried about wasting time, then listen to podcasts or business-related audio books so you learn while you exercise.

If you need to make a change in your fitness habits, summarise it here:

The stress epidemic

Some of the phenomena we have already discussed, such as information overload and the belief that you have to be connected 24/7, greatly increase your stress levels, again with negative ramifications for your health. Adequate sleep, exercise and some down-time can all help counteract the stress epidemic. So can holidays and even mini-breaks that take you away from your normal routines for just half a day, ideally in a natural environment (if only your local park).

Can’t spare even half a day right now? Start with smaller chunks of time when you pause to think about . . . nothing at all. Sit at a pavement café, have a juice (not a double espresso), turn off your phone and watch people go by. Notice how many of them are on mobile phones. Count the number who are smiling versus the number who are frowning. Count the number who ever look up from the pavement to look at each other or their surroundings. Breathe deeply.

If you need to do more to destress, jot down one thing you will do today or tomorrow:

Take time to play

The final suggestion in this chapter: find time to play. Playfulness and creativity are very closely connected, and it’s working smart, not just working hard, that’s going to account for your success. Some people have been working so hard for so long that they can’t even think of anything silly or playful to do. For those, here is 30 days’ worth of liberating foolishness (if this month has 31 days, you’ll have to come up with one more idea yourself).

30 days of creativity

1. Write a country and western song about your life.
2. Ask your grandmother (in your imagination, if she’s dead) what she would do about your most pressing problem.
3. Read your own tea leaves. Write down whatever comes to mind as you peer at the dregs.
4. If you were a famous brand, what would your slogan be? What would you like it to be? What do you have to do to justify the one you’d like?
5. Go to a park for an hour in the middle of the day and people-watch.
6. Make three genuine compliments to the people you meet today. Notice their reactions.
7. Go to an art gallery for half an hour. Pick one painting to study for at least 10 minutes.
8. Make up a bedtime story for yourself before you go to sleep.
9. Send a friend a thank-you card. Don’t put your name or address on it and don’t sign it. Inside, write, “Just thought you should know you’re appreciated”. Disguise your handwriting and never tell.
10. When no one is watching, put a coin on the street. Then watch out of the way to see who finds it and how they react. If you’re feeling generous, make it a fiver.
11. Get on a bus or Underground train going in any direction. Take a pack of cards with you. Take out a card at random. The value of this card is the number of stops you’ll go before you get out and walk around for an hour (picture cards = 10).
12. Go into a toy shop and buy a simple toy you had as a child (for example, a yo-yo or some modelling clay). Take an hour at the weekend to play with it (secretly, if you fear ridicule).
13. Take a walk and imagine you are your favourite character from a book or film. How would they see this world? What would this person’s feelings be about the things they encounter? If you’re feeling brave, have a chat with someone while staying in character (in other words, talk like your character, too).
14. Go into a restaurant that features food you seldom eat. Let the waiter or waitress order for you.
15. Buy a session in a flotation tank. If that’s not possible, sit in a bathtub full of water that’s at body temperature, turn off the lights, use earplugs, sit back and let your mind drift.
16. Watch a TV station that broadcasts in a language you don’t understand. Make up your own translations of the dialogue. Start with the assumption it’s a science fiction show, then that it’s a comedy, then that it’s a soap opera.
17. Lie down on the floor of your wardrobe and look up.
18. Pick the most recent big thing that’s happened to you. Pretend it was sent to you as a valuable lesson. What is there to learn from the experience?
19. Pretend you’re Einstein, on his first day on the job you usually do. What would he ask? What would he do?
20. Think about a good friend from your childhood, someone you’re no longer in touch with. Take five minutes to create a biography of what you think has happened to them since.
21. Write a crazy personals ad. If you feel like it, actually put it in a magazine and see what kind of answers you get. Answer all the letters you get (but you don’t necessarily have to give them your name and address . . .).
22. Get a comic strip, cover up all the dialogue with correction fluid and write new dialogue.
23. For a day, listen at least three times as much as you talk. Notice any difference in how people react to you.
24. For a day, carry a coin in your pocket. Make all minor decisions based on flipping the coin.
25. At the beginning of the day, write your own horoscope. During the course of the day, see how much of it you can make come true.
26. In a bookshop read the last 10 pages of a thriller or crime novel. Try to work out what happened before.
27. Get a postcard. Paste a photo of your office or work area over the front. Write on the back that you’re enjoying yourself (you are, aren’t you?) and tell a little about what you’re doing. Post it to a friend or relative.
28. The next time you ask someone how they are and they say a perfunctory “Fine”, say, “That’s great . . . what’s the best thing that’s happening at the moment?”
29. Make yourself an impressive-looking diploma or award for something you’re proud to have done. Frame it and hang it on your wall. Feel free to use the Wolff Institute of Advanced Focus and Creativity as the rewarding institution – I believe in you.
30. Make your own Ten Commandments. Unlike the original, focus on what thou shalt rather than what thou shalt not do.

These 30 creative acts are only a start, of course. Why not begin each month by coming up with 30 of your own ideas? And if you have friends who are forgetting to spend time on fun and creative stimulation, write one of the ideas above, or one of your own, on a postcard and send it to them and invite them to send their ideas back for you.

What’s next?

With a sense of playfulness, a sense of balance, and enough time for rest and exercise, you will find it easy to maintain your ability to focus on and achieve your most cherished goals. The next chapter of this book relates how a group of 30 people used the Focus approach to achieve some breakthrough goals. What they learned can help you speed toward your goals as well.

Website chapter bonus

At www.focusquick.com you’ll find an interview with life coach Carol Thompson on creating a balanced life.