You may have heard about Momentum, a Chrome extension that you can download which takes over your “new tab” and gives you a beautiful scene and an inspiring quote.
I’ve been using mine for a few years and have found enough value that I pay for a membership. It’s also got features that allow me to set a primary focus for the day, see the current time, and even customize the “mantra” I see for the day.
It looks like they are getting into productivity big-time – I was invited to participate in a series of beta work sessions using Zoom Meetings for the purpose of helping me focus better.
Today I joined one with a purpose of “planning.” The facilitator led us through a helpful breathing exercise to get us centered down and provided this link to a helpful article, Momentum Mindful Productivity Principles. We shared in chat what we were going to be working on (for me, this was weekly planning), then worked on mute with video on (optional). When the hour was up, we were invited to share how it went in chat, and there was a brief chance to unmute and give reactions to how the session worked for us.
I used the time for prioritizing my week in my Bullet Journal. I carried over my tasks from the previous week and noticed right away that there were too many of them. More than four of them were high-priority projects which will require deep concentration and even innovation. I’ve got new training curriculum working, and that’s always a creative time. Based on my experience, I have noticed that when I have too many tasks, I start to feel mentally tired and distracted. So today, I focused on putting some of those tasks on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Next, I blocked out time for the most important things, starting with a training I am building about “who does what” in my organization which I and two other leaders will present to the staff on Feb. 1. To give an example of how complex this is – we’ve been working on this workflow since last August. So the team deserves more than just another flowchart or spreadsheet – I am challenging myself to communicate the meaning of how our teams work together. I want to add some teamwork concepts to the training and then plan a team building session for the future, to cap it.
So that’s just one of my projects, and it worries me that it’s only Monday. So time-blocking my schedule for the next three days made me feel I can make progress on the first three projects, at least.
Tomorrow I join a Momentum session on Flow State – something I really want to be better at.