All work and no play....

This blog is inspired by an event I spoke at recently where I act as a mentor for young women in the technology industry.

(Did you know that if we carry on recruiting and (not) retaining women in this industry, by 2040 only 1% of the sector will be female...and if we close that gender gap, it could be worth up to £600 BILLION to the UK...so I have no problem supporting this predominantly female organisation - we desperately need more females in this and other industries).

So the topic of this event was time management - a subject very dear to my heart because in younger days, I never had enough time to do all the things I wanted / needed to do...I was always in a rush. One corporate I worked for actually had our whole department one day carrying out a team building exercise around being able to ‘play’ (have relaxing leisure time for yourself) before you can ‘work’ do the tasks you are paid to do / have responsibility for.....guess where I was on the spectrum - right at the end where I couldn’t dream of relaxing until all the ‘work’ was done - for me that is paid work and domestic work.....and if you go around like that (as I did) there is never any time for relaxing - it doesn’t happen!

So my advice to these young women at the beginning of their career was this:

You can’t manage time - it is a scientific phenomenon that you cannot alter - you cannot make it last longer or go quicker, so what you have to do is manage yourself in certain timescales.

And because I like space and stars as inspiration (hence Sirius) I like to create what I call Vacuum Hours but there is a knack to creating these...a vacuum in space is ‘free space’ (it’s a scientific term). It is a space void of matter and within it the pressure is very low. A vacuum doesn’t suck things in but because there is literally nothing in it, it has to fill up with whatever is around it so here is how I create my vacuum hour (remember it needs to be empty!)

1. Turn off all e-mails and notifications

2. Put your phone on silent........and turn it over (very important)

3. Turn off all social media notifications on all devices (unless you need ONE of them)

4. Turn off your PC (unless you need it for your vacuum hour)

Now you have created a void or vacuum where you cannot be distracted, you see? So whatever you want to do, you now set an alarm for 60 minutes and concentrate on 1 task.

You should know what it is you want to concentrate on, but not necessarily what you want to achieve out of it - it might be brainstorming or mind mapping or spending an hour on Linked In. Then just do that until the buzzer goes off and then STOP.

When you have stopped and turned everything back on, you may want to set another time scale and respond to any messages which have come in......I had to lose the requirement for instantaneous responses on e-mails etc. Here’s a little secret, if you get known for instantaneous responses, they will always be expected of you - but if you learn to be able to turn off notifications for an hour or so a day, people will not generally be too upset with an e-mail answered within 2 or 3 hours - right?

What you will find is that all the things you are struggling to find day to day, like your creativity, your efficiency and your sub-conscious mind will come into the vacuum - they have to because you have turned everything else off. When you have notifications, phones etc. flashing at us every two minutes it is very difficult to get into a creative flow.

My default is still to do all the work and worry about the play later but because I understand that about myself now, I can recognise when it is happening and dismiss it - a very important lesson for a less pressured lifestyle!! I love a good vacuum hour - I feel so much more productive after each one, I recognise what is important to do before I play as opposed to routine and can therefore be done later.

So please give it a go...and let me know how it goes for you.....I really want to know!!

Her Invitation are taking final bookings for London in April and Birmingham in May - we now have dates popping up all over the UK....