How To Release Tension And Set Intention For A Productive Day

How you start your day is incredibly important. If you wake up tense and stressed, it’s going to be a lot harder to be productive. In this blog post, I will discuss how to release tension and set intentions for a productive day. I will also provide some helpful tips on how to stay focused and motivated throughout the day!

But before getting into the tips and questions let us start by understanding the basics of this technique.

Transitions… Transitions… Transitions…

Life is all about transitioning from one activity to the next. But yet so many of us do not handle our transitions well, which is the number one cause of bad energy throughout the day.

But you are probably reading this now thinking what the hell is a transition? Well quite simply, any time you move from doing one activity to another that is a transition.

So for example moving from sleeping to getting out of bed. Moving from getting out of bed to showering. From showering to brushing teeth, from brushing teeth to getting changed.

All these are examples of transitions we make. We make so many of them in the day but we do not manage them well. Now for the tricks and tips, I will give in this blog, I am not for one minute saying that every small transition needs to be considered.

For the sake of this blog these tips will apply to the following transitions:

• Getting Out Of Bed In The Morning
• Before You Go Into The Gym
• Before You Get Into Work
• When You Are Switching Between Activities In Work
• When You Arrive Home At Night

These are the major transitions that we have in our day-to-day lives, and so will be the transitions that I focus on the most.

What Issues Can You Face When Transitioning?

When we transition between tasks and activities especially in the workplace, we can easily carry over negative energy and emotions from the last task.

For example, a client phoning you up and shouting at you just before the end of the day. When we then get home, we allow this to affect our moods for the evening. We are short with our loved ones, with our children, as we are still inside our work bubbles, reliving that phone call.

This drains us of energy and motivation at the same time. But this is a big issue. Let us break down a different transition.

Getting into the gym in the morning.

We are up… we are tired, and we would definitely prefer to be doing anything else right now with our time. We get out of our cars and head straight into the gym and start lifting weights or doing cardio, but today is a bad day, we are still thinking about that client from the night before. Our focus is off, and after thirty minutes of trying, you are exhausted in the gym.

You leave to go home and get ready for work, but your body is aching and you feel drained because you did not get the workout you wanted in.

So, the issue in both of these scenarios… the person did not transition properly at all. What was the cost of these super poor transitions?

• Energy
• Time
• Focus
• Motivation

We now will struggle through our day because we had a poor workout which has led to the feeling of fatigue. We have already spent some of our finite focus and willpower on yesterday’s conversation. We feel awful because we did not spend enough quality time with our partner and child.

All this BEFORE we have got to work!

What is worse is that this all could have been avoided by practicing just one deliberate habit.

What is that habit?

Releasing Tension & Setting An Intention:

So what do we have to do here?

Well, it is quite simple, after each of the major transitions above we take a step back.

What do I mean by this, instead of jumping straight into the next activity, we should take a breather, shut our eyes, and set an intention for the next activity.

Example:

After finishing a set of emails, I can either:

• Start recording a video immediately, or
• I can take a break and a rest for just two minutes and set a new intention.

Your intention can be anything but this is what I use.

You have finished with the emails, now it is time to refocus. For the next fifty minutes, I am going to focus on getting this video right. This is going to be the best video I have recorded and I am going to have the necessary energy, as that is what people need of me on my Patreon. They are paying for me to be at my A-Game.

I then open my eyes and I can begin to work towards that goal.

Why is that possible?

Simple, I have given my brain a slight rest. I have taken time to re-focus because the two tasks are totally different. In e-mail mode, I am sitting back taking time. In video mode I have to be more energetic and there, ready to spread my message.

Why Is This Method So Effective?

The method is effective because you are allowing your brain to re-focus itself on the next task, you’re giving your brain a chance to reset itself, instead of just opening another tab.

You have no overlap between tasks, which is good for the brain and even better for your focus.

Your brain is focused, so how can you.

The beauty of this trick is it only has to take a couple of minutes of your time, which adds up over the course of the day.

On top of this it allows you to stay on top of your game, as you can use questions like:

• How would I be the best father/Husband when I walk into this house?

You are giving yourself time to be intentional. Which in the long run leads to high performance.

Conclusion:

Keeping your energy going throughout your day does not have to be hard. It has to be difficult either. We can choose to take those few precious minutes to reboot our systems and set new intentions to become intentional.

Or we can continue to be reactive to the world. Which in the long run costs us time and opportunity.

Your choices matter, and taking those minutes can add hours to your week.

Until tomorrow this has been your coach Andy