Disconnect to reconnect

This series of blogs is exploring the various routines we run that can negatively impact our performance. The challenge is we are often unaware the impact they're having. Often putting our less than successful outcome down to - age, life, other people, bad luck, the weather, the economy or anything else other than our own behaviour.

The proof is in the pudding as they say and therefore often we don't realise the impact something, or its lack, is having until we try. 

10 years ago when I first went to Australia it was so much easier to disconnect from email, social media and all other distractions. On both visits, however, I noticed it still took 3 weeks to finally stop all the busyness and constant doing and finally relax.

We don't often have the luxury of being able to take 3 weeks off just to relax. The challenge, therefore, is finding things that enable us to let go of the busyness and to relax in a shorter time frame.

I've tried many things over the years to do this and the one common denominator for me has been finding tasks that require 100% concentration. It's as if the act of concentrating on one thing allows the other things that were feeding the busyness some time off. So gardening, climbing, sewing, puzzles and writing have all played a part. However this weekend reminded me of another activity that provides this disconnection.... farming...well helping on the farm anyway.

How might you disconnect this weekend?

Alison Smith
Inspiring change inside and out in Procurement