The power of pause-itivity

The world seems to be crashing down around my ears today. I haven’t held the tiny child enough, my inbox is overflowing, there are three fires to put out in the office, I know I left a letter half written open on another staff member’s computer, I’m waiting on a bunch of people to get back to me so I can complete jobs and to top it all off, I snapped at my husband within 10 minutes of walking in the door.

Pause… deep breath… stop.

Hold the tiny child, cuddle her, hang out with her uninterrupted for a half hour until she goes to bed. She looks at me with her big blue eyes and giggles.

Pause.

Apologise to my husband for snapping, take a minute to just give him a huge hug. Mood calmed significantly already.

Pause.

Categorise my emails, prioritise my to do list for tomorrow, move anything I don’t need to work on tomorrow into a folder called “do after tomorrow”. Tomorrow’s list already looking do-able.

Pause.

Fire off a few more emails and tick a few things off tomorrow’s to do list.

Pause.

Take five minutes and send out an email to two of my team members who do a great job, but that I haven’t acknowledged enough lately.

Pause.

Have a long relaxing bath.

Pause.

For me, multi-tasking only leads to more confusion. I know I’m not getting anything done when I’m midway through five different things. I know I just need to pause and do one thing at a time and do it well.

If I just take the time to pause, the list doesn’t seem so overwhelming. A huge and insurmountable list can be broken down into more achievable chunks by simply taking a moment to pause, stop, breathe, reassess and start on (and finish) one thing at a time.

Do you need to pause?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell andReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.