How to find time in November - give yourself the right nutrition

Do you often eat mindlessly and quickly while doing something else, telling yourself you’re saving time by multitasking?

If it happens occasionally, don’t worry. We can manage most anything for a short while.

But if it happens often, you're not giving yourself the energy and care you need to make the most of your time and of yourself.

Care for both your body and your time by providing yourself with the nutrition that supports energy and health.

You don’t need to follow a new or complicated diet.

The simple guidelines I share in this month’s video are enough.

Simple, straightforward solutions are easier to follow than complex ones.
That’s why I like Michael Pollan’s advice about what to eat:

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

If you combine that with enough sleep and regular movement, you can eat a bit crazily during the upcoming holidays in December.

Going Deeper

For more help to get more done with less effort and deeper joy, you can read or listen to my book Beyond Efficiency.

Take care of and responsibility for yourself, your time and your life. 💙

3 time management lessons from Country Queen Jill Johnson

Foto av Bengt Nyman. Wikimedia Commons

Jill went on tour with Tomboola Band when she was 14 years old. How did her parents dare to let her go on tour that young?

Jill says her parents knew she was a good girl; they could trust her.

When it comes to what Jill lets her teenage daughter do she differentiates between real dangers and her own fears. We learn by living and Jill doesn’t want to stifle her daughter’s learning because of fear.

Lesson 1: Trust your loved ones

By trusting your loved ones, you will spend less time and energy worrying and controlling them. Not only will you save time and energy, you will also take good care of your relationships with this approach.

When Jill was 22 years old she fell in love with a man who had children from a previous relationship. She did all she could to fit in, and she managed. Jill became a valued part of the family. In hindsight she sees that it came at a cost. She is proud of what she did for others, but not proud about losing herself on the way. When she learned to use what she calls ”the magical word No” she found a way to combine the two.

Lesson 2: Care for yourself and others

Giving all you have to others will eventually dry you up. If you care for yourself and others you will continuously have a well to take and give from.

Caring for yourself is a great gift to people around you. Learning to powerfully say no is an important part of that. We recently had a webinar about this in the Timefinder Academy and I am adding it to my leadership courses so I can help more people with this.

Jill’s career has gone well, so well she got overwhelmed. She went to see a therapist. At first she found it embarrassing so she called it stress management. Now she says that everyone who can afford it should talk to a therapist.

“In reality I am paying to talk to myself”, she says, going on to say that if she doesn’t reflect her soul falls behind. It’s not until she stops to think and feel that it catches up again.

Lesson 3: Let your soul catch up

When you take time to reflect about life, your soul catches up with you. Going to a therapist/coach/friend can help you talk to yourself.

We often underestimate the power of reflection. I hope you don’t. It is a core part of all coaching and training I give.

You can start here and now. 

Pick one day in the week or one time in the day when you set aside a few minutes to reflect about your day or week. This will automatically calm you down and will most likely remind you about things you would have otherwise forgotten. Believe me, it is worth these few minutes.

I am wrapping up this blogpost with one of Jill’s songs. It has inspired my husband and I to include “Roots and Wings” in our visions for how we want to live.  

Just cause you got roots

Doesn’t mean you can’t have wings

You can listen to it on Spotify here.

How to find time in October - Eisenhower with a twist

Do you feel rushed and behind?

We often do in this quarter. 

Many goals, be they personal or professional, have their due date at the end of the year.

It is easy to get stuck in the zone of demand where everything seems urgent 🏃and important ❗

This is not a good place to be, at least not for long.

This month I am going to help you move away from continuous urgency by using the Eisenhower Matrix with a twist.

The Eisenhower Matrix is a helpful tool for planning and prioritising your day. I suggest you take it a step further than most of the free resources you can find online suggest.

From my book Beyond Efficiency

Everything in the zone of demands (quadrant 1) is urgent and important. Many of the leaders I coach and train like being in this zone. This is where they feel alive; it is where they get the adrenaline pumping and feel efficient. No procrastination or working slowly. The way forward is clear. We need to get this done, go, go, go!

There is nothing wrong with this zone. I can also enjoy being in it. But we don’t want to be stuck in it. Unfortunately, it’s easy to get stuck here, to be in firefighting mode all the time.

The general advice for tasks in this zone is simple: DO. These activities are urgent and important, just DO them.

My additional recommendation is to minimise the time you spend in this zone. Don’t fall in love with it. Adrenaline junkies are rarely able to work with innovation, visions and long-term improvements.

**

To help you escape the efficiency trap and get more done with less effort and deeper joy, I have written the book Beyond Efficiency.

 You can read about it on this page. 

What entrepreneur do you admire?

“Think of an entrepreneur”, the teacher in my middle son’s class said.

Before you read on, please do the same. Think of an entrepreneur.

Then the teacher said:

“Raise your hand if you thought of a woman.”

My son was the only one raising his hand.

What about you? Did you think of a woman?

 It is easy to go for the first names we think of. The ones we often see in the news. 

Like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson.

There are, of course, many women entrepreneurs too.

Let me mention five in this text – and then I would love to read your examples in the comments!

Oprah Winfrey – founder of media company Harpo Inc. and co-founder of Oxygen Media. She is also the queen of talk shows and an overall impressive woman.

Annie Tao – co-founder of Horizon Robotics, a company that provides embedded Artificial Intelligence solutions.

Dolly Parton – owner of several businesses including the theme park Dollywood and the pet apparel line Doggy Parton. And then she is of course a marvellous singer-songwriter. 

Gunilla von Platen - founder of customer relationship company Xzakt

Josefin Landgård - co-founder of KRY, the app-based service for meeting doctors through video meetings in Sweden.

Please add women entrepreneurs you admire in the comments!

PS. When I asked my son what woman entrepreneur he had thought about he said: 

“You.” 

That made it to my list of magic moments!

Time to reflect. Never dim your light.

"What do you do?" he asked, the guy who studied Dutch in the same course as I did. 

"I study at Chalmers", I answered. At the time I did a full time study at Chalmers Technical University and a part time study in Dutch at Gothenburg university.

He opened his eyes wide and said: 

"Oh, then you're intelligent."

After that, this guy who had been very talkative and almost flirty (even though I had said at the beginning of the course I was studying Dutch since I had a Dutch boyfriend) avoided me. My choice of education scared him.  

Have you ever refrained from doing or saying something because you didn't want to make someone else feel uncomfortable?

I know women who walk hunched over to not tower over shorter men. My beautiful mum found the attention her beauty resulted in umcomfortable. I coach women who sneak away to work on their computer because they don't want their family to consider them overly ambitious. 

We cannot help others feel better by making ourselves smaller. 

We cannot make the world brighter if we dim our lights. 

I hope you will always dare to shine your light brightly. 

For more reflection on this topic, watch this 3 min video. 

Tid för reflektion - Liv och död

Saknar du en älskad person som har lämnat den här jorden?

Välkommen till Tid för reflektion om Liv och död 

Ge dig själv 12 minuter idag eller senare i den här veckan, till att reflektera över liv och död och känna tacksamhet för båda delarna. 

När vi reflekterar stannar vi tiden en stund och när vi vågar tänka på både liv och död låter vi inte längre småsaker förstöra vår upplevelse av nuet. 

Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it / Haruki Murakami

Med hjälp av högläsning guidar jag din reflektion som du kan skriva ner medan du lyssnar på musik framförd av Staffan Bonnier.

Denna video är från min bokrelease av boken Tack Mamma. 

Jag hoppas att den rör ditt hjärta och öppnar ditt sinne. 

Skriv gärna dina reflektioner som kommentarer till det här inlägget. 

No, it's not too late. (There is no expiration date for your dreams)

“I’m 44 now, I can’t change careers. It’s too late to start all over.”

Most leaders I train and coach are experienced. Many of them have reached a time in life where they have achieved a lot of what they once aimed for.

Now what?

Some are happy where they are and want to make incremental changes and improvements.

Others, like the woman who told me she was too old to start over, want to make a larger change but don’t dare to. They think it’s too late, that they are too old.

They are not.

 Age is a number, not a blocker, unless we let it be one.

As David Niven said:

Your dreams don’t have an expiration date.

 
The true story of Suzanne Watkins is a great illustration.

As a a single mum working 3 jobs in the US, her life settled into a pattern:

“You drive to the office, you sit at a computer all day, you go home, sleep, and do it all over again.”

When the children became older and didn’t need her as much, she made a radical change. At age 60 she graduated as a flight attendant. Nowadays she works long-haul at short notice, with an ad hoc schedule. That may not be a lifestyle for you, but it fits her perfectly.

She says she feels “most at peace with myself when I am a stranger in a strange land and I am wandering”.

This is her advice:

“Don’t think of your life linearly. Think of it as continuing to unfold.”

Of course it’s not too late. 

There really is no expiration date for your dreams.