I exercise every morning before work in order to power up for the day. I recently started a new boot camp at Vancouver’s Vanier Park. Located near Kits Beach, with views of the water and apartments in Vancouver’s West End, it is a beautiful place to exercise. The natural setting helps to energize me.
The boot camp instructor uses timed exercises that are repeated two or three times. He often gets us to do one exercise for 45 seconds, but the other morning he asked for 60 seconds. It got me thinking of just how long a minute is.
When you are holding a plank position, a minute is a very long time. Even when counting seconds in your head, the time goes by very slowly and it can seem like forever before the minute is up.
In a business context, minutes seem short. Days often fly by, especially if you are fighting fires or going from meeting to meeting. We can often gain new perspective on what we are doing by focusing on the minutes:
- How many minutes does it take to read and respond to an email?
- What is achieved in the first five minutes of a meeting?
- How long does it take you to switch tasks?
To achieve peak productivity, we often have to break down what we are doing into the minutes. What will you achieve in the minutes you have today?
