Stop. Think. React.
I was reading an interesting blog post the other day about how to live in the present when you feel overwhelmed and how that can affect your personal and professional life.
The article talks about the 3 states a person generally lives in at any given time; past, future and present. I’m sure just about everyone uses their cell phone while driving, or has the news on TV while eating dinner and while checking email on their blackberry. All of this multi-tasking leads to a drop in focus, drop in productivity as well as an increase in stress.
What I admire about my friends here at Q4 is that we have always taken the approach of living “in the now”. There is always temptation to immediately react to any problem and I have personally been guilty of leaping before looking, but here are a few ways we handle “living in the now”
- On our white board in our work area we have a motto for all to see. Stop. Think. React.
- In our group chat when anyone feels we are going down a rabbit hole, someone posts “Stop. Think. React”
- We reiterate this message in meetings
I have personally found this approach very useful, even in my personal life, but the greatest benefit is the gain in productivity and enjoyment at work since we are all on-board with ‘looking before leaping’
Something so simple makes a big difference in both our productivity and how we interact with each other at work. Stop. Think. React.