At first glance, some people’s work lives don’t fit well with the schedule laid out in “Life Lift”. For instance, a salesperson who’s out on the floor waiting for customers all day couldn’t break his or her day into 90-minute work units, right?
That’s true. But there are ways to get some “Life Lift” benefits into your day. One suggestion is to schedule one period per day to dig into creative projects related to your current work (or the work you dream of doing in the future). Be sure to set an exact time. Don’t just say “sometime this morning”. Say every morning at 6:00 AM (remember the “morning burst” or, if you’re a night owl, every night at midnight.
Can’t get that much time? Try three sessions per week. With four-and-a-half hours of intense thought per week, you will make steady progress towards your goals, whatever they are. Promise.
A complementary strategy for a salesperson doing full-time floor duty might be to fit some tasks into your normal floor coverage. While multi-tasking isn’t an optimum way to get work done, sometimes it’s the only option you’ve got.
Say that for this 90-minute chunk of time, whenever you’re not waiting on a customer, your task will be to focus (intensely) on emailing customers to tell them about new stuff in your store. After 90 minutes, break for a half hour (even if you’re still on the sales floor, the “break” means that you don’t have to do anything else except serve customers). Then, for the next 90-minute chunk of time, when you’re not serving customers, focus (intensely) on product research. Then break. Repeat.
Whether you’re a salesperson, bench jeweler, private jeweler, or one-man shop, the keys to the “Life Lift” strategy are the same: Be sure to set aside (and schedule) some time for creative, big-picture thought. Then, in whatever manner you can, focus intensely in short bursts to get work done.
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Best of luck. Start lifting!
