In their Law of Attraction books, Esther and Jerry Hicks talk about segmenting. The idea is you break your day into discrete portions of time or “segments” as a means to focus your attention during that time on something that you want done.

This is a brilliant concept.  Why?  Because my biggest challenge is managing my Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) – see post on 17 April 2008.  I can get distracted at a frightening pace.  In going to write this post, I think of three other ideas and start writing them first. I happen to glance at my left and see an article that catches my eye and I read it, and while reading it I remember to respond to someone regarding some semi-urgent matter, and so I go to my email and read four or five mails before it occurs to me that I was supposed to be doing something else, except I can’t remember what.  Wish I could blame this on age, but I don’t have that excuse plus I do remember always being like this.

If I’m not careful I can be the prima donna in the chaos ballet, plie (ing), pirouette (ing) and fouette (ing) my way across the cluttered stage of my life.  Not graceful and a tad painful, but at least it’s not as bad as I portray …, at least not anymore.

The idea of segmenting is a great and simple practice to incorporate in your life practice.  All you do is stop and ask yourself what will I focus on now. Choose something and do that to the extent that you intend or until its done, and then stop, and ask yourself the question again.  Give yourself a time period – no more than 2 hours – and then stop. It can also be a very useful form of meditation.  You could say for example, that in the next 30 minutes I’m going to wash the dishes.  Giving the dishes your full and undivided attention can be very calming and can be a very powerful form of meditation.

This is a great way to give yourself some direction and focus.  Be careful though.  This is no substitute for planning.  If you don’t cultivate a practice of planning then you’ll find that this practice will have limited value.   A practice of planning will give some purpose to the things that you choose in your segments.  Without an overall context of planning you will find yourself still very stressed even though you’ve been VEEEERY busy.

If productivity is your challenge make sure to read David Allen’s books especially the classic “Getting things done.”