Schedules

How scheduled are you? You may be missing the depth of the meeting or task if your eyes are on the clock instead of what's right in front of you.

Grasshopper Notes are the writings from America's Best Known Hypnotherapist John Morgan. His podcasts contain his most responded to essays and blog posts from the past two decades. 

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"The Grasshopper" is the part of you that whispers pearls of wisdom that  seem to pop into your mind from out of the blue. John's essays and blog posts are his interpretations of these "Nips of Nectar." Others have labeled his writings as timeless wisdom. 

Most of the John's writings revolve around self improvement and self help. They address topics like:

• Mindfulness
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• How to stay in the present moment
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Transcript

Schedules

Are you the next thing on the schedule? Is someone next on your schedule? 

Scheduling is an organizing tool that gets things done, but it can also remove the feeling of importance from you or someone else.

When you're on a schedule, there's a time constraint put on you or another, and the ability to explore whatever is scheduled is deeply missed.

Scheduling serves a wonderful purpose. It keeps our trains, buses and planes on time and it allows businesses and households to function more smoothly. Where scheduling gets in the way is when you feel you are being squeezed into someone’s day.

The formula for failure seems to be: Treating person X like they're the next thing on the schedule rather than them being the schedule.

It’s a matter of attention. If you're married to your schedule, your attention is more on your schedule than it is on the person who is scheduled.

Physicians are accused of this all the time and, frankly, many I’ve experienced are guilty as charged. But this isn’t a rant on them. 

The ability to have your attention on whom you're with when you are with them keeps your focus on them and scheduling becomes invisible. It’s still there in the background, but it doesn’t get in the way of a connection. The interesting thing is that when you give your full attention, the purpose of the interaction often comes in ahead of schedule.

Reminds me of a memory from 1992 . . . President George Bush Sr. was debating Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot and during a question from the audience, he raised his arm and looked at his watch. It was not a good look. His attention was on an inanimate object rather than the questioner.

Full attention works with tasks as well as it does people. Giving your full attention to the task at hand has it happen in less time than it would if you’re also focused on the next scheduled event. 

If you’re looking for a good example of task focus with people who have a busy schedule, I invite you to watch a pharmacist work. Most of the ones I’ve witnessed have laser focus when filling a prescription. It must be something they’re taught in school. It results in fewer mistakes and they stay on schedule.

Here’s my final thought on keeping a schedule: If you're doing essential work, or you want to convey importance to someone you're interacting with, give it or them your undivided attention. Translation: Make attention the only thing on your schedule.

All the best,

John