Let’s say you’re an electrician who just finished three private jobs, fixing electrical problems at customer houses, which you acquired through word-of-mouth advertising, and you recognize that you have built up some productive momentum that is not common for you. This is the situation in which you want to preserve the momentum for as long as possible.
Productive Time Is Worth Much More
The time you pass through while in the state of productive momentum is worth much more than your regular time where no trend of success is currently in place. From a return-on-investment standpoint, you would want to maintain the majority of your time in a state of momentum, but this may not be readily doable by you with certain time commitments that you have which would get in the way.
Switch Mindset To Preserve Momentum
Regardless, there are times when you are in control, and have notched up a series of successes in a row. The minute you detect this, switch into what I will call “preservation mode”. Toss off any lower-relevance activities and continue to put effort into what brought you the successes. Forget about other people or tasks, unless they were involved in the successes, and leverage your positive energy into more production.
Vocabulary Learning Example
If you have been trying to learn vocabulary words, for a lengthy period of time, and now just studied and learned words for forty minutes straight, you can do nothing better than to keep going. If you need a five-minute break there, take it, but make sure your mind is planning to head right back into the memorization/learning that got you feeling productive already. Your prioritization of continuing to study now is many times more valuable because of the future time you are saving.
Feed The Momentum And It Feeds You Success
In a state of momentum, you are energetic, positive from earlier successes, somewhat invincible in your mind, and have a brain that is completely warmed up for any work that immediately follows in the same activity. All these advantages fade away quickly if you make the decision to postpone further effort. Next time, you would have to start again from scratch, and might not have the interest to do so, resulting in discontinuation of the activity that brought you a feeling of success. Feed the momentum and it will propel you toward your goal.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Nicely said. Momentum is very important to kick start the state of productivity. I’ll focus on the first 5 minute to build momentum. It works great for me. Great post!
Karlil: That’s a good point. People who focus on the first 5 minutes can get rolling. After you get rolling, it is hard for others to stop you. Thanks for the message.
Long time no comment! This is a great post that definitely relates to me at the moment. I personally have about zero momentum lately, haha. Learning to prioritize your time and work when you are most likely to be productive is definitely an important step, and so is resting to preserve your energy and maintain your momentum.
Hey Corey AKA Writer Seven.
It sure has been some time. It is cool that this concept relates to what you are doing. I will hand you some momentum symbols here – make sure to use them economically: + ++ +
You are right about resting to preserve your energy. I would add that that resting has to be focused resting. Any sort of resting to run away from activity won’t work, but focused resting with the plan to return to high intensity is worth it.
It is good to hear from you.
Twitter: DrPaulDyer
May 30, 2010 at 5:40 pm
IMHO, nothing is as energizing as using your gifts and talents in alignment with your life’s true purpose. This is when our energy sores, we can loose track of time, and actually have difficulty telling the difference between work and play.
Twitter: Armen
May 31, 2010 at 7:29 am
Hi Dr. Dyer.
There is a great feeling we get when we can’t really tell whether what we are doing is work or play. It doesn’t come often to those who are not glad about their efforts, but comes regularly to those who are expressing their energy toward creating something that fits them or researching a field that they are interested in.