I don't have time to get fit

He said to me "look, I'm serious about improving my health and I recognise all of the signs of it getting worse but I just can't find the time to do what needs to be done". 

I recognised this from many conversations in the passed so I asked him exactly what he did that was filling up so much of his time." 

When he was finished I said "wow, your work must take a lot of focus, do you think you perform better when you are tired or well rested?" 

... he laughed, he had to agree that more sleep would likely enhance performance and likely buy back some extra time. 

So I pushed forward. 

"Do you think you'd get more or less work done if your diet gave you more energy and focus or frequent energy slumps?"

I just got a smirk this time... 

"How many days have you missed through back pain or illness in the last 5 years... do you think removing these might positively impact your work...?

Sorry a quick add on, if you don't find the time to get more energy and focus do you think your work productivity and consistency will increase or decrease over the next 5 years?"

The penny dropped, he'd been using flawed logic to work out the most productive way to approach his work. 

Deadlines create a stress response, whether they are big shiny multi-million pound exchanges, exams or a school pick up time - 

They create a stress response, a number of things happen here to turn up focus and one of those things is to turn down the volume on the logical and creative parts of our brain. 

The brain plugs in our 'stress' programme, this program was developed much earlier in our lives. Copied from parents, tv heroes, perfected during exams... 

It is essentially a programme developed by someone with an invincible body and no responsibility.

So if you find that when a deadline looms everything else drops you'll not be surprised to learn that your strategy was developed in collaboration between a child and an emotional teenager. 

It might be time to develop a new one, before it kills you. 

Ed Ley