Benefits of Being “On Restriction”

I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia at age twelve. Most of the kids I went to school with came from military families and used terms that were sometimes unfamiliar. I remember kids talking about getting into trouble and then being put “on restriction.” I had no idea what they were talking about, but came to find out that it meant being “grounded.” Whatever the term, the meaning was the same — a kid went too far and the parent was reining them in a little to teach them a lesson.

Who grounds us adults? Who “restricts” us when we’re logging too much time on Facebook? Without placing limits on our time, it’s easy for tasks to expand to fit whatever time we allow them. We don’t instinctively know when “enough is enough.”

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Have you ever noticed the way you become a multi-tasker with superhuman powers the days before a holiday or vacation? We rise to the challenge to accomplish much, in part because our time is restricted. We know that it’s time to pay the piper. There’s no putting it off until tomorrow, because tomorrow we’ll be doing something fun! So we find a way to be productive and get it all done.

Since we can’t necessarily go on vacation every time we’d like a productivity burst, here are some tips to make it happen on a run-of-the-mill workday:

• Begin your social media marketing session with goals and objectives in mind. If you don’t, you run the risk of losing hours each week aimlessly “sharing” and “liking” posts (which is fun–just don’t get it mixed up with marketing.)
• Schedule an appointment with yourself.  Put it on your calendar. You can reschedule the appointment to another time in the day if you need to, but don’t shortchange yourself–keep the appointment.
• Break big tasks into more manageable pieces. Every single task doesn’t need to be done every day. Some things–like updating your LinkedIn profile–you can get away with doing just once a month or so.
• Make yourself accountable. Find a friend who needs to accomplish similar tasks and make an appointment to do them together or at least report on your results. Share successes. Encourage one another.