Today I REALLY tried to be focused. I mean I summoned the strength of HE MAN to stay focused. I also tried to plan ahead to avoid any obstacles that would prevent me from eating on plan today. Too bad by the time I went to bed last night I had not prepared a lunch to eat at work. So this morning I ate my cereal, packed TWO shaker protein bottles and a protein bar and headed out to work WITHOUT stopping at Starbucks! BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL!

I had two the bottles at work then polished off the bar before heading off the the gym for the 5K training session- I worked up to 5min run-3 in walk-5 min run-3  minute walk-5 min run today- and made it home to make myself an on-plan lunch. Im going to have another bottle before dinner which will be in about an hour. Grady is making 30/10 approved meatloaf with a side of roasted zucchini with garlic. Delicious. The flowers I bought for myself are opening beautifully and I was so calm and focused today I actually noticed them. Concept. Today was a pretty good  and good food day.

FOCUS. As I was eating my lunch at home I realized I was doing 3 other things at the same time-I was checking Facebook, adding events to my calendar, and emailing a co-worker back. WTF. Four things at once…unreal. So about halfway through my salad I decided to NOT look at my phone until I was done with my lunch. The whole lunch. I turned my phone upside down so I wouldn’t see the notifications popping up and I put that bad boy on silent. 30 seconds into my endeavor I looked at my phone. A minute in I reached for my phone and had to take a DEEP breath and literally rub my hands on my legs to remind myself that I was not going to touch my phone. Because I love technology SO much my iWatch started beeping and dinging with every notification coming in. SHIT! Would checking my watch break my no iPhone lunch policy? PURE PANIC. My aniexity level was rising every ding and click and peak at my phone. All I could think of was “You have that MEETING! If you don’t calendar it you will forget it! You have to add HAM to your easter shopping list! Did you sign up for that meditation class? You are going to forget ALL of this if you don’t make a reminder/calendar event/invite/post RIGhT NOW!” What the flying fuck…I took a deep breath and told myself that if I could not remember something for 5 minutes then I needed to check myself into an old folks home and seek treatment for dementia. My experiment lasted only 10 minutes and as soon as I was done with my lunch and my dishes were put away I picked up my phone and do all of the things I was panicked about forgetting. My little experiment was eye-opening. I lose my shit after 1 minute of trying to focus. Maybe I do have ADHD…

Working online has forced me to multi-task I think. Questions and concerns and issues come all at the same time and many times solving one thing means solving it all. Then you have to record your solution in multiple databases and send out multiple emails so everyone is on the same page. I am building curriculum and grading work and answering emails and text messages and making academic decisions all at the same time. Its what I do as an online teacher. I just did it…took a 10 minute break from writing this blog post to problem solve a student issue! Sweet Jesus…moral of this story is I need to continue to dedicate the time that I have to each area and be FOCUSED in that time! 

To continue on my FOCUSED quest a friend told me about The Chopra Center Meditation online class that is coming up that is fortuitously entitled:

Oprah & Deepak’s 21-Day Meditation Experience, Shedding the Weight: Mind, Body and Spirit!

Couldn’t be better timing! Isn’t that the law of the universe or something…when you need it IT will appear? So we signed up today! In not time we will be looking trim and zened out! I could image worse ways too look 🙂