Enhancing Your Inner Bandwidth

“If you want to fly, give up everything that weighs you down.”

I was doing some work in my office recently when music randomly started playing on my desktop computer. It was strange because I hadn’t been using Spotify at the time. I went to turn it off but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from!

I soon realised the problem – the sound was coming from an open tab on my Chrome browser. But it wasn’t clear which one was the offender because there must have been at least 50 tabs open!

So I took some time to close down each one and eventually found the tab in question (it was about the 40th!).

It occurred to me afterwards that it was a useful metaphor for how we are – or how our minds work – especially when it comes to productivity and performance.

We open tabs inside us for different areas of our work and lives but often we never ‘close’ them – and so they end up taking valuable inner space and often, just like the music, create distractions inside us.

A tab could be anything.

• Worrying about work, a project, a client or a loved one.
• Stewing about something concerning you.
• Over-thinking an area of your work.
• Re-playing something difficult from the recent past.
• Imagining future scenarios that cause stress.
• Thinking relentlessly about all of the things you have to do today and this week.
• Letting interruptions from people, social media or emails distract you from important focus time.
• Having imaginary conversations with people.

Any ‘inner tab’ that’s still open is taking up your precious inner bandwidth and that’s an issue, because a healthy inner bandwidth is the source of improved clarity, focus, confidence and thinking.

How do you close a tab?

First we have to recognise that they’re there. You can do this by reflecting on the various things you’re thinking about at the back of your mind. Then decide to stop thinking about them – until you really need to.

This week, maybe consider being more conscious of the tabs you already have open and also not opening too many as you go.

Best,

Shane

The Inner Edge Podcast: This week’s episode, Ep 180: Listening To Your Body

Short, bite-sized nuggets of 10-12 minutes, designed to give you motivation and plenty of inspirational food for thought. Listen on my website here or on all major podcasting platforms.

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• The average mood of leaders over the last 6 months
• The importance of the leaders mood to team performance

You can access the report by going here.

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