Last week, while teaching a 2-day course called “Think Bigger, Make More,” I got to practice this tip. Thousands of people from the global audience were watching the livestream (we even had an attendee from Antarctica!), 4 video cameras recorded me from all angles, and an 8 person in-studio audience were sitting right in front of me. I recognized the power of being 100% present with “the group”.

It wasn’t always this way. Back when I was a high school teacher, I was rarely present. In my early years of being married to Jodi, I can remember not always paying attention while she was talking, and in the one race where I crashed my bike the worst…I can tell you exactly what I was NOT thinking about; the race. It is difficult to be present.

Have you ever been on a conference call, and processing email at the same time… then all of a sudden, you hear “What do you think?” and you have a moment of panic because you weren’t really tuned in?

There’s always more to do, than we can possibly get done. So this concept of multi-tasking is intreguing… but it doesn’t lead to our best work. Or our best relationships. What I know now is that it’s actually the key to failure. Because I was doing so much at once, I rarely finished anything completely. Working a little on this, getting distracted by that, moving on the other other thing to do just a little bit…it just didn’t work. It actually ends up taking longer, than focusing on one situation at a time and giving it my full attention.

Want to know the most powerful thing you can do to be more present?

Write more down:

• You can draw a mindmap
• Do a brainstorming activity
• Make a list
• Write in a journal
• Use post-its and a sharpie pen

Just about anything will work. There’s no wrong way to do this. Find what works best for you. The key is to “squeeze your brain” and get as many individual things out, so you can see the full inventory.

What will this do?

It will let you see them! Look, by actually having to mentally, visually process each thing you think you have attention on, you MUST do some prioritizing. So, by seeing those things there, in your own handwriting (I prefer writing them down over typing them), you’ll get to start that process of elimination.

If you REALLY want to put this to the test, consider doing this kind of an exercise of 1 hour before you go to sleep at night for the next 5 days. I’d be extra curious to see what happens if you try this out… let me know!