• by Jeff Einstein , December 7, 2004

In last week's column I suggested that the best way to guarantee the deployment of gratitude as a productivity tool is to bring it with you to work each morning. I further suggested that the basis of long-term addiction recovery is the gradual replacement of the rituals of our addictions with more meaningful rituals, rituals that enhance the physical, emotional, spiritual, and/or social quality of our lives. I then introduced my "Ritual Inventory" exercise to help us institutionalize gratitude for all of the people and things that contribute to the quality of our lives.

We spend most of our waking lives -- both at work and at home -- reacting to things and events around us. Every time we sit down to check our e-mail at the office, we enter a reflexive reactive state wherein our own agendas are replaced by and deferred to someone else's. Instead of moving forward based on our own intent, we react to someone else's idea of what's important and therefore deserves our attention. We put someone else in charge of our time and attention each and every time we sit down to check our e-mail inbox.

Gratitude, by contrast, is exclusively proactive, and liberates us from our default reactive state each and every time we invoke it. It also liberates us momentarily from the paralyzing inertia of our addictions, reinforced by the daily onslaught of thousands of advertising and marketing messages, almost all of which promote deprivation, a tragically false sense of entitlement, and an equally false sense of urgency. Gratitude slows us down just long enough to consider what we can give rather than what we can get. It initiates a transition from an attitude predicated on "What's in it for me?" to one of "How can I help?"

Our communications technologies nowadays isolate us at least as much as they connect us. We delete far more e-mails than we can ever read, and respond to far fewer still. More often than not, we deploy voicemail as a gatekeeper technology to keep out the riffraff rather than as a tool to promote communication.

Gratitude, however, forces us to step outside ourselves and consider others. Gratitude is more an act of identifying and deciding who and what we want to include in our lives, not who and what we want to exclude (unless we are specifically grateful for someone's absence). Each time we show gratitude for some person, thing, or event, we are in effect welcoming that person, thing, or event onto our personal team and into our personal space -- whether at work or at home. Gratitude constitutes our own personal and private intervention.

In a default obsessive compulsive environment, periodic and regular intervention is required to clear the stage for proactive thought, the reason why I suggested a couple of weeks ago that clients impose a "no e-mail" mandate on themselves and on their agency and marketing partners for the first hour or two each morning.

As a manager, I would simply prefer that the people working on my team or on my nickel spend their time proactively rather than reactively. And since there is no more time in our already time-starved work days to introduce something new unless and until we actively eliminate something else, it is incumbent on us to identify and moderate the reflexive default functions that occupy the most time and generate the fewest returns. I would argue that e-mail tops the list of most expensive, least-productive obsessive-compulsive behaviors in just about every organization.

Once you've cleared the time, it's important to fill it immediately with something productive, something structured, something entirely mindful of circumstance and exigency. I would recommend that we begin our mornings at work with an exercise in gratitude designed specifically to formulate intent and increase productivity. I call it "My Morning Compass," and it's a workplace variation on the "Ritual Inventory" I introduced last week. I recommend that you do it the moment you sit down, before you do anything else.

Like every other compass, "My Morning Compass" is designed to point the way. This particular one will point the way to gratitude and will help you formulate proactive intent first thing in the morning.

You can download a "My Morning Compass" exercise sheet from my Einstein's Corner site or you can make one as follows...

Take a piece of lined paper and create three columns: Person, Activity, and Praise. Now think back on yesterday (or your last workday), and list at least five specific things members of your team either did for you or did well enough to elicit your praise.

For each item, list the activity, the name(s) of the person(s) who performed it, and the praise, "Thank you" and/or "Good job!" If someone submitted a great report, list it. If someone else remembered your birthday, list it. If a project team celebrated a noteworthy milestone, list it. If someone covered for you at a meeting, list it.

Now -- with your appointment book (or equivalent) open -- take a few extra moments to review your list. Pause just long enough on each activity to envision it and the person(s) who performed it. Say (to yourself or out loud) "Thank you" and/or "Good job!" Next, schedule a specific time of day to convey your gratitude and praise -- via e-mail is fine -- to the praiseworthy recipient(s) -- and others, if you want. Then move on to the next activity and repeat the process. Make sure you follow up on your intent to convey your praise as scheduled during the day.

"My Morning Compass" will always point you in the right direction, and it only requires a few minutes each morning. It never fails to elevate gratitude, identify and expose the noteworthy intent of others, and formulate related intent to act in you.

Much better to start the day with proactive intent rather than reactive reflex. Much better to acknowledge factual abundance rather than wallow in perceived deprivation. Much better to consider things done for you rather than to you. Likewise, much better to envision things you will do for people rather than to other people. Try it for a week and let me know what you think.

Many thanks, as always, and best to you and yours...

Please note: The Einstein's Corner discussion group at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/einsteinscorner/ is dedicated to exploring the adverse effects of our addictions to technology and media on the quality of our lives, both at work and at home. Please feel free to drop by and join the discussion.