Alright, so today I wanna talk about this little journey I had with some ideas I picked up, which I associate with a name: Brendan Galvin. It’s not like he’s some big shot guru you see on TV, at least not to my knowledge. For me, it was more like stumbling onto an old, forgotten map, you know?
It all started a while back. I was feeling kinda swamped, like my brain had too many tabs open, if that makes sense. Just juggling work, life, all the usual stuff, but it felt like I was always running and getting nowhere. I was browsing some old stuff in a second-hand bookstore, just killing time, and I found this little thin booklet, didn’t even have a fancy cover. The name Brendan Galvin was on it, and it was all about, well, doing less to do more. Sounds cheesy, I know, but at that point, I was willing to try anything.
My Little Experiment
So, I decided, what the heck, let’s give some of these Brendan Galvin notions a whirl. It wasn’t like a strict set of rules, more like gentle suggestions. Here’s what I tried to do:
- The “One Coffee” Rule: This was my own name for it, but the idea was simple. Start the day focusing on just one thing. For me, it was my morning coffee. Instead of gulping it down while checking emails and news, I just sat and drank the coffee. Sounds silly, but it was surprisingly hard at first. My mind wanted to race.
- Tackling the Smallest Thing First: Brendan Galvin, or at least this booklet, talked about momentum. So, instead of staring at my huge to-do list and feeling defeated, I started picking the tiniest, easiest task. Like, “reply to that one simple email” or “put away those three books.” Getting that quick win actually did make me feel a bit better.
- Scheduled “Do Nothing” Time: This was the weirdest one. Literally scheduling 15 minutes to just sit and stare out the window, or listen to the sounds outside. My first few tries, I felt antsy, like I was wasting precious time. But I stuck with it.
I gotta be honest, it wasn’t some magic fix. There were days I completely forgot about all this stuff and went back to my old, chaotic ways. Sometimes, just sitting there trying to drink coffee felt like a massive effort when I knew a pile of work was waiting. My boss wasn’t gonna pay me to sip coffee slowly, right?
And the “do nothing” time? Ha! My family probably thought I was losing it. “What are you doing?” “Nothing.” You can imagine the looks I got. It was a real struggle to not feel guilty about it, especially when there’s always something that needs doing.
So, What Happened?
Well, I’m not suddenly some zen master or anything. My desk still gets messy, and I still have days where I feel like I’m chasing my tail. But, and this is a big but, something did shift. Slowly.
That “one coffee” thing, I still try to do it most mornings. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, my day just feels a tiny bit calmer from the get-go. And picking the smallest task first? That’s actually become a habit. It’s amazing how much less daunting a big project feels when you chip away at the little bits first.
The “do nothing” time is still the hardest, but I’ve found that even five minutes of just consciously breathing and not looking at a screen helps. It’s like giving my brain a little breather. I guess what I learned from this whole Brendan Galvin experiment, or whatever you want to call it, isn’t about a massive life overhaul. It’s more about finding these tiny little pockets of quiet, or small ways to make things feel a bit more manageable.
It’s an ongoing practice, really. Some days I’m good at it, other days not so much. But just knowing these simple tools are there, that I can try them again tomorrow, that’s been pretty helpful. So yeah, that’s my little Brendan Galvin story. Not revolutionary, but a small, practical thing that made a bit of a difference for me.
