Chapter 7Invest Five Minutes a Day to Save Your Life
Who has time for mindfulness?
—Clueless Leader
I occasionally hear from executives asking, “How can I spare 5 to 10 minutes a day for myself to practice mindfulness, let alone for our employees?” Come on, inner peace. We don't have all day!
These folks aren't familiar with how much time the average employee wastes during their day. It led me to create a new faux field of medicine called “Habit Replacement Therapy.” Here's how it works. Pick one of the time sucks in your life or company culture and trim 5 minutes off every day. Replace your addictions, er, sorry, habits with 5 to 10 minutes of attention training—enough to produce the health and performance benefits I've shared in this book.
Where Can I Trim?
Don't stress. We've done a little research on a few areas to free up five minutes. Everyone can find the time.
Gaming. The NPD Group estimates there are 34 million “core” (heavy) gamers in the United States, with the average player spending 22 hours per week.1 In her book, SuperBetter, Dr. Jane McGonigal puts that into perspective. Based on time spent playing, if Candy Crush Saga gamers were “employees,” the game would have 3.7 million full‐time equivalents (FTEs). Call of Duty would have 8.3 million FTEs.2
TV. The average American watches 4.3 hours of T.V. a day.3 Crazy. At a minimum, record your favorite shows and ...
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