The Power of Mastication

When I was at school I wanted to be a farmer. This is 99.9% due to the fact that I had a passionate agricultural science teacher who lit up everytime he spoke about animals, plants and diseases. His name was Mr Aggrey. He taught so enthusiastically that I got an A* in my G.C.S.E.
That’s how much influence passion can have.

It was in Mr Aggrey’s class that I first learnt about mastication and the process a cow goes through when chewing food. Without grossing you out too much, A cow is a ruminant and essentially chews food more than once to break it down. It does this whilst grazing.

Maybe you’ve tried accomplishing your goals in short bursts at a time; what I refer to as sprints. Today I’m recommending, grazing – just like the cow.

This is taking a concerted amount of time to focus on one aspect of your goal.

For instance if you are job-hunting, you’ll need to break down the tasks that you need to accomplish such as updating your C.V, signing up with agencies, contacting previous colleagues, etc.

What you need to do is set a minimum of an hour and a maximum of 2.5hours and just focus on one of the tasks. Put the phone away. Stay away from the T.V. Get rid of all distractions and just chew away at the task.

Grazing is an amazing way to get a lot done daily. And if you can graze daily on one goal, you will be astounded by the progress you’ll make.

Sprints – 15 minutes bursts of time to accomplish your tasks- are best utilised for mundane tasks like cleaning, data-entry, phone calls, etc.

Grazing on the other hand is utilised to accelerate your goals and better suited for the goals that require much more time and concentration such as writing a C.V or business plan; research, etc.

Let me know how you get on.

Until then, keep dreaming, keep believing, keep doing!