Padraig O'Morain's guide to managing life
STOP! Why the capital letters? Because STOP stands for a simple technique aimed at helping you get more control over your day and what you do in the day. And, since our lives are made up of days, it might just help you to get more control over your life.
The technique has been recommended enthusiastically for years by Timothy Gallwey whose 1970s book, The Inner Game of Tennis, is a classic of sports psychology. He has since written other "inner game" books such as The Inner Game of Work.
What the letters stand for is:
Step back.
Think.
Organise your thoughts.
Proceed.
These four steps can take two seconds, two hours or two days, depending on when and how you want to use them. Myself, I prefer the two-seconds version: stepping back and thinking about things for two days gives me a headache.
I look on it as a form of first aid to help me keep some sort of shape on what I'm doing. The "step back" part of the technique is its most important aspect.
It involves lifting your head out of the stream of rushing events and asking yourself what you really want out of this day, this hour or this minute.
Very often, this is simply a matter of reminding yourself that you set out to complete a particular piece of work this afternoon and that you would be wise to get it done before you start surfing holiday websites.
Or when the phone rings, you might stop to ask yourself whether answering it is more important than what you are doing right now.
Perhaps you're playing football out the back with the kids and maybe that's more important than jumping to attention every time the phone rings.
Taking a moment to step back is invaluable in all sorts of situation. How often have you kicked yourself because you agreed to something too quickly - something you would not have agreed to if you had allowed yourself a delay of even two seconds before responding?
So, practising that little stepping back can make a big difference in your relationships, your work and in your satisfaction with yourself.
The other parts of the technique follow naturally from the stepping back.
The "think" part is really about asking yourself questions. What am I trying to accomplish? What's my priority here? Do I need to change what I'm doing or how I'm doing it?
Gallwey suggests you write down a list of the questions that really work for you and have it available to you when you're taking time out to think. I find those three questions are enough for me and I don't need to write them down.
Organising your thoughts (the third step) is just a matter of pulling your thoughts together and deciding what to do next. And the "proceed" part means getting on with it.
The heart of the method is stepping back and giving yourself the space to take a quick look at the situation.
In what is, I suppose, a very male metaphor, Gallwey compares the use of the technique to stepping out of a battle in the valley and viewing it from the mountainside so you can get an overview before returning to the fray.
Personally, I would disappear over the top of the mountain as quickly as possible, thanking the STOP technique every step of the way.
pomorain@irish-times.ie
The STOP technique
The STOP technique, recommended by Timothy Gallwey, can help you avoid being swept away by the many daily demands that come at you.
Just make a habit, many times a day for a few seconds or so, of stepping back from what you are doing, and asking yourself if this is what you really want to be doing right now, whether there is something else you need to be doing instead or whether you should stick to whatever plan you had for the day.
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.