How 13-year-old girl defeated me in productivity?

What if the time management expert in your family is actually 13-year-old girl?

What if she makes your complaints and busyness look ridiculous?

Welcome to my life.

My daughter practices rhythmic gymnastics. She is very serious, passionate and has high goals.

She has exercises six to eight times a week total 20-25 hours. If you add 25 hours of school to that and that she needs to go to exercises in different city which is 37 (23 miles) kilometers away – you know she is busy.

..and homework. School requires you to work a lot at home.

May has been specially demanding since she has been in competitions in Belarus, Italy and soon in Vienna.

In May and April she has also made socks and jumpsuit for schools handwork lessons.

If she would work in the office. She should say “it is really hectic”, “I am really busy” or “I am in stress”, but she rarely complains or mentions being busy.

We are often asked does the school suffer? How does she arrange the school.

Grades are excellent.

She has extremely good ability to focus. I am sure that the ability to focus comes from the sport.

Doing that in age of 13 is something that I admire. Me and my wife have not pushed her to do it, but we have helped her with all possible ways to meet her dreams and goals.

..

13-year old girl can manage time and get excellent results and here we grown-ups invent all kind of manifestos, rules, instructions and systems to get things done.

She has no systems, except perhaps brute force. If you need to do something – go and do it.

My daughters productivity tips:

1. Take all spare time in to use. When you are traveling read to exams.
2. If you need to read in the dark car. Head lamp helps. If you don’t have head lamp use iPhone.
3. Take pictures of school book pages with iPhone. You can read them anywhere when you have time.
4. Wake up early if needed. You get extra hours to your day if you wake up 5.15am.
5. Wake up early only if mandatory, otherwise sleep as much as you can.

..

She has shown that you can do almost anything if you have passion.

What I have learned from my daughter:

1. Focus. If you have focus you can do a lot.
2. Goals. You need to have goals with challenge. Otherwise you wont improve.
3. Passion and dreams are mandatory for exceptional results.
4. Always try your best. Your performance needs to be so good that even the dumbest judge will notice.

..and my free tip for you – productivity advisors, experts and enthusiasts – you don’t always find the best advice from expert.

Look for people who have drive and passion – even if they are small girls..

 

Photo Credit Flickr cliff1066