Post written by Marlon Ribunal.
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The whole world knows by now that the Los Angeles Lakers are crowned as the National Basketball Association (NBA) Champions for the 2009-2010 season. The game seven win for the Lakers is not only monumental for the history that was tied with their rival Boston Celtics but also for the dramatic manner by which they clinched the championship crown.
In the final game 7 of the Championship series between the best teams in the NBA, the Lakers never took a sustained advantage until the second part of the fourth and last quarter of the game. Their best player, and arguably the best NBA player today, Kobe Bryant, wasn’t really drilling his shots. It took the person ofRon Artest to work inside and out the paint for the Lakers to have a good shot at winning – and they won it all. He was the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the most important game of the season.
Artest acknowledged his struggle on staying focused on the game all throughout the season. He even sought the help of a professional to help him stay in focus and be relax and calm at a distressful moment. The whole effort paid-off when he showed the whole world that he can make things happen on a moment his production input is desperately needed; and in crunch time, he delivered.
What Ron Artest can teach us about Productivity? These are only the highlights.
Relax In The Midst Of Distress
In an ESPN article, Ron Artest was quoted saying, “I needed some way to relax during these moments. I missed a couple of 3s that I was wide open that I wished would have went down, and I trusted everything she told me as far as relaxing. And bam, the big 3 goes in.” In order to be in the winning state of mind, relaxation is an effective way of getting your acts together. It affords you to separate your consciousness from the world and thereby give you the chance to assess your surrounding objectively.
Face Your Opponent
Hopefully, there is no real opponent in your work environment except for nagging deadline and closing schedules. In addition to assessing your work environment objectively, it is also important to look ahead. What do I mean by this? The only way you can accomplish things is by getting them done. Period. But doing one thing without consciously looking at what is ahead can really mess up your objectives altogether. The goal is get things done efficiently. Objective assessment is for naught if you cannot look ahead
Stay In The Moment
This sounds contradictory with what I have just mentioned above. How can you look ahead if you stay in the moment. Well, it is as simple as that: “look” ahead but “stay” in the moment. You cannot be two steps ahead of yourself. This is the reason why Kobe Bryant was nearly ineffective in game 7. In an interview with the LA Times, Derek Fisher spoke about Bryant’s too-quick mentality, “You know, not so much surprised by his struggles, but basically what I was just trying to talk to him about was just that he was playing a little too fast.He was going and he was seeing things that he wanted to do, but it was like he was a step and a half too quick to get there, and he’s so good at foot work and setting guys up and getting guys leaning one way and spinning out and going the other way, and he was going too fast before the guys could even go for themove.” The lesson here is, I think, don’t be too much occupied with the goal. Your task at any moment is more important than the overall goal. Take one moment at a time. When each moment is carefully taken into consideration, the goal will fall in place.
Get It Done
Going back to the game 7 in the finals series between Lakers and Celtics, in the 1:01 mark in the fourth quarter of the game Ron Artest drilled the what could be his best shot in his entire career. It was a 3-point shot that widened the Lakers lead to 6 Points. What does this tell us? Get it done regardless of what is confronting you. Grumpy boss, unbeatable deadline, or whatever that obstacle may be – get it done.
We can extract more lessons from the Lakers-Celtics latest rivalry game but, I think, the things I mentioned above are the most important ones. When you are able to focus on what your are doing – in office or at home – attainment of your goals will become a necessary result. Your goals might be as simple as day-to-day mundane tasks or as complex as saving the whole universe; but the principle stays the same on both situations: Stay Focus.
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Denise Landers
Evan @ 40Tech
Goran
Marcos Rosa
Robert L Davis
Steve
Sometimes the hard part an individual handles is to realize where to maintain the focus, where to apply efforts to get focused. The points above show us a good point of view and strategically points us how to get there.
@Marcos
I’m glad you liked it! The lifeblood of productivity is “focus”. You cannot have control if you do not have the ability to focus. As mentioned in David Allen’s GTD Book, we already know how to focus. It’s up to the person to choose what to focus on. Remember, focus is a requirement if you need to take control. Thanks for participating, Marcos!