Kim Gaskill explains how humans adapt differently than animals do, then shares practical ways to handle interruptions: block focused work time, meditate briefly, adjust your routine, and find quiet moments. The recording itself kept getting interrupted.
Welcome to a new day. I'm Kim Gaskill and this is the Daily Spark. Adaptation. Let me tell you, a lot of adaptation going on here. Today is Monday, which is my One Thing Monday for me and my group. And what that is, is the idea of focusing on one thing for the week. What is that one thing you're gonna do every day for yourself? To make the day better. It took me a long time to figure out what that was for me and to adapt my schedules and my routines to what worked for me, what made me the most productive for the day. And being here in this situation, in this environment, I've had to make a lot of adaptations to my routines and my schedules and my thought processes to be able to function in this environment. There are a lot of things here I don't have control over. Now, in nature, adaptation is things like physical adaptations, being able to blend into your environment like a chameleon, or carry a lot of water like a camel. Uh, physiological adaptations are actually chemistry-based. Or metabolism-based, like certain species of plants that have toxic chemicals so that they're not eaten by different animals so they can survive. And then there's the behavioral adaptations, like migrations of birds or whales, or things that you do to protect yourself in the environment. Like hibernation of bears, or in the desert, a lot of animals there, they are only active at night because it's so hot during the day. So they adapt to that environment that they're in and modify their behavior. As humans, most of what we do for adaptation is behavioral. So I've had to change a lot of the behaviors that I do, one of them being— you probably just heard, I was interrupted— they knock on the door and they come in and make a bunch of noise and say hello and introduce themselves for everything that they need to do. So it's very hard to make recordings and be uninterrupted. But I've adapted to trying to learn their routines here and modify what I'm doing so that I can pick the times that I can do what I need to for me to get the things done that I need to, to have that small moment of time for myself first thing in the morning. Before they start interrupting me to try and get my day off on the right track. So I hope that you're able to adapt to the environment that you are in right now and make those small behavioral changes that you need to. Get up a little bit earlier so you have some time, or find a quiet place 2 or 3 times a day to take a 2 or 3 minute meditation, or avoid interruptions by scheduling your work blocks at times that you know are less likely for people to come in to interrupt you. Things like that, that you can adapt your environment, adapt your routines, adapt your behaviors to fit the environment that you're currently in. Because remember, as I said the other day, everything is temporary, but it may be a long temporary if you can't change locations, or you can't change jobs, or you can't change where you physically work, or the time that you work in. You have to make whatever adaptations you can to try and make that environment fit the best for you. I hope you can do that, and I hope you join me again tomorrow for another Daily Spark.
