Get out your diary: set aside a two to three hour block of time in the next couple of weeks or month. This time will be just for you, on your own, somewhere different. For those couple of hours, you will sit somewhere pleasant and let your mind unwind: you won't read, you won't walk, you'll simply sit and see what comes about. Funny, when you give yourself mental elbow room, you come up with all kinds of bright ideas: new ideas, ways of solving old problems - you see the wood for the trees

I must be getting old - or, at least, events on Saturday morning suggest that others must think that I must be getting old! But more about that in just a moment. First of all, rewind to last Tuesday in the supermarket.

We noticed an elderly gentlemen (no doubt he didn't think he was old either) having a little difficulty selecting which button to press for courgettes on the "weigh it yourself" weighing scales in the fruit and vegetables area. A passing shopper offered some assistance, to which he quietly replied that he would prefer to work it out for himself. The result: the other shopper started ranting and raving at the top of her voice: "I'm just trying to help, you old bastard" was the jist of it! Two shop assistants ended up getting involved in trying to calm the screamer down.

So, Saturday morning - I've just rolled a shopping trolly of three big bags of garden compost up to the boot of my car. As I open it, I take a moment to admire a hot-air baloon passing overhead. A young guy (it's all relative!) stops in front of me and says: "Can I give you a hand with those heavy bags?" and before I know what's going on, they're all placed neatly in the boot!

The age of chivalry is alive and well!

Our son, David, recently moved to Paris for six months work placement - and to finish his final year's study. At around the same time, I read an article that claimed that Paris had become the most expensive city in the world for accommodation: but you don't need to be an investigative journalist to figure that out! The problem is exacerbated by very strange French law which dictates very strict rules - bet that surpised you! - which mean that, if you do manage to find a reasonable apartment, the estate agent interviews you, not the other way around. Add to that that the French estate agents earn up to 8% of the purchase price on sales and up to three times the monthly rent for a let and you begin to understand why they really don't exert themselves in helping either potential tenants or, indeed, their owner clients... it's almost impossible to even make an appointment to see a potential apartment (assuming you actually get to talk to the estate agent in the first place).

Eight weeks after arriving in Paris for "a couple of nights" in a friend's apartment, David was finding it impossible to tie anything down - and his friend's welcome was wearing a little thin. I decided to devote a morning - just one morning - to doing nothing else except finding him a nice apartment in a nice area of Paris for a reasonable price. I set aside everything else - didn't check my emails even once (see today's video!) and didn't stop for the customary morning coffee. After three hours on the telephone - it's old technology but it works! - of calling and recalling (no messages were left because nobody ever calls you back), David had eight appointments, at times that suited him (that's unusual too in Paris!). After each appointment, the estate agent was emailed the obligatory dossier - twenty three individual legal or fiscal documents - with a summary of everything that they needed to know. In two days, David had a choice of three apartments.

You may say to yourself: "so what" - but, having spent eighteen years talking and writing about "purposeful focus" it presented me with the perfect example of how easy things are when you do just what needs to be done, as perfectly as possible, to the exclusion of every potential distraction. Everything works this way - you get out what you put in. However, if you're reading and rereading your emails eighteen or twenty times, you get sweet "f" all in return.