Late for a meeting I suddenly realized that I had been clinching my stomach for a very long time – maybe an hour. I took several deep breaths and pushed them through my belly. Ahhh! That felt better. Do you clinch your belly, your fists, your shoulders, your breath? >
Moving too fast? Not me. If I want to know something – the population of Mauritius- for example, I google it.* If I’m thinking of someone, I text. If I want to meet with someone, I send them an invite. My phone is closer to me than my husband and children. Not emotionally, but physically, for sure. >
Do you regularly get the advice to slow down? I think I’ve been told that my whole life. Especially by my Mother. There was a regular argument about how many activities I would jump into. She would tell me that I was going to get run down and catch “mono”. If you are snickering with me, you are of a certain age. I still get told to slow down even though I think I now take a lot more time for myself. It occurs to me the issue is not to slow down: it is “slow down v. work differently”. >
Sunday night you sit down and plan your whole week. You put the big rocks in first – the most important but not urgent long term thinking time. Maybe, you schedule 2 2-hour blocks on Tuesday and Thursday at your best thinking times for that long range project you never seem to get to. Then Monday starts off with client issues and you don’t get one thing done you had scheduled for Monday. >
On Wednesday evening, Paul asked me what we are doing this weekend. Like many couples there is a planner and a spontaneous one, and you can guess who is who in our dynamic. I replied that I was planning to be sick this weekend. What???? I was getting the COVID booster Friday afternoon, so, yes, I was planning to be sick. >
As I look around my office and see the papers, and think about the closet that needs to be purged, I sigh….I need to put my ducks in order. >
On autopilot, are we?
We stumble out of bed in a sleepy fog at 0-dark-30 and get through our morning routine by habit (habit is good). Then somewhere after or during the morning shower or maybe not until we turn on the car after our morning caffeine, we begin to wake up. Do we take time to notice? >
Keeping commitments is a major factor in trustworthiness and accountability. It can be described as “Doing what you said you would do.”
And then there is committing. You can do anything, but not everything. Some signs of over committing are:
-not keeping your commitments (duh);
-being grouchy or hard to be around;
-not enjoying what you are dealing with;
-neglecting important people (like family) or activities (like exercise);
-spending the whole weekend catching up on the work you couldn’t get to during the week;
-not doing the work only you can do ’cause you are doing other people’s work…..
Shall I go on?
Yes, I know in some way this is all of us, but don’t use that as an excuse. As humans, we are so tempted to justify our bad behavior by pointing at someone else we know who gets away with it. My classic whine from my childhood was “But you let Joe do it!” (my older brother). Poor Joe, I got away with a lot more than he did. Don’t feel sorry for him. He was very good at pointing this out to Mom.
Speaking of which, whining and pointing fingers just makes you look weak. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t get you anywhere either.
Here are some ways to address the issue:
Delegate. If you are able to, delegate everything that you aren’t good at. Especially when there are people within your organization who are extremely good at it or need new challenges to grow.
Don’t take the monkey back. Read Who’s got the monkey?
Say no. If you don’t say no to the lower priority activities, you can’t say yes to what will bring you and your company value. Get clear on where you bring value and what brings you joy, or meets your goals. Do you know what those are? If not, start there.
Get more sleep. Take a vacation from Facebook, email, late night television and get a half hour more sleep each night.
Block out time on your calendar to spend time doing what is important and stick to it. You don”t have to be perfect; you do need to get better.
Photo courtesy of drivetime.com
Did you get up this morning and have a result you were working for today? Or, do you have a goal you set to be completed this week? Did you make appointments with yourself during the week, and keep them so that you met your goal? Do you begin with the end in mind?
My guess is that you do this- sometimes. You create a plan and you work that plan until it is done. You might come back to it over and over again until it is completed. Generally, it is around something urgent. “Got to get this proposal done for the client by Tuesday”. Not, “Going to figure out a new market for this underselling product by Tuesday.”
The important, strategic, not urgent work for which only you are qualified gets pushed to the side. Why is that?
Some of it is that it feels really effective to check something off our list. Some of it is that the environment we have created for ourselves is a huge distraction from getting any thinking, creative or project work done. Or, our anxiety over short-term issues talks up all our mindspace.
Steven Covey wrote a book in 1989, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Great book if you haven’t read or re-read it recently. The second habit was: Begin with the end in mind. Sounds obvious, but when we look at what we have accomplished after the fact, we sure don’t feel satisfied.
This week pick one important, not-urgent, strategic issue or opportunity and block off specific hours in your calendar to work on it. Check back in on it Friday afternoon. If you got it done, give yourself a big pat on the back and pick the one for nexr week before you go home. Remember, begin with the end in mind.