Aug
1
One of the biggest things you’ll see on productivity websites is planning. And for good reason - good planning allows us to focus on the things most important to us and achieve things rather than just waiting for the day to end.
With this in mind, and with a degree of personal frustration about how I was managing my time while I am building up a solo business, I decided to plan my Next"Perfect" Day and determine to meet the goals I set myself. I’ve listed it below, word for word, so you know the detail I went to.
And, lo and behold, I achieved it!
Now most people would say "Well, duh! With that much planning who wouldn’t?" But that was the point. By simply having a clear mind prior to the day itself, I was able to put in the things I had to do. And they got done. Not so special, except when there are 100’s of things competing for your attention, it’s not a bad effort.
Maybe you don’t need to go to this level of detail, but I found it quite empowering to actually focus on what I wanted to do, specifically, and then work diligently towards it.
One of the keys I realised as I made the list was I knew I had to prepeare stuff the previous night to ensure I had the best chance of achieving my goals. So that was something else I had to consider.
It also brought back that good old saying about planning:
Proper Preparation Prevents a Pretty Poor Performance.
MY NEXT PERFECT DAY
6am Walk 20-30 mins
6:30 Solitude 15 mins
6:45 Breakfast (Juice and Psyllium husks, porridge or muesli [I had porridge], coffee [short macchiato] )
7:30 Work travel
8:15 Work - set objective for this session - write two marketing letters for client
10:00 Snack - fruit / baked beans / yoghurt (1 of …)
10:10 Work - set objectives for this session - review letters, commence brochure
12:30 Lunch - (walk 15 mins) Nuts, fruit, salmon
1:00 Set objectives - complete brochure draft for client
3:00 Snack (see above) and walk
3:15 Work - set objectives - make lest of household chores. Pick one and start!
5:30 Home travel
6:15 Dinner
7:30 Solitude and review day
7:50 Relax
10:00 Retire
I expect many of the standard breaks to become habitual over time. I’ve added them here becasue I generally get caught up being busy that I forget the snack time. And the snack times, I’m told, are good for weight loss, so it’s not a fetish for snacks, it’s about eating well.
P.S. I also just want to apologise to anyone who has already read this post and has come back for whatever reason. I found so many spelling errors in this post I actually went red from embarrassment! I really do apologise. It gives an impression of sloppy writing which I am trying to be diligent to avoid.
Jul
19
Productivity: Doing v Achieving
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Firstly, let me apologise if you were waiting for Thursday’s post on productivity. Earlier this week my Father-in-Law passed away and since then time has been a bit of a blur. In-laws are often painted as "Outlaws" and while the beginnings were rocky I came to think of him as my own Dad and called him such. We had a great love for each other and his passing wasn’t expected. So we’re all in that place of "what the …!!"
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How has your week and work been going? I’ve titled this post "Doing v Achieving" and it’s something I’m always conscious of.
Am I busy achieving my goals or am I just busy? I am sure we all find ourselves in that space every now and then.
The latter is energy sapping and the former is energy giving.
In my early days as a sales trainer it was drilled into me to write my objectives first.
I once wrote a fantastic session on some aspect of sales and was so pleased with it (must have been revolutionary - I just forget what it was!) I rushed into my boss’s office and said:
"You’ve got to hear this."
I was met with: "What’s the objective of the session?"
To which I responded: "Haven’t written it yet. Will go back and do that in a sec."
She pressed: "No objective and I’m not listening!"
Me: "Okay, but listen to this."
Her: "No objective …."
Me: "Cow!"
And off I dutifully went to write the objective/s.
However, I have to admit articulating what I wanted to achieve from each session actually focused me when writing the process itself. I was always thinking "What am I supposed to achieve here?" and "What must the participants be able to do better?"
If I couldn’t measure it in some way it wasn’t an objective (Even today I am horrified at objectives that start with "To understand … ." How do you measure "understanding?")
Anyway, it means that even when I develop my To-Do list, it must have an action word in it some where. Such as:
- Call David re: project objectives (So I am calling, not anything else and it’s about the project objectives, nothing else!)
- Clean gutters (not just look at them)
- Send CV to Heather
Okay, all very simple I know but many people don’t do this. They just write David’s name, or "gutters" and they’ll know what they mean when the time comes. But when you’re busy, a name or a location just doesn’t cut it and, if you follow David Allens’ view of getting everything out of your head and onto a (effective) list, you’re going to be saving a lot of thinking energy that affects the greenhouse levels*.
(I also know that the gutters are, or aren’t, clean!)
So, while creating a to-do list can be energising and empowering, at the end of the day it can be quite depressing if we haven’t done anything about it. And we may not do anything about it if we haven’t articulated what we actually want to do with the item. Remember, you’re busy with a myriad of conflicting priorities.
It is also a self governing process. You have either done them or you haven’t. You also know that, if they haven’t been done, it may be that you don’t actually need to do them.
So, are you busy doing things or are you busy achieving things?
* - no, I have no proof that excessive thinking adds to the greenhouse effect. 