Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [60]
Prime your pump
When your energy is low or you’re recovering from a big disruption in your normal routine, try the advice of writer and minimalist Erin Doland: “Schedule the task you will feel the greatest reward from accomplishing first. You need momentum to propel you through the next task, which will be the thing you need to do the most.” You may not be able to get back to normal today, but getting at least these two things done will help you on that path.
If you’re feeling disconnected, think of someone you know who really energizes you or helps you sort out where you want to be heading and schedule lunch or dinner with one of those people within the next two weeks. Not only will you do better work in the afternoons if you aren’t always eating at your desk, staying in touch with friends and mentors gives a feeling of having done something for yourself—even on days when you work late or don’t have energy in the evening. You have to eat anyway, so turn that into quality time.
Recharge your energy
Even when work is at its crazymaking worst, you do have options and some control. If the workday is a steady race against an enormous set of goals, clocking out should be filled with free time, flexibility, open-ended playing, easily conquered projects chosen to match your mood and energy, and the option to do nothing in particular at all. It's really truly definitely okay that you can't Do It All all the time. In order to give your best when you are giving, give your batteries time to recharge—even when that means backing off on social activities or projects.
The quick picture
Facing a busy week ahead? Take five minutes to give yourself the big picture that will help you manage your time. Grab a sheet of scratch paper, make five equal sections to represent the next five days, and then sketch into them roughly proportional squares for the events and chunks of work that must fit into those days. This may reveal things you need to cancel or reduce the scope or detail of work to be achievable in the available time. Give yourself a ballpark estimate of what you have lined up for yourself and use it as a tool to adjust unrealistic expectations.
A similar quick-sketch technique for preparing yourself or others—particularly when you need to decide priorities—is The Three-Column Briefing. Again, grab a piece of scratch paper or use a whiteboard, and make three columns. Label them “What?,” “Why?,” and “How?” In the first column, write the task that needs to be done; in the second, what purpose or goal it serves; in the third, the end state, in other words, how it should look when it’s done. If you use this technique to plan work with a team, you can also use the third column to indicate who will do that task. Keep this at a high level and use this tool to align your actions with your vision of where what you want to achieve. When a task doesn’t serve your top goals, it will stick out like a sore thumb in the “Why?” column.
Stay calm. Plan your work. Work your plan. Take a breath, see where you stand, remind yourself of where you are going, and proceed in a way that takes better care of you.
Keeping control when things get crazy
“Crazy Ivan” is a trick I keep in my toolbox for the most hectic times. One of my coaching clients from an intense startup environment and I were working on ways in which she could get through a hectic time while her department was critically understaffed. As we brainstormed about how she could make progress on goals while working in such an overloaded and interruption-heavy environment, we hit on the idea of using the handicap of never having an hour—and rarely a half hour—available to focus.
Whenever she could grab a breath and choose her next task, she’d look at the clock. If it was in the top half of the hour, she’d put in the