Yesterday, I encouraged you to play rather than catch up on chores or work. And that’s all well and good, but then you have only a four-day week to get everything done! Agh! After a long weekend, it is tempting to believe that you now have to fit five days worth of work into four days.
You don’t.
Productivity is fine. When I am at my desk, working, I want to be fully engaged, super efficient, and checking things off the list. There are a variety of techniques to do this, and I’ve even led online, group-based work-sprints (my Monday Momentum Club) to get things off the list early in the week.
But then I take a break.
And my break is deliberate. It’s not walking around while answering a phone call, or checking my email on my phone while letting the dog out. A break from work is ‘not work’. It’s getting a cup of tea, or sitting on the porch for a moment, or having lunch - just lunch (not lunch and emails), or taking a quick walk with a pupper.
The break is, of course, partly to make the next period of work equally productive. You’re refreshed and ready to dive in again. Great. But it’s also partly….just a break to enjoy. It’s about tasting your salad, or feeling some sunshine.
Many people think of productivity as ‘doing more’. It’s not - it being efficient at doing what’s important. The more we try to do, the less efficient we are at doing the most important things.
Here’s the thing:
You will never, ever be caught up.
Let that horror sink in for a second.
But then also let the freedom of that sink in.
You will never get it all done. So stop trying to fit an unreasonable number of things into the meager chunk of time we have on the planet or in the work week. Fit in the important things. And only those.
In terms of work, instead of diving into email first thing today (which is a sure way to get derailed from the beginning), try just making a little plan for the week. I have my coaching clients fill out a Momentum Map for the week. It’s shockingly short. THREE main things. Or sometimes just one, if it’s a big thing. And when you get to Friday, you physically check off the things. It’s amazing how powerful it is to remind yourself that you have achieved the things you set out to this week.
I sometimes also give myself a ‘Minimum Satisfactory Progress’ (MSP) marker. It can be for work or other things you need to get done. For example, one of my MSP markers is to get to the gym twice a week. If it turns out to be three times, fab, but I check it off as successful if it’s just two. When I had just moved to Tennessee, there were so many places I had to update my address and changes I had to make - health insurance, driving license, shipping addresses for everything, dentist etc etc etc. I told myself I would at least do three a week. Sometimes I did more, but three was a win.
Most of us, especially those of us who have ‘knowledge-worker’ jobs or businesses, do not have a clear finish point to the day or week. It’s not like we get to go home after we’ve made 15 widgets or served 30 customers.
We have to decide when we’re done.
It’s both simple and incredibly difficult.
But it’s absolutely imperative for us to be able to do this consistently. If we don’t, we will not only be tired all the time, but we will fritter our lives away being busy and then being even busier and then being even busier.
I believe our ‘Next Chapter’ expectations around work, and how it fits into and supports our lives and society, are changing. But these expectations will only make a meaningful difference if we step into our personal role of determining what’s important, how we measure success, and when we quit - for the day, or week, or move on to another job.
So, three ideas for this short week:
Spend 30 minutes this morning creating a little plan for your week. Or at least deciding the tiny number of things (no more than three!) that will make up your Minimum Satisfactory Progress.
Set up a ‘shut down’ routine. This idea is from Cal Newport’s ‘Deep Work’ book. I recommend the book highly, but for now all you need to know is that this is a set routine for shutting down the computer, and ‘signaling’ to yourself that you are done for the day. For example, you can look at your daily list, check off what you’ve done, note the most important things for tomorrow, give your emails one last check, close your apps, and shut the laptop lid. That would be an example of a shut-down routine you can do every single day. Try to make it at the same time each night this week.
Schedule your lunch on the calendar. Block it off so no-one can book meetings in that time. And when you take your lunch, leave your phone in your office. Just focus on your delicious lunch, and a walk or reading some of your novel, or whatever you want except work.
Try this for just the four days this week, then on Friday review your week, check off your progress, and enjoy your weekend.
Comments are open to everyone - let me know what works for you and other ideas you have!
Love the idea of an MSP.... 🤔