The Modern Leader
I'm a juggler. Not the type you see in the circus - more of the type you see in the beautiful photo above.
There was period of time only a few months ago when I was getting to my computer on Monday morning and asking myself, "which balls will I drop this week?"
As you can probably imagine, that's not a really healthy mindset when you're starting off your week knowing you'll slip.
So let's reframe this. Instead of going in with a negative mindset, flip it to positive (or hell, even neutral). Ask yourself, "knowing what I already have on my calendar, what can I get done this week?" It's a small tweak in my thinking, but it has helped loads.
I wrote about this in my old entrepreneurship newsletter, but I find structuring my weeks (and sometimes days when things feel really chaotic) with my 1-2-3 method:
- 1 thing you absolutely must do - if you do this, your week was a success.
- 2 things you'd like to get done, but won't feel bad if you don't get to them. These shouldn't be high stakes, and they shouldn't take up your entire week.
- 3 backup items to fill your time. "But Kelly, you just said you have too much to do - why in the world would you want backup items?" Well, dear reader, I don't know about you, but my brain isn't super focused all day. These backup items are very low stakes but give your brain a break from the other work when you need to step away. Things like cleaning up your email, checking in with a few people, making sure your calendar and to-do lists are up to date, etc. The world won't fall apart if you don't get to these items, but you're helping your future self out by taking some time for yourself.
If you find yourself attempting to juggle a lot of tasks during the day, stop. Multitasking has been prove in multiple studies to not be effective. Write down what you need to get done. Choose an item to be your #1, and two more to fall back on. Write down three additional tasks you'd like to do if you need a brain break. And most importantly, write down what you WON'T be doing this week. Make sure you're communicating your won't-do list to appropriate parties so there are no surprises when something doesn't get done.