PLAAs a nonprofit leader, you need more time to think! But how much time does it take to be a better thinker and leader? Read this blog post for the surprising answer. HINT: Not very much time!
When I'm talking to clients and suggesting that they book some time in the calendar for thinking, they expect me to tell them it will be an hour or maybe even 30 minutes. They're often surprised when I suggest anywhere between two in 10 minutes. Overcome this challenge first The challenge is that most of us are not present in this moment. Instead of being mindful, we are thinking about either the past or the future. For example: ✦ We may have anxious thoughts circulating in our minds about what's coming up in our schedule. ✦ Alternately we may be ruminating about what happened at the last meeting. Then you'll be able to be intentional with your thinking quicker To be intentional with your thinking, you need to be in this moment so you can think about only what you need to think about. When you give yourself the gift of a moment or two, I call them thinking moments often, and the thinking happens really fast. 3 tips for helping you create thinking moments. ONE: Take your hands off the keyboard when you finish a call, meeting, or dealing with your inbox or project. Put them on your lap and take a deep breath. TWO: Ask yourself:
When you give yourself the moment to connect to what you need to process, purge and plan, I guarantee thoughts will come into your head. THREE: Either in your head or grab a piece of paper and make a quick note.
Then ask yourself
You may come up with answers like these:
Once you have been mindful of what you need to think about, you can head on to the next thing on your agenda. Giving yourself the gift of just a few moments to regroup and identify where you need to plan, process and purge will help you move forward. The thing is, I know you spend most of your days running around, chasing fires, dealing with crises and solving everyone else's problems. I know because I did it too for way too many years! I learned that getting intentional about creating thinking moments made an incredible difference. Will you do it too? Extra resources to help you think "better." Over the last few weeks, I've been writing about different kinds of thinking. I've linked those thoughts up below. Each of these links is a blog post with more information about different thinking necessary for leaders. NOTE: I've added some of the courses inside my membership site, The Training Library, for those of you who are members. Creative Thinking Nonprofit Leaders – Are you doing the right kind of THINKING today? Possible courses/lessons to look at
Strategic Thinking Nonprofit leaders, you need to stop wasting time rushing your thinking! Possible courses/lessons to look at
Decision Making Nonprofit Leaders | 10 important questions you must ask before your next decision Possible courses/lessons to look at Reflective Practice Be a wise woman leader with these 10 reflective thinking questions Possible courses/lessons to look at
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Turn Your To-Do List From Your Enemy into Your Friend by Asking These 3 Prioritizing Questions22/6/2016 Lengthy To-Do lists are paralyzing! The endless list of tasks, all which seem important, blurs in front of us. Flabbergasted at the daunting chore of prioritizing, we play it safe. Many of us then default into checking email one more time. By averting the cursed To-Do list repeatedly, we not only get further behind but more and more disheartened. It's the norm for most of us Ask any leader and you’ll likely hear a similar response.
Stop fighting with your To-Do list Rather than your To-Do list being your foe, let me show you how it can be your valuable assistant. By prioritizing your To-Do list into some semblance of order, it can become a tool working for you, instead of a threat against you. Last week I walked you through a weekly planning session that had you develop a list of tasks for the upcoming week. Take the list you made and prioritize it by asking yourself the following 3 questions. 3 Questions to ask when prioritizing your To-Do list Make use of the questions Use these 3 questions to prioritize your weekly To-Do list and your accompanying schedule. Look at what you realistically needs to get done this week and move it to the top of your list. The rest can stay on the list perhaps and get it done if you truly have the time. But make sure the top priorities get done first. How do you do that? You get done the priories items by then moving prioritizing your daily To Do’s. 3- minute daily prioritizing At the beginning of each day, spend three minutes identifying the top three priority To Do items for that day. Yes, only three! It isn’t that you can only do those three things, rather those are the 3 mandatory things you must get done. Make a separate sticky note, highlight the To-Do’s, or in some way identify that they are your top three items for the day. Then, ensure that these things get done to the best of your ability before 11 AM. If you truly want to be more productive and successful at getting done the most important things, get your top three done every day. When you do, you will find things move forward much quicker for you. Putting it all together Remember to look at last week’s post on planning. In it, I walk you through the steps in how to pull out all of the To-Do’s items for in a weekly planning session. Each week, take your list and line it up against the following considerations:
Follow the plan and find your friend Use these questions to help you create a weekly To-Do list that assists you. Your To-Do list becomes your friendly reminder of what is truly important. Use it to guide you each day, to pull out your top three To-Do items you need to focus on. Follow these steps and your peers will be wondering how suddenly you are accomplishing so much! Question: What were your top 3 To-Do items for today? Choices you make every day, choices that turn into words and behaviours, profoundly impact your team at work, but maybe more importantly, your kids at home. Have you given much thought lately to the subconscious messages you are giving your kids about work and life? Might I suggest, that it’s time you did. What is the legacy you are now leaving for your children? We created a tradition Yesterday as I sat down at the supper table, I remarked, “When did my kids get to be grown ups?” It was our regular Sunday Night Supper. That means that whoever can, and wants to make it, comes home for supper and dessert. We typically only have dessert on Sundays. Yesterday it was my 3 oldest children along with some significant others. It was an opportunity for me to look around the table and even surprise myself at how they’ve grown up or maybe how I've survived parenthood. This tradition was created by choice All of the kids (I have 4) don’t always come home for supper on Sundays. They do have other things they choose to do. But it’s a regular occurrence to require the leaf in the table on Sundays to accommodate the extras. This Sunday routine did not happen by chance. My husband and I have cultivated it. We had supper later some nights when one of the kids was still working. Other times, we had to go pick a child up to make sure they'd be home. We did what it took, to make sure that we were all together as a family for supper once a week. My kids now believe in Sunday Night Suppers Why do my kids return home? Free food perhaps plays a large role. But beyond that, there has been an instilled value of family. By my husband and I putting our own time aside for the last 20+ years to make Sunday supper special, and everyone senses how important that is. Newcomers to our family quickly catch on. My kids find value in it and express that value in their own words and ways. My husband and I always have done our best to be home on Sunday’s for supper. If we have to travel or be a work otherwise, there was a recognition that it is rare and not our first choice. Traditions are part of creating a legacy for your children Having family traditions is one way of leaving a legacy for our children. Think back to your own family traditions. Many traditions are around holidays, but there are also tons of other “that’s just the way we did it” kinds of things. For example, we usually went to church on Sundays as a child. We were active in extracurricular activities. We put our earned money in a bank account. Those actions, gave me messages about life. The way my parents raised me, and the way your parents raised you, has left a legacy. What is legacy really anyway? Legacy is the way people approach work and life, as a result of having come into contact with you. Galford and Maruca That is true in organizations and it is true with your children. The way your children do approach work and life and how they will in the future,is profoundly impacted by your actions, your behaviours and the words you choose to use today. Consider the conversations at home that you have about your work. Our kids learn a lot unconsciously. It's not like you sit them down at the table and say "Honey, my work is hard. I don't like it. But I must do it to pay the bills". However, consider what your children hear you say to your spouse about your work. What do they overhear you say on the phone, perhaps to your employees? What are the messages they get about your work or work in general? Kids are real good observers It's not only what they hear, it's also what they see. Consider what your children observe in your behaviours and actions and what messages that gives them. For example, what do they pick up from:
This isn't to make you feel guilty Lord knows I neglected my children more times than I care to remember. I dropped them off in their pj's at the sitters early in the morning without breakfast, so that I could catch a plane to a management meeting, more than once. The point is, in your heart of hearts, what do you want. This isn't about keeping up with the other Mom's. It's about what how you truly want to parent and the lasting impact you want to have. Take a moment to consider the legacy you want to leave Often when we take a moment to consider this, we realize that we may not be giving quite the message we intended. You may consider it’s time for a bit of adjustment. Try this exercise to get clear
Take a moment to sit down and consider the legacy that you want to leave behind. Imagine it's 10 or 20 years from now and your children are leaders in an organization. Imagine they are great leaders and awesome parents. See what kind of a leader they will be. Visualize the impact they have on the people around them. Notice in your mind their relationship with their own family.
Then come back to now. If you want to leave that legacy with your children, what do you need to do now to create that impact? Remember legacy is the way people approach work and life as a result of having come into contact with you. Your kids are in contact with you or have the potential to be each and every day. How will your contact today influence their approach to life when they are grown? Question: Where do you need to course correct to get your desired impact on your children? Are you lying when you say your family is the most important thing to you? Probably not. However your actions do speak louder than words. Even though you say your family is the most important thing to you, for many people, the time and energy you spend at work, says work is #1. Work-life balance leans precariously to the work side all too often. I used to put work first Looking back over my years as a leader in an organization, I spent many late nights and weekends at the office. Additionally, you would have usually found me at my kitchen table on alternating Sunday afternoons working on payroll. The truth was, if I weren’t at work physically, my mind would be there. I wasn't always the best role model for wellness in the work place. I still struggle to balance my time and energy Although family has always been my #1 value, I haven’t always demonstrated that it was. I won’t lie to you; even today I have to work hard at not letting work slip into the #1 time and energy space of my life. When a deadline is looming or someone pushes me to do something, it's easy to find myself putting my best self into work, leaving very little left for the rest of my life. I am not alone Among desires such as freedom, honesty, health and success, family is cited as one of the top 5 most important things on many people’s lists of what are key priorities in their lives. Like me, you probably very much want to spend time with your family. You want them to be a higher priority than work. You want to be able to focus on quality time with your family. Yet strangely, my actions, and perhaps yours, often show otherwise. Many of us struggle to find the time and energy to put family first The problem is, by the time you get home most days you have very little energy left for your family. You often say, “as soon as I get through this busy time…” or “I’m putting the time in now so that we will have time later”. The problem is, later never comes. When you are with your family, it's not quality time You run the kids to their extracurricular activities while you finish phone calls. You quickly check emails while you try to get supper on the table. You glance up from the computer as you talk to your kids about their schoolwork. As you wind down your night, you check your emails, in bed, beside your spouse, who incidentally may be doing the same thing. Is this the quality family time that you envisioned? My guess is not so much! Take an honest look back, is it quality time? Look back. Can you honestly say over the last 6 months that you feel you met your vision of how much quality time you would like to focus on with your family? If you can answer yes to that, congratulations! My assumption is that you are the minority. Most of us look back over the last 6 months, me included, and say, ummm…not quite. It's time for a change My goal moving forward is to have more quality time with my family. If you are in that boat too, here are some ways to increase your quality time with your family. 4 Ways to increase your quality time with your family
Nothing is worth more than this day If you give this day, this time and this energy to work, you can’t get it back to spend with your family. It is gone. It takes concentrated effort to keep bringing your focus back to family when the demands of work are so incredibly strong. It is worth it though, because you already know that your family is #1. Question: Which of these suggestions will you implement this week and how will you do that? Share your intention below as you will be more likely to follow through if you do. |
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