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Do you find each week you intend to get a lot done, but mournfully realize that when Friday hits you’ve barely touched your own to do list? Instead, you accomplished a lot of things that other people added to your to-do list. In the process of reacting to everyone else’s demands you didn’t get the assignments done, you wanted to. Miserably, you note that some of the unfinished items on your list were crucial tasks to move important projects forward that were truly important to you and your team. Trust me, you are not the only one who feels like this at the end of your week.  Too much reacting rather than responding Leaders spend more time acting on requests from others than completing their own priority tasks. The sense of urgency to solve everyone else's problems leaves a manager feeling as though they spend their days chasing fires and never getting anywhere. If you want to get off that hamster wheel and do more of your essential work, then you will need to be more intentional about what you are doing with your time rather than reactionary. Critical to begin with planning It is critical that you start each week by planning your week. Before you get caught up in chasing everybody else’s plans and agenda for you, you must reorient yourself to what are priorities for you. By setting aside time each week to lay out what you want your week to look like, you will have better control of what actually happens. Get your head out of the sand Weekly planning sessions allow you to pull your head out of the sand. While it is important to put your head down and get work done at times, a leader's critical function is to lift their head (and their organization’s head) up and get a bigger picture view repeatedly. Weekly planning time is this head up, expansive view of the bigger picture. This time allows the leader to put things into perspective for them and their organization. Refocus Weekly planning allows you to get projects, plans, and tasks into focus again. From this outlook, you can choose how to respond to your week rather than frantically reacting to whatever shows up in your inbox, at your door or on your desk. Creating a habit of weekly planning puts you back in control and moving forward, rather than running around and around. 3 Steps to creating a weekly planning habit 1) Schedule a weekly time slot into your agenda First set aside time each week to do your planning. Schedule it into your agenda and stick to it. Depending on your level of responsibilities and your style, you will need 20 minutes to an hour.
Dealing with the big list of items You should now have a list of things you want to tackle in the upcoming week. For some of you, this might feel a bit overwhelming. For others, it might be refreshing. One way to look at it is that you now have everything out of your brain and in one place. There will be less of a chance of forgetting things or having things lost in the shuffle. Dumping everything onto this list, from this big picture perspective is in itself, helpful. It creates a roadmap for your week. This plan also you to set boundaries with others when they are trying to take your time. You can align their request up, with what remains on your to-do list for the week. From there that you can make an informed choice rather of what to do than react to what’s thrown at you. 3) Creating your plan From this list of action items, create your plan for the week.
Make weekly planning your priority Setting aside time to plan your week puts you on track to having a more productive week. Choose when you want to do this, then schedule planning time weekly into your agenda. During the identified time review your annual goals, quarterly projects, the previous week appointments and upcoming week’s schedule. From this analysis create a list of tasks you want to accomplish. Stay tuned next week, for how to then, prioritize that list. QUESTION: While this all sounds great, I'd love to hear your objections to doing this each week. What might get in the way? How would you work around that? Make a comment below.
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If you are struggling to get moving on a project or finding a lack of motivation in your team, you need to figure your the “why” behind the task. You need to discover your motive. A motive is something that causes a person to act such as:
At work, those truly aren’t the best motives. Even money doesn’t work to encourage people.  What does work to get motivation? Getting connected to why you need to do what you need to do is the strongest motivator there is. If we can’t understand the importance of what we are doing, connected to the bigger picture, there is nothing to pull us forward. Many of you have heard the following parable. I think it’s worth repeating here: A man came upon a construction site where three people were working.
What is your team's cathedral vision? We need to connect the brick we are each laying at this moment to the cathedral we are building together. You need to do this for yourself and your team. They need to understand why they are doing the task in front of them. People want to know they are part of something bigger. They want to know their part matters to that larger vision. Dig for your "Why" by writing The way to connect everyone to that larger vision is to spend time excavating the “why.” Set aside 5 minutes to ponder the questions listed below. Write your answers. Yes, write them down. The act of writing will completely transform this exercise from a waste of time to saving incredible amounts of time. If you don’t believe me, I dare you to try it. Then, tell me below if I was right or wrong. The questions to ponder When you are struggling with a lack of motivation, write down the answer the following questions:
I swear if you take 5 minutes to write down the answers to these questions you will save yourself and your team hours of frustration. If you take 15 minutes to do this exercise with your team, look out! You’ll be in for some incredible insights.
Motivate by finding your "why" When you are struggling with motivation, connect to the reason you are trying to do the work in front of you. What is the desire, urge, or inspiration to do the task? Why bother? Take time to write down answers to questions that help you to open up your thinking. Save yourself time and frustration by investing in connecting to your motive. You’ll spark that motivation in both you and your team. Question: When you actually wrote down the answers, what did you discover? Delaying, prolonging and stretching out tasks. We all do it. We joke about it. We tease others about it. Procrastination, however, does get in the way of our productivity. It seems that we are resigned to dealing with procrastination. It’s just a part of life. Right? It doesn’t have to be. Let’s look at common reasons why we procrastinate and three strategies to deal with three types of procrastination.  Which one of these is you? The reasons we put off task are many but generally fall into three categories. Check to see which one matches your current procrastination slump and discover a strategy for dealing with it. 1. The task makes you feel uncomfortable. In this situation, it is the job in front of you that feeds your resistance.
Strategy If the task in front of you makes you uncomfortable, “Name it to tame it.” By pausing and identifying what’s going on under the surface, you’ll be able to get a handle on your emotions that are triggering your procrastination. It is your emotions that stop your actions. Naming the emotion you feel, allows you deal with your resistance to the task in front of you.
2) The NEXT task makes you uncomfortable. Try finishing these sentence
What emotion did the next task bring up for you?
It’s the subsequent feeling, about what happens next, that has you procrastinating on the current project. Strategy Take time to recognize the links. Notice what is coming up after the task you are procrastinating on. Make notes of your fears and what anxiety right arises in you about the next step. Then, go back to the first strategy. Name it to tame it. Naming the emotions allows you to get a handle on it. Being in control of your emotions puts you back into motion.  3) You are depleted The most often overlooked reason we procrastinate is that we are truly depleted. We are like cell phones. We run out of charge. The problem is most of us only plug back in for a short time. Bumping back up to 10% charge doesn’t allow us to function adequately. Before long we are feeling drained again. When you’re running on empty, it’s extremely difficult to focus and use brainpower. Strategy
Employing these strategies to move through resistance will put you back in control. Noticing the emotional connection to what is going on helps you to regain momentum. Remember, name it to tame it. And, please don’t forget to recharge fully.
 Distractions and disruptions can mean disaster for big projects! Don’t let that happen to you. If you focus on the following three tips, you’ll find you can ditch distractions, diminish the disruptions and delight in what you can accomplish.  I was afraid I wouldn't get it done I am working on finishing up my first book. I wrote it in between traveling, speaking, coaching, and teaching as well as my day-to-day tasks of running my business. The fear that I was going to be able to pull it off with such a full schedule prompted me to develop a completion strategy. To finish the book amidst potential derailment from everything else going on, I needed to be focused. That meant I had to hone in on the productivity strategies I teach. The book I am writing means too much to me, I could not let it linger on forever. I knew it was time to practice what I preach.  To Do Lists Don't Work I wish I had known more about this kind of productivity when I was in management. Back then trying to get through proposal writing, preparing for accredited reviews, completing a performance appraisal, or trying in vain to get through an overhaul of our orientation manual meant putting it on my to-do list. The problem was, just because it was on the top of my list didn't mean it was first to get done. My list didn’t help me stay focused. When someone else thought his or her demand of my time was more important, I tended to react to their petition. (read more about ditching ginormous to-do lists) 3 Tips to help complete BIG projects If you have experienced similar challenges, here are some productivity hacks that will help you out immensely.
Blocking off large chunks of time and communicating to your team what you are doing is the first component to completing big projects. Don't stop there, though. Stay focused on the project by eliminating the distractions. Remember, you are your worst enemy. Keep the phone and the guilt as far away from you as possible. Eat healthy, move your body and get a good nights sleep. Mastering the basics gives you the edge you need to dig deep and get er' done.
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Kathy ArcherWomen leaders often hit a point where they find themselves in over their heads and wondering if they have what it takes to lead. Archives
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