Think about the best work week you have ever had. Maybe you just started daydreaming about that award trip to the Bahamas, or the leadership conference (golfing vacation) in Palm Springs….but for the purpose of this exercise, let’s consider something else.
Think about a week that you really brought your “A” game to the office.
You were on time, fully present and prepared for all your meetings. You closed the deals you were working on. You executed with excellence. Not only this, but you had time to think, to plan, to exercise, and you were home in time for dinner! Did I mention email? Yes, you were even caught up on all email correspondence. Not just your work email, but your Linkedin, Facebook, and personal email accounts.
Even as I type this, I am thinking “Yeah, right!” I was tracking with my own exercise, until I got to that email part. It’s time for a coaches’ confessional: I am really struggling to keep up with my email inboxes. I have to admit that email communication is one of my weaker disciplines.
So if I were coaching me, what questions would I ask? What direction would I take myself in this situation?
The first place I would start is with my Perfect Week. The Perfect Week is an exercise we coach clients through to help them visualize what a week filled with High Payoff Activities from their Life Plans and Business Plans would look like. We then have them add the Low Payoff Activities which cannot at this time be delegated or dropped. We also coach them to schedule no more than 70% of their time, leaving room for the unplanned opportunities and challenges that creep into all of our days.
This is just what my assistant Lynne and I did last week. We went back to my Perfect Week to make sure it is synchronizing with my real schedule.
In years past I had two times blocked out each day for emails and returning phone calls. Somehow, I had lost that discipline. The good news is that, by doing this exercise, we recaptured that discipline, and Lynne is already scheduling these times back into my days. I am confident this will help me to keep my inboxes managed and my stress level down.
I know this has worked for me, and I believe it could help you as well. Please feel free to contact us at info@buildingchampions.com if you want a Perfect Week Time Blocking template.
Cheers,
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Tags: Coaching, Core4, Disciplines, Email, Time Blocking
Sad thing for me is that I couldn’t remember a perfect week in terms of productivity/life-balance, I had to resort to imagining! I am getting closer though through the help of David Allen’s GTD system-especially when it comes to email. Merlin Man on 43folders.com has a podcast of a talk he gave at Google entitled “Inbox Zero”–for those that don’t know, he’s a huge GTD fan. It was extremely helpful and I did have several “perfect weeks” with handling email. Problem is that my work has these huge disruptions of intermittent extended travel and shifts in focus. Sometimes it’s a week in a very rural village situation with no internet The weekly review is the key to keeping on track (with any system) and somehow these disruptions bump me off the wagon.
Thanks, Daniel for the encouragement to get back on.
Shalom,
Stu
How long are those slots?
It is uneblievable (well, not really) how much more productive I am when I follow this simple discipline. I am reviewing mine today and ensure that it matches up with my Life Plan and daily disciplines. John