It’s a good job I checked my ‘to do’ list!
I forgot the MM as the day has been consumed with other things, I know you will all understand that feeling. If I used Covey’s Urgent and Important quadrants, I have been in the Urgent / Not Important space. Other people have stolen my attention, and time, which I should have managed a bit better.
It is quite nice to help others but, sometimes we need to say “no”. I didn’t today, and now I’m sending a late MM, which, is no big deal but still not in line with my normal plan.
Anyway, I hope you are having a great start to the week and you have managed to get through all of the things you needed to today and have prioritised things well. It’s not an easy ask, especially in our fast paced world with multiple distractions and a growing list of tasks and, I’d imagine that sometimes there is no-one to delegate things to 😩. So, how do you keep on top of things?
Like most of you, I tend to diarise things, which really helps with ‘freeing my brain up’. If I know it’s in the diary I can forget about it for now but, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t ‘slide’ as I get busy or it’s a task that requires brain power. Last week I had a workshop to design and I’d been sliding it towards a meeting deadline where I needed to share the slide deck and agenda. Fortunately, I got my head in the game and completed the task in time so my motivator was the deadline, it works!
Some other tips could be:
- Focus on the objective and the success of achieving things
- Check the impact of not achieving a task in time, who do you let down?
- Obviously, prioritise your tasks and be careful in what you say yes to
- Ask yourself “Is this what I get paid to do?”
- If Yes – get it done!
- If No – find someone else to do it
- Motivate yourself with a reward for getting it done.
- A chocolate bar
- Time reading, listening to music, meditating, going for a walk
- Organise a nice lunch away from the office
For getting this MM done, before 5pm, I’m going to the gym (for a pint!)