Time Off for Reflection, Regrouping and Prioritizing
I am taking the next two weeks off. Your regularly scheduled blog posts will resume on January 4th 2010. Why?
The short version – It’s the holidays, things are slow and it’s always good to take a break.
The long version – I need time to regroup and realign my priorities. Lately I’ve been scrambling like mad to keep up, I feel like I’m letting everyone around me down, including me. There are emails I haven’t returned, emails I haven’t written. I feel disconnected from my friends on Twitter and Facebook. Work takes up a large part of my personal time. I’m beginning to feel a little dazed and confused, like I’ll never be caught up. This is a red flag for me, time to take two steps back and regroup. I was already considering it when I downloaded What Matters Now from Seth’s blog. As I read through it this week so many passages struck a chord, professionally and personally. It confirmed what I was already thinking, I need to pause and regroup.
I am publicly declaring my holiday for two reason, the first so regular readers will know I haven’t disappeared, I haven’t run out of things to say (never!) and I will be back. Second, publically declaring it will help me stick to my plan, I’m not going anywhere so nothing external will change, but I need to slow down and take a breathe. That means no feedreader (and when I get back they ALL get marked as read), a more personal focus on Twitter and Facebook. It will be hard not to click on links posted by others so I may have to give up Twitter too. Disconnecting will be hard, but I also know how much I need it. The end of the year is a perfect time for reflection and regrouping, though I don’t do New Years resolutions.
So what will I be doing? reflecting, prioritizing, hopefully recharging, clearing my head, goal setting, deciding on boundaries and limits, reading, writing and thinking. So I leave you with these things to ponder for the next two weeks between turkey and presents and confetti and champagne
From What Matters Now:
- “…constantly we fear we are not doing enough.”- Ease, Elizabeth Gilbert
- “The echo chamber we’re building is getting larger and louder.” – Connected, Howard Mann
- “Leadership is more than influence. It is about reminding people of what it is we are trying to build – and why it matters.” – Vision, Michael Hyatt
- “Be honest, be authentic, and speak from your passion.” – Speaking, Mark Hurst
- “Just because you win a hand doesn’t mean you’re good and you don’t have more learning to do.” – Poker, Tony Hsiech
- “…the ability to draw lines and boundaries within which we protect and preserve the mental and emotional space to do our work and to be true to ourselves.” Tough-mindedness, Steven Pressfield
- ” You are immortal. The result of everything you do today will last forever.” Forever, Piers Fawkes
- “What IS working, today, and how can we do more of it?” Change, Chip and Dan Heath
- “Forget about working on your weakness -> focus on supporting your strengths.” Most, William C. Taylor
From elsewhere
- Want to Innovate? Stop Working So Hard
- 11 Refreshing Ways to Bring Out the Awesomeness in Life
- How To Level Up
- Coding Simplicity: How to Avoid Feature Creep in Your Life
- How To Focus On What Truly Matters
- Simple Living Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life
For Those Who Are an Overnight Success and For Those Who Aren’t a Video Series From Chris Brogan
These videos are from Chris Brogan’s Over Night Success Series. There are 9 videos total covering topics such as Grinding vs Clocking – Time and the Overnight Success, Pity Party, Small Talk is Big, Belief Systems, The Competition, What it Takes, No Excuses & A Call to Arms. These videos are great even if you aren’t an over night success, even if you aren’t a success. 
These 3 are my favorite (although it was hard to pick)
Take time off – I’ve said it before you need your down time but I’m always happy to point out when others say the same thing. :-)
Don’t believe the hype – I included this one because Chris says – by over night success I mean 10 years of hard work.
Here’s another bag of money – on excuses. We all make excuses that become between us and our goals. Decide what your priorities are. Stop making excuses.
Managers – The Message You’re Sending About Time is Affecting Customer Service
CC image courtesy of Robbert van der Steeg on Flickr
The choice you need to make is will it affect it in a good way or a bad way?
We are all busy. My to-do list is so long at this point I keep a master running list and a small list just for today, because looking at the long list inspires panic.
As individuals, managers and organizations it can be easy to keep adding responsibilities, expectations and tasks to our list and to the lists of others. Especially at a time like this, when you may be short staffed, or just busier than normal (library usage goes up during a recession) or both.
Unfortunately this attitude towards time can really hurt you in customer service. How staff feel about their time and the expectation from management affects how they interact with patrons. It’s the difference between handing someone a call number and vaguely gesturing towards the stacks and leaving the desk and walking the patron to the book. It’s the difference between hand the book over and walking away or asking if you can help them find anything else. It shows up in the type of greeting patrons receive in that minutes of extra chit-chat so many love, in determining if the information they are asking for is really the information they are seeking.
Don’t think it’s just front line staff either. It can mean the difference in pulling that raggedy looking book or letting it circulate one more time, in ensuring the door knobs and other areas are properly disinfected, in how fast a phone call is returned. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
Want to get smart about time? Here are some suggestions from How Smart Leaders Talk About Time on Harvard Business.
1) Establish a shared language that distinguishes between the “pressure on time” and “impact on goals” factors.
Team leaders often fail to make this distinction clear. Tasks are transmitted without specifying if the emphasis on such task is due to:
- a combination of the above mentioned two factors
- the fact the task has a remarkable impact on the individual or group’s goals
- the restricted timeframe within which the task must be completed
2) Reduce those activities that, despite being important, must be performed under pressure. (emphasis mine)
A successful leader reduces “urgent and important” activities to a minimum, by monitoring:
- How tasks are planned and delegated.
- How “urgent and important” activities can be reduced.
- How much free-of-distraction time people have for high-impact activities.
Want to Innovate? Stop Working So Hard
Putting in all those extra hours, either from the office or home, isn’t help you. At least not with creativity, innovation or those ah-ha! moments.
Some of our greatest moments of insight happen where we least expect them to. From the Wallstreet Journal:
It happened to Archimedes in the bath. To Descartes it took place in bed while watching flies on his ceiling. And to Newton it occurred in an orchard, when he saw an apple fall.
From the same article but even more interesting:
Left to its own devices, our brain activates several areas associated with complex problem solving, which researchers had previously assumed were dormant during daydreams. Moreover, it appears to be the only time these areas work in unison.
Of course it’s not as simple as just lounging about in your robe & fuzzy slippers. You have to prepare in order to enable those insights to happen. From Fast Company:
The researchers found support for the idea that blinding insights favor a prepared mind–that is, you’ve got to really internalize the problem at hand if you’re to find any sort of solution. But to actually bring those insights to life, you’ve got to step back.
More Readings
- A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight: Researchers Map the Anatomy of the Brain’s Breakthrough Moments and Reveal the Payoff of Daydreaming
- Hard Work’s Overrated, Maybe Detrimental.
- The Eureka Hunt
- How to Become a Design Genius: Take Time Off. Lots of It.
- Stefan Sagmeister: The power of time off – TED talk video
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