On Monday, I started the week feeling completely overwhelmed!
And it was all my own doing 🤦🏻♂️
Which somewhat ironic, because I literally teach people the CODE to reduce stress and improve their productivity. But being the human I am I completely ignored my own rules, processes and hacks and fell into bad habits.
I had skipped a weekly review two weeks ago, then missed the next one and started this week feeling behind, lacking clarity and overwhelmed. And that was after an awesome weekend away with friends!
It’s now 4:15 on a Friday and I’m clear of the clutter, significantly more relaxed and ready for the weekend AND next week.
How?
Here’s 5 things I did…
- I recognised the problem | Once I acknowledge the problem I realised I needed to make space to get back on top of it all.
- I did my Weekly Preview | Normally I do this on a Friday, but as I missed it I did it first thing on Monday. A weekly preview is looking ahead at the week and know what is important (not urgent) and understanding where I will fit it all in. This week my preview included a commitment to do a weekly review. I also decided to train to Auckland instead of drive to get productive time back.
- I did a full weekly review | I fully cleared the deck, inbox zero, capture locations sorted, tasks captured, and then did my weekly preview for next week, so I know my plan.
- I updated my projects | Often when we are flying by the seat of the pants, we are tasking rather than batching work to do with projects. I got clarity on what’s next in the right places.
- I directed work to others | Because I had done the above, I knew what I needed to do and what needed to be directed others. And then I handed off a bunch of work that will now happen without me.
∴
One of the biggest challenges I see in people when they get overwhelmed, is they don’t make the space to self-correct and to do that quickly. If you are ending the week overwhelmed, maybe you need to cancel some meetings and make space to breath.