Reframe It: Change Your Thinking Change Your LIfe

Key: Manage activity in time

·         Plan, Plan, Plan.  Taking time to plan is essential to good activity management.  Otherwise you are just, as I call it, ‘running and gunning.’  You’ll start feeling like you are a pinball.

·         List of activities WRITTEN

·         How much time will each take? – be realistic BUT be generous

·         Do you have enough time to do the task next at hand?

·         How are tasks connected to something valuable – we tend to do things that are important to us or to someone else who is important to us

·         Prioritize – critical function or  ‘like to do’  Assign a number to  each task or activity from 1-5, 5 being the most important right now

·         Is what you are doing best accomplished IN TIME or THROUGH TIME?  Through Time is process: a number of steps to get there and those steps are taken over a period of time.  In Time are events that are single.

·         For Through Time activities, start with the end in mind and work backwards through the steps.

·         Set Boundaries WITH YOURSELF AND OTHERS – Strong internal and external boundaries are essential to be effective in managing activities.  Internal boundaries are about discipline: saying yes or no to you, inner control.  External boundaries are about others and your environment, saying yes or no to external situations.  If you need help with this, there are excellent books on the subject.

·         Focus:

o   Get focused, stay focused and stay on purpose

o   Focus on one thing at a time – you cannot do two things at once.  You may think you can, but the mind doesn’t work that way.  You may think you can talk to a customer while entering data on a spread sheet, but you cannot do a good job at either because you are not 100% present to either. .  Your customer will begin to sense that you go in and out of being present.  Determine which is most important and let the other go until later.

·         ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS – A messy desk is distracting.  A ringing phone is distracting.  Checking your email every two seconds or texting people is distracting.

·         Tell yourself ‘I have plenty of Time’ rather than ‘I’m running out of time.’

·         Use MOVE TOWARDS language – ‘I want this……’ rather than ‘I don’t want this…’

·         Ask for help

·         Do what you do well, let someone else do the rest

·         Use appropriate OPERATING MODE words – how to you language things that you are motivated to do?  Do you ‘have to’, ‘need to do’, ‘want to do’, ‘should do’ them.  Then take what you want to do, are able to do, but don’t do and change your language around those activities.

·         Remember, stuff happens: the network goes down, you lose electricity, a family member needs attention, or  someone gets sick.  The best way to inoculate from these things is to plan for them because they happen.  Notice, even when people have to take off long periods of time because of disaster or sickness, eventually life goes back to normalcy and things get done.  Being flexible is the key and focusing on what you want and what you are moving towards rather than getting caught up in what is happening now.  Not every plan can be perfectly executed.

·         Effective management of activity is a process of learning.  If you need help, find someone who is excellent at it and model them.  Find out how they do what they do. 

·         Stress:

o   Find ways to reduce stress.  Undue stress causes memory loss and mistakes.  Mistakes are time wasters

o   Give yourself time off.  No one can safely live on adrenaline for long periods of time.

·         Know that you will be ‘screaming’ busy sometimes  and sometimes you won’t.  Enjoy the downtime.