Break Free from Rigid Routines
Like you, I’ve been busy the last few weeks. Sitting down to share my thoughts about leadership, organization culture and workplace wellbeing has been challenging. More soon on what I’ve been up to—all great things!
I carved out a bit of time after listening to a recent podcast that was too good to keep to myself.
The popular Sparked! podcast is hosted by Jonathan Fields, creator of the Sparketype framework, a useful tool to help you discover the kind of work that “makes you come alive”(my test results are right on).
In a recent episode, Fields interviewed Laura Mae Martin, Productivity Advisor at Google. She’s big on “little shifts” – her term for small productivity hacks – and describes a bunch of them in her new book Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing. In the interview, she shared a few of these “simple” ways to improve our relationship to — and enjoyment of — our work.
Martin’s most important tip is to get clear about our top three priorities for roughly the next three months, both personally and work-wise.
Say you’re working on a big project at work while preparing to move to a new city. At the same time, you’re training for a 10K race. Martin says those are big activities and plenty to dedicate your prime time and energy to in the coming weeks. Adding more priorities will lead to overwhelm, which many of us already know from experience.
The Calendar Doesn’t Lie
After winnowing your near-term priorities to three, we must make sure our calendar lines up with them. If whole days or weeks go by when none of your “Top 3” show up on your calendar, that’s a clue to reevaluate how you’re spending your time. What shifts can you make to do less of the lower-level chores and more of the really important ones?
Instead of “busy-ness,” a more humane view of productivity, she says, is the alignment of our intentions with our real-world actions. (Interestingly, in my burnout prevention workshops, I share an exercise to align our behaviors with our core values.)
Martin offers tips for figuring out what time or day or week you’re most likely to feel like doing a key activity, such as working out, reading or writing. We’re all different so what works for me may not work for you. And, instead of rigid schedules, she suggests we identify –through trial and error -- “fluid routines” most conducive for accomplishing what we care most about.
Her comments on procrastination were especially helpful. Rather than seeing it as a flaw, endlessly putting off tasks might be important feedback that you’re trying to do something at the wrong time. Ask yourself, “Might there be a different time when I’m naturally more inclined to do the task?”
I liked Martin’s framing of clarifying and communicating needed boundaries in the affirmative. If you have trouble setting boundaries and you want focused time to write first thing in the morning, for example, it’s better to tell colleagues, “I take meetings between 11 and 3” – rather than “I don’t take meetings before 11 a.m.” This approach makes boundary conversations friendlier, especially if you offer a reason like, “I’ve learned my most productive writing time is 9-11 a.m.”
What little changes might you make to free yourself to do good work and feel good, too?