It’s almost comical to say but I’m busier than I’ve been in years. Each week I’ve got multiple live webinars, partner/team meetings, coaching meetings and connecting with others in the gaps.
But that was all intentional when I left iThemes as I knew I needed to “keep myself out there.”
I knew I’d have the tendency to not reach out and talk to people so I built all of it in.
The problem is I now need more margin in my calendar for deep work. Also I’ve dropped some balls and procrastinated on some thing going from Zoom to Zoom.
In my need to get more efficient while ensuring important things aren’t dropped, I’ve been working on my Trello board with my wrangler Karen, who is an insanely organized professional, which is why I hired her.
I’ve had a to-do list for work as long as I can remember. It’s essential for any professional to keep track of tasks.
The past couple of weeks as Karen has essentially been coaching me on optimizing my personal board she mentioned a great tip/hack I’ve added to my workflow:
When you put an item on your to-do list, put a semicolon after it and list your next step.
For so long I’ve been doing step one:
Record my to do’s so I get them out of my head.
But this second step is really incredible.
Too often when I’d return to my list to gauge priorities and tackle them I’d have to do more thinking.
Sometimes I’d just be overwhelmed.
But taking a brief moment to ask, “what’s my next step with this item?” has sped me up, helped me prioritize and truly “eat the elephant.”
It’s one new upgrade that I think is going to stick for the long term.
This post is part of my 30 Days of Clicking Publish