priorities

March 6, 2023

What Else Could I Do? – A Powerful Question

Firstly I can’t believe Sept last year was the last time I posted a blog update, note to self I need to do these more frequently however I did decide rather than schedule the posts routinely I was going to create them when I felt there was something new to say or a learning I have had for myself which I wanted to share in the spirit of continuous personal growth. Well today it was the later of the two when I was reminded of the famous phrase “you can make plans but you cant plan outcomes.”

Anyone who knows me well or has worked with me either as a client or a colleague will also know I love a good plan and my schedule and diary management are fundamental cornerstones to juggling both my professional and personal life. I like to think I have learnt to be alot more flexible in post covid times especially with the challenges (plus benefits of hybrid working) but this morning I realised that I still have work to do in this area.

I had taken time off work to attend a very important meeting regarding a family member and it had been in the diary for a long time. The other attendee from our side had confirmed numerous times that it was to go ahead but the 3rd party cancelled yesterday with very short notice and expects us to attend again at a date to suit them next week. Both of us have full diaries and responsiblities that impact many other players so can’t accomodate this request so now we have the timeconsuming job of trying to find another date where all parties can attend with will inevitably delay further action and an ultimate conclusion.

When things dont go to plan especially important meetings which are difficult to reschedule I still get extremely annoyed and it can derail me in that I can end up wasting time with emotional frustration/dissapointment and anger – not useful emotions to hold onto. When alternative plans devised last night between myself and the other attendee on our side to try and progress things our end were also prevented due to a closed motorway and hours spent in stationary traffic I began to think the universe was sending us both strong messages that we werent going to progress this particular issue at all today. It was at this point I asked one of my powerful coaching questions I normally ask my clients “what else could I do?” This question is the pivot point from problem to solution thinking and I find it really useful one to have in my kit bag. Another tip to change the energy from annoyance and frustration into something more positive is to change your surroundings. This is why there is a picture of my breakfast and coffee in a great cafe I found on the way back to the office after I had done a u-turn in grid locked traffic finally giving up on my original plans for the day.

Asking the question “What else could I do?” resulted in my knuckling down and doing some of the routine company admin that had been building up and for which the accountant was nagging me plus writing this alongwith a very pleasant hour in a good cafe plus an earlier than normal walk with a mate at the end of the working day. The orginial issues due to be discussed at our meeting are still outstanding but at least I had a productive day and managed to progress other projects on my agenda.

Sandra Webber works as an Executive Coach for both businesses and private clients and more of her work can be found in her two published books on Amazon https://amzn.to/3kO5JMO and https://amzn.to/3yhkISu

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March 1, 2022

Never Miss Twice – Cultivating High Performance Habits

Image created by Bristol Artist Rachael Johnson – Instagram @rachael.johnson20art

Building high-performance habits into your routine and working environment can serve both you and your team professionally and personally. Different leaders need and want different things from their schedules, so this post will look at how you might incorporate reflective activities into your routine to ensure greater long-term productivity.

Looking from the outside in

Dedicating time to planning your business strategy will allow you to establish productive parameters going forward. This is what we call working ‘on the business’ rather than ‘in the business. An effective way to approach this, is to make a list of the activities that you might deem ‘in the business’ which will often be delivery of services, sales and marketing, administration, and direct managerial work.

Working ‘on the business,’ however, might involve thinking about where you are going next, to ensure you are headed in the right direction and have the best tools to get you there. Assessing the processes your business runs on and thinking about streamlining them will help here.

Bringing your team in to work ‘on the business’ is a fantastic way to pool ideas, although be sure to keep your vision at the front of your mind, and to ensure your long-term plan fits with your employees’ wants and needs. This might be done by building in a regular monthly 1-1 with the team, a wonderful way to encourage inter-team communication at the same time.

Working on you

Taking time to work on self-development tactics will also benefit your productivity. A personal habit that comes up a lot in my client sessions, for example, is building in certain routines. Incorporating exercise or meditation into your day will benefit you on a personal level and begin to flow into your working productivity. Having a repeated morning routine is also likely to bring clarity to your day. Taking regular breaks through the day is important to keep your mind focused on the task at hand. Using a habit tracker can be a useful tool to make sure you carry out these activities every day, and after a while they will have become instinctive and routine. Having an accountability buddy who is either trying to cultivate the same habit or another habit but also wants to be held accountable for embedding it – you can buddy up and keep each other accountable for your progress.

Scheduling time

It is important to block time out in the diary for these reflective activities and the building of high-performance habits. It is extremely easy for tasks that are not short-term priority to be pushed behind those that produce immediately visible results. In the long-term, however, building strong routines based on habits that take a bigger picture approach, both to the business and to yourself, will be of great benefit. Establishing patterns is the most important thing here.

Joining one 20-minute yoga session or spending a lone hour thinking about your business strategy is not likely to make any difference. Practicing yoga every morning and blocking out a few hours per week to working ‘on the business,’ however, will ensure these positive activities are conducted. Of course, days are busy and adding anything more to the to-do list might seem overwhelming. But often, even small chunks of time dedicated to activities that are frequently repeated in a regular way, can make it easier for the rest of your time to fall into structured place.

A recent quote that resonated with me concerning habits was from a new book entitled High Performance – Lessons from the Best on Becoming Your Best – Jake Humphrey & Prof Damian Hughes https://amzn.to/35lgleq “Above all remember this simple motto: Never miss twice. Yes, on some days your habits might slip. But if high performers miss one day, they never miss a second.” Page 183. This quote was originally from Atomic Habits by James Clear https://amzn.to/3hw4Jr A another excellent book on this subject. Also check out The High-Performance Podcast https://bit.ly/3HBgYxo – listening to inspirational podcasts another habit to embed into your week.

October 11, 2021

Juggling Priorities

We all know the feeling of being overwhelmed. The inbox is flooded with unread messages, the calendar is full, and the to-do list looks unmanageable. It is important to gain the ability to manage your time between short-, medium-, and long-term tasks and projects. By exploring how to spend time on the right things we begin to see the importance of setting a personal agenda to get your focus back on track.

This post will introduce two tools for developing time and project management skills that have proved very effective in my work with clients. The first is the Third Habit outlined in Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which details the importance of prioritising tasks.

Managing priorities

In Habit 3, Covey encourages leaders to ‘Put First Things First’. Here he refers to the Four Quadrants of Time Management, by which all tasks are classified in terms of both urgency and importance. Tasks in Quadrant I might entail important deadlines and crises, those in Quadrant II tasks contributing to long-term development. Quadrant III refers to small and potentially distracting deadlines, whilst Quadrant IV’s distractions are frivolous and often pertain to procrastination.

The process of working with these quadrants entails first identifying the levels of urgency and importance in certain tasks, and in this way becoming more reflective on your working patterns. Covey advises us to spend more time in Quadrant II, with tasks and projects that are important but not urgent. These tasks are about planning, prevention, and improvement. By focusing attention on them we begin to prevent crisis situations from unfolding and maintain a healthy balance between productive work and understanding our limits.

To do this, Covey argues, we must reassess the time we spend on Quadrants III and IV, which should respectively be delegated to others and eliminated entirely.

Visualising the plan

To assess how much time, we spend in each Quadrant, however, we must first identify the levels of importance and urgency in our routine tasks/medium term projects/long-term goals. Here I introduce a second tool which comes from the fifth chapter of my book, The Evergreen Executive.

As an idea generating tool for you to design and generate your own Plan On A Page take a look at this downloadable template https://www.sandrawebbercoaching.com/downloads/Strategic_Plan_On_A_Page.pdf

By creating a plan on the page, it becomes easier to see what your priorities are and where your time should be spent. It can also be used to communicate and assign ownership to other members of your team

Taking charge

We all work collaboratively in many ways, and it is important to recognise the impact that relational work has on our time management. Leaders often feel themselves getting pulled in different directions by many people. They are often juggling multiple projects and are relied on heavily by different teams. By refocusing attention towards your individual agenda, it becomes easier to identify important tasks and prioritise these. Time management works hand in hand with personal management, and by regaining agency you can achieve efficiency in your work practice.

April 15, 2019

Reflection and Refine

goabeachsunset

So it has been a while since the last blog post and for a few reasons.

As many people do at the turn of the year I use it as a chance to take stock and review how the last year went and what the plans for the new year are. This year I decided to extend this period of reflection a bit longer so that I could take advantage of a planned trip to Northern Goa in India that I had had scheduled for a while. For me to take two whole weeks out of my schedule is unusual as I normally have a lot of shorter breaks throughout the year.

There was a specific reason for this trip and if you are interested in learning more take a listen to the podcast episode at Itunes link to podcast  

So against my default programming I didn’t set any new year resolutions with the intention of using the space and downtime while away to decide what the focus of 2019 was going to be both professionally and personally.  I think the trip to India was quite a landmark event as it had been a personal goal for nearly 5 years and the fact that it was actually going to happen was meaningful in itself. My normal  reaction is “so what next” and I know I made the mistake once before in 2006 after completing the Ironman in that I immediately entered another one which in the end I had to pull out of due to injury – the real truth is it wasn’t meant to be I was just meant to do one event like that and originally that had been my intention I just got carried away with post race euphoria and the rest of my team mates rushing to fill in entry forms for the next event.

The two weeks away were soon over and still no obvious new goals were emerging just a few subtle tweaks to what I am already doing and the slow realisation that maybe that was all I needed to do just a bit of refining and refocusing. I fundamentally have the right things in place so there isn’t a need for major changes. There isn’t a obvious new big scary goal or shift I want to make at this time and that is ok what I have is a few areas of focus professionally and personally for the rest of the year , things that I am already doing but just take them to the next level starting with a slight tweak to the podcast in renaming it The Career Tree to expand the exploration of industries/jobs/ways of working to show what choices we all do have in the world of work. So watch this space as we refine what we do as we approach our twentieth year in business as Kudos. Now that is scary where has all that time has gone?