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Three Things I Do When In A Time Crunch

Three Things I Do When In A Time Crunch

 “You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying. What you can do is calm yourself. The storm will pass.”
~ Timber Hawkeye

 

I want to share with you three things I do when I have more things to do than time available to do them in.

I know that in crunch times, it’s all too easy to fall into a state of overwhelm but I learned long ago that overwhelm is a choice and so staying out of overwhelm is also, therefore, a choice. Here’s what I do instead.

 

I reject overwhelm

I’ve written about overwhelm as it effects business owners several times over the years and I always talk about my belief that overwhelm is a choice.

If you think about it, it makes sense. If it weren’t a choice, how is it that some people can feel overwhelmed having far less to do than other people who don’t feel overwhelmed with far more to do.

It’s a bit like rain, one person can look out of the window see rain and feel down, whilst another person (me!) can look out of the window, see rain and feel uplifted. It all depends on how we think about rain (or overwhelm!) I learned many years ago that if I succumb to feelings of overwhelm, they paralyzed me and make it certain that I will in fact get far less done than if I choose to think about things differently.

So rather than collapse into thoughts of “this is impossible, I’ll never get everything done!!” instead, I get strategic and practical and I breakdown my list into priorities and start to take focused and sustained action.

 

I manage my energy

When feelings of overwhelm and stress are circling, I know that the easy route is to try and bury those feelings in food, netflix and doom scrolling. Believe me when I tell you that I am in no way perfect and have taken the easy route more times than I care to mention. It’s precisely because I’ve been down that road and know where it takes me, that when push really comes to shove I know that I need to do everything I can to protect my mindset and my energy. Something neither of those easy options do.

So instead of checking my phone first thing in the morning, listening to the news while I make breakfast, and then rushing around trying to do a million things (all while feeling heartbroken at the state of the world), I actually seriously slow the f*ck down.

The busier I am the more likely it is that I’ll take the time to write in my gratitude journal first thing, then when I get to my office, I’ll burn some incense, savour my cup of coffee and listen to calming music, usually from either Satnam Kaur or Beautiful Chorus before I even think about work.

The impact this has on my ability to stay calm, centered and focused is huge. Only then will I allow myself to tackle my workload.

 

I bend time

Years ago when working with my first Business Coach, I was working on a email course for my audience and in a session, when my coach asked me why I hadn’t done all of my homework, I complained that the lessons for my email course were taking forever to create. I was at that point taking nearly a whole week to create each lesson’s email.

My coach, who was fond of giving me meaty challenges, invited me to create the next week’s lesson in just 90 minutes. As you might imagine, I laughed in response. “not possible” I argued but he persisted. He told me to put aside 90 minutes the following day and use my phone to set a timer, the goal was to complete the email lesson before the 90 minute timer went off. I agreed to try but I couldn’t help feeling like he was setting me up to fail.

The next morning, I did as he told me and something miraculous happened. I did it. I finished the lesson in 90 minutes. I was amazed, it felt like magic and I haven’t looked back since.

I later learned that this is a tool called time-blocking and I’ve been a convert ever since.

My time-blocking game has advanced over the decade since that first experience with it and I now follow the 52/17 rule.

This means using a timer, I spend 52 minutes working on a specific task followed by a 17 minute break.

When I am working I am 100% focused on the task at hand and if I feel tempted to do something else, like check my email or scroll on social media, I only need to look up at my timer and know that soon I’ll have a 17 minute break in which I can do anything I want.

When I’m lucky enough to get a whole day to work on things I’ll plan out my whole day like this using a time calculator. It’s a full day but with plenty of breaks.

And there you have it, 3 things I do to stop me falling apart when I have more work than I can possibly handle! Is there anything you would add to this list? Or anything on this list you would love to try, hot reply and let me know.

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Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

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The Secret To My Consistency

The Secret To My Consistency

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”

~ Confucius

I believe that showing up consistently is one of the key components to business success and also one of the hardest things to do. This is what I have learned about being consistent in both life and work endeavours.

I haven’t always been disciplined. In fact quite the opposite, for many, many years I was a bit of a disaster on that front. In my twenties I would often declare new goals or intentions only to be laughed at by friends. “I’m going to give up alcohol” I would boldly declare. “One day I will run the London Marathon.”, “I’m going to write a novel.” All statements I made, all dismissed or laughed at by friends. Why? Because I was known for having big ideas, but then lacking the discipline and consistency to follow through.

I loved to dream big, but forming consistent habits that helped me to achieve those big dreams was a struggle. I would endeavour to do something, such as give up drinking for example and I would last a few days or even a few weeks before my resolve would crumble and then I’d be back to square one.

Fast forward a couple of decades and I’ve actually achieved all three of those goals and many, many more besides. Now when I say I’m going to do something, friends and family don’t doubt for one minute that I will. People don’t laugh at my lofty goals anymore, they’re inspired by them.

So what changed?

How did I go from having terrible will power and follow through to being disciplined and consistent in both my personal and professional life?

The answer is surprisingly simple. So simple that you might at first dismiss it but I encourage you to really think about what I share and examine how it applies to your life.

In a nutshell, I stopped seeing things as black and white. Good or bad, success or failure. I stopped striving for perfection.

Allow me to explain. In my younger years, if I made a bold statement like I’m going to run every day this year, when the day came that I inevitably couldn’t go for a run — perhaps due to time or health restraints — I would consider that a failure and my thinking would go something like…

I said I was going to run every day, I didn’t run today so I’ve failed at my goal.

End of story. Well not quite the end of the story, because with that perceived failure came a whole load of being hard on myself. Negative self-talk that would have me believe that I was a failure, lacking in will power and incapable of sticking to my goals. You know the sort of thing — the lovely feedback we like to give ourselves that leaves us feeling empowered and motivated to do better (not!)

For many years, I lived in this pattern, slowly undermining my own sense of self worth until gradually I started to see another way. With time I realised the flaw in my black and white thinking and I started to embrace the gray.

I started to see that doing things imperfectly was better than not doing them at all.

That’s how I managed to run a marathon in 2008, even after an injury that prevented me from training for months. I had the perfect excuse to bail on my goal but instead, as soon as I could, I got back out there for my training runs.

When I committed to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days back in 2012, it was this new way of thinking that allowed me to come back to and complete the goal, even when by day 25 of 30, I had only written 4,449 words. I don’t mind telling you that those last 5 days were intense!!

And more recently, when I declared that I wanted to do 100 days of walking to get fit again after two babies, I didn’t give up when on day 6 (the first Saturday), I failed to get out for a walk. Instead, I adjusted my goal from 100 consecutive days of walking to 100 days of walking Monday to Friday and then when I missed a Thursday because of a stinking cold, I simply adjusted my goal to 100 days of walking, no matter how long they take. I’ll get to my 100 days and by then it will be a consistent habit and I will be healthier and happier in my body.

Not giving up when I fail to do something perfectly, is one of the most life-changing shifts I’ve ever made.

Coming back to the goal after every slip or stumble is what helps me to stay consistent. Not beating myself up when I don’t do it perfectly is what helps me to stay consistent. Allowing life to get in the way of my ambitions, without then throwing in the towel is what helps me to stay consistent.

How about you? What’s your relationships to goals, commitments and consistency? Does my story help? If so, let me know in the comments.

SIGN UP FOR MY SOULFUL STRATEGIES WEEKLY

 

Once a week, in the form of an e-letter, I share the best of what I know about building a business with integrity for conscious business owners.

The intention behind these letters is to be a voice for integrity within your (undoubtedly) cluttered inbox. To be the one email you can count on to contain strategic and soulful advice for building a business without selling your soul.

If you want to receive the Soulful Strategies Weekly, simply share with me your name and email address below and you’ll start recieving emails right away.