Avoid the Summer Slowdown
𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿! Summer slipped into the Northern Hemisphere at 11:32pm this past Sunday, which means your mind might be dreaming of fun in the sun. While it's the perfect time to enjoy this sensational season, there are plenty of ways to make sure you’re efficiently accomplishing what matters most.
First, calendar the craziness. Line calendars for the next three months up along your wall so you can see everything coming up at a glance. These might be wall-hanging paper calendars or dry-erase calendars; the key is to have the next three months visible all at once. Then, add vacation details for you and your team members, holiday celebrations, impending deadlines as well as personal, family and squad commitments, including swim meets and camp registrations alike. Include all elements of your life, considering different colors for each of those buckets. When you know what is coming, you can more proactively invest your limited time in achieving all of your desired results for each area of life and address #AllTheThings that matter most for the life you want to craft.
Next, establish your non-negotiables. As summer schedules tend to become a little more erratic than normal, you and your team need to know which items have less flexibility than others. For me, I absolutely must maintain my weekly strategy session and daily wrap-up, but the good habits that keep each individual on track productively will vary from person to person. Do you expect your team members to have certain hours during which they are available for meetings? Is there an expectation for how team members should request vacation time or notify the rest of the team about a hiccup related to impending deadlines, which can be especially vital with varying schedules for summer vacations? This would be a good time to communicate leadership's expectations to everyone. Be as clear, concise and transparent as you can. Then, when looking at your personal commitments, which can't be shifted as they help you energize, stay centered and maintain some semblance of sanity? Make sure your must-have personal commitments are highlighted on the calendars you've hung on your wall and communicate their importance to those who can help you keep them scheduled. Is it getting outside daily or going to the pool? Maybe it's a daily yoga session or more movement? Whatever you need, be sure to ask for and commit to those fuel sources.
Consider where to shake things up. If a routine, habit or ritual is no longer serving you, what could you do differently to better meet your needs or more efficiently and effectively move you toward achieving your goals? If your current productivity toolbox doesn’t include what you need, who can you ask for help and from where can you get what you need? Is there a process you want to adopt or an app you’d like to try?
Focus your efforts on individual activities or tasks, not projects. It's not possible to check a project off your to-do list in one sitting. "Plan a party" is not a single action item; instead, there are many actions that make up that project. As you are mapping out the next three months, take time to break larger goals into smaller, bite-sized action items that can be completed as individual tasks. Make sure these are actions that move you forward with regards to goals in the areas of your life that matter most, avoiding the "shoulds" so you focus on your priorities. Start each task with a verb so as to fuel action, break each task down to as simple of a function as possible, estimate how long each action item will take to complete so you readily know those tasks taking 10 or 30 minutes, and assign a deadline for each task's completion. It is only in the instances that we assign a "when" for each "what" to be accomplished that we get more done so move your "someday" tasks to a specific date and time. Your future self will thank you!
Invest some time to reflect inward. With erratic schedules during the summer, many companies have fewer meetings that would otherwise be held at normal intervals; thus, this can be the ideal time to review and reset some of your organization's key elements. When was the last time your team updated its mission, vision, core values, annual goals, processes and workspace organization? If it has been awhile, block out time during the dog days of summer to look them over, adjust as needed and, thereby, boost productivity for what really matters most. Maybe you'll want to freshen up your customers' experiences, update what messages you are conveying across all marketing mediums and put yourself in the client's shoes. Further, this can be an ideal time for a personal audit, too, where you assess what you have learned and achieved thus far this year, what priorities need attention in the coming months and what "someday" actions need to be scheduled so they move from to-do to done. Do your goals for work, home, community or self-care need to be adjusted, and how can you realign your actions to focus on achieving each?
Finally, make time for fun and frivolity. If you block out time to truly enjoy the season, you'll be less distracted by what you are missing when you are focusing intently on getting things done. Brainstorm what cool things you can do to dive into summer enjoyment (i.e. your summer bucket list); then, once you've blocked off time for those activities, your mind will be less likely to drift from working towards wondering when you'll actually be able to celebrate summer fun. Plus, when you are taking time to enjoy all this season offers, you can truly take a break from everything else since you've planned for when those other goals will be addressed, enabling you to be more present and in the moment for all your must-do activities related to home, work, community and self-care alike.
When will you write out your plan for this summer? Only when you map out an action plan can you move each action from a dream to a goal. Make this your best summer thus far!
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