Creating a Weekly Habits Template in your Calendar

Consistency builds momentum. Small consistent steps are more powerful than large sporadic ones; they lead to great achivements. Weekly habits are the best path toward being consistent. Think about the habits you have each week. With a little conscious shaping, you can free up great amounts of time and energy, and thrust your goals forward.  

Creating a weekly habits template in your calendar is a fun brainstorm session that bring clarity and inspires growth. It prioritizes your goals and provides a structure for the "to do's" to go around. These are the steps to creating one:

1. Open up a blank weekly calendar. Open up your electronic calendar and set the view to: week. Skip ahead a few weeks into the future so that its not overly crowded and set up the appointments as recurring starting next week.  
2. Design your time in a way that works best for you.  
1. Think about the typical things that you need to take care of each week and place them where they work best. Consider: prioritizing your day each morning, projects, networking, creative time, working out, personal renewal time, family time, date night, an organization session for the week, grocery shopping, etc. If you're having trouble getting started, leverage AI to help build the initial weekly schedule
2. Place a couple of time blocks for your goals where they fit best.  These are creative sessions where you dig in and drive progress on your most important goals (ex: Wednesday afternoon - 2 hours for goal #1).
3. Build in time for any processes that have recurring tasks. Set aside time blocks on days that will help make those most successful. 
3. Optimize and refine. Step back and review your time. Move things around to optimize. Are there changes you can make to create an ideal flow? Group like tasks together, take care to not overload a particular day, and leave extra flexibility on days you want it most.  

One of the most important things in planning is to remain flexible.  Remember that moving planned items around when needed is not only okay day-to-day, it's encouraged. Reviewing this template every quarter or so is a great way to reflect on what's working well and identifying opportunities to improve. 

The Art of Managing Up

Managing up is the practice of building your relationship with your boss and consistently elevating the output you achieve together. It includes learning their preferences and desired outcomes, asking thoughtful questions to understand nuances, keeping them informed of progress, and elevating results. 

 

How to Manage Up:

·                       Build trust they can count on you to deliver

o   Manage expectations. Understand what outcome they’re looking for, when they expect to see results, and any requirements they have. Let them know when to expect what.

o   Proactively update them on progress. Set up cadences to provide consistent visibility into status and review important milestones. Minimize the need to require their involvement while giving them an opportunity to shape the work that you do.

o   Renegotiate when necessary. If plans change, communicate early to provide opportunities to adjust commitments. If you run into an issue they should be aware of, show up with a proposed solution that has been well-vetted by SME’s.  

·                       Set the bar for high performance

o   Communicate their way. Understand their preferences for communication methods and styles. Senior executives are busy; summaries that they can easily scan, with additional detail attached typically work best.

o   Put yourself in their shoes. Understand their desired outcomes. Think through how they would approach it and what questions they would ask. 

o   Add a golden touch to everything you work on.  Always elevate the quality and value of the output. Make each item that you deliver simple for all who consume it.

·                       Create value

o   Actively seek feedback. Welcome their input and listen intently when they give it to you. Capture the critical points and follow up to ensure you solve for them.

o   Use their time wisely. Minimize the need for urgent distractions. Use 1:1’s for strategic alignment.

o   Take great care of everything assigned to you. Identify how you can help them more and continue to pull work from them as much as possible.  

Those who have mastered the ability to manage up add incredible value to the work that their team is responsible for.  When you focus on how you can provide the best service as well as increase value, you take a different level of ownership over the work that you do.  When you are consistently focused on elevating your game in a way that also positively impacts your team, you quantify your ability to create the optimal impact. 

My Favorite Life Hack: Weekly Organization Session

The hour I spend organizing myself makes the single biggest impact on my week. When I take time out to look from a big picture perspective, I see new opportunities, prioritize things that fill my cup, and create greater focus on what is most meaningful. These changes to my approach significantly improve my experience and impact.  

A weekly organization session carves out creative space to review, reconnect, and readjust. The following structure guides you through a simplified workflow that creates an optimized blueprint for the week, aligning goals and actions to take large steps forward consistently.  

Weekly Organization Instructions:

Pick one day per week and set up a recurring appointment with yourself in your electronic calendar (with a reminder) for your weekly organization session. Carve out an hour or so to align, sync, refresh, and renew. I recommend doing this on Friday for the upcoming week. That way you can communicate to others ahead of the week and everyone can dig right in on Monday morning.

 Steps

• Design your Schedule
• Schedule the “rocks” first - things that are critical such as appointments, etc.
• Add in time for goals - set timeboxes for key priorities (30 mins to two hours each)
• Add in time for relationships 
• Narrow your Focus
• If you have critical tasks that need to be done this week, block out time for them
• Review what's on your schedule and evaluate if you really need to attend meetings scheduled; objectively consider what things can be let go or delegated
• Balance your time and include things that recharge you and take care of your critical needs
• Be Flexible
• As things come up, move things around and adjust 
• Don’t overdo it - leave room each day for follow up, impromptu discussions, etc.

By taking time out once per week to setup our days, we make the things that matter most to us our true top priorities.  Being selective about what makes it into our lives helps ensure we experience our ideal levels of fun, growth, and accomplishment.

Other Favorites:

• My Favorite Time Management Trick
• My Favorite Organization Trick
• My Favorite Trick for Feeling Truly Fulfilled
• My Favorite Daily Mindset Practice

Winter: The Season for Reflection

Winter is the darkest and coldest season of the year. Trees are bare. Animals are hibernating. Just like nature, our energy levels drop and we rest more. We celebrate the year with holiday traditions and those we love. We reflect on what we achieved and set new resolutions.

The winter solstice is the longest night of the year. It marks a turning point, known as the return of the new sun, when darkness reaches its peak before the days start to get longer and warmer. A completion of the seasonal cycle, it is an optimal time to pause and reflect. This event has been widely celebrated since ancient times as symbolizing victory of light over darkness.

There are several ways to make the most of winter:

• Make memories with those you love the most

• Have warm soup, light the fireplace, and watch movies

• Clear out the clutter and reorganize your working spaces

• Light a candle and reflect on the experiences and outcomes of the year

• Think about what new experiences you want in the upcoming year

Enjoy your winter!

Leveraging AI to Plan for the New Year

This may not be a shocker, but I love planning ahead. I’ve recently incorporated AI into my annual process and it’s significantly improved the results. AI accelerates and stretches the thinking. The real value comes from iteration and intentionality. Here are three prompts that make it really fun.

This is a fun exercise to set yourself up for a fresh start. For the first time, I recommend spreading this out over several days to give yourself time and space to think through adjustments you’d like to make before finalizing one piece and moving onto the next.

Prompt 1: A Day in the Life

• I am currently a [title] at [company]. I aspire to become a [ultimate long-term role] by [year]
• I was born in [year] and I plan to work until the age of [age]
• My personal goals include [financial, relationships, etc.]
• [Add as many specifics as possible on things that are important to you]
• Tell me a story of a day in the life of my future self based on this description

[Continue to give feedback to adjust anything that doesn’t resonate with you and/or improvements that you think of. Repeat edits until you end up with a day that makes you feel excited!]

 

Prompt 2: Daily Schedule

[build upon the same conversation as above]

• Create a daily schedule for me to follow that will allow me to achieve this life
• I work [which days, which hours, do you need to drive in, what time do you prefer to start work]
• I need [x] minutes to get ready
• In the evenings, I like to [x / adjust and get as detailed as needed]
• [Add in any specific nuances that happen on specific days, preferences you have that you want to plan around, etc.]

[Continue to give feedback to adjust anything that doesn’t resonate with you and/or improvements that you think of. Repeat edits until you end up with a schedule that makes you feel excited!]

 

Prompt 3: Career Map

[build upon the same conversation as above]

• Create a strategic plan including a career map for me with a timeline. Include an objective and milestones. Tell me what to do and what not to do. Provide the long-term high-level timeline, a more detailed plan by month for the current year, and an even more detailed plan for the current quarter.

[Continue to give feedback to adjust anything that doesn’t resonate with you and/or improvements that you think of. Repeat edits until you end up with a plan that makes you feel excited!]

In the end, add your personal touch and make the final edits until it is most meaningful for you.

Consciously Select Your Influences

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn

Whether we realize it or not, our beliefs have a great impact on directing and influencing our lives. Research shows that we subconsciously collect data from our experiences which forms into emotional memories. These emotions amplify in our brain to create feelings, which transform thoughts, and form beliefs to help us make sense of our experiences. Over time we identify patterns. These emotional memories create an unconscious lens through which we view our world.

We form beliefs around all types of things such as food, relationships, politics, religion, etc. Sometimes our beliefs can interfere with our ability to grow and learn. Through relationships with others we can see our beliefs from various angles, allowing us to re-examine and re-evaluate our opinions and feelings.

When we change our thoughts, we change the way we are affected by them, and can create more positive experiences. By being selective of what situations we put ourselves in, we can reduce unwanted emotions and thought patterns.

Whatever we focus our attention on and invest our energy into has a great impact on what we experience. The environment you surround yourself with can greatly alter the information that you consume, the attitude that you take, and the beliefs that you form.

Suggestions:

• Be selective of the people that you spend most of your time with. Increase the time you spend with those that inspire you to be your best self and lift you up. Decrease the time you spend around people that bring you down or reinforce negative behaviors.

• Be selective of what you focus on. Think about the outcome you want, the current "gap" between reality and your ideal goal, and how you can get there. Review progress often and refine your approach.  Striving for a goal is what Frankl believed was the greatest "meaning of life". :)  When you notice yourself focusing on worry or negativity, redirect your attention.

• Be selective of the information that you consume.  It can be very easy to believe what we hear, even when it's not true. The best of us can start to believe false information when we hear it repeatedly. We are living in a time when "fake news" is a common phrase and many people aren't even aware of it when they see it. Be critical about what you read and/or listen to. Find reliable sources that highly vet facts before they publish information. Unbiased is ideal. If you can stand it, be open to both sides. The best source I've found is: Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart. Let me know if you find a better one. 

References:

• Feeling is Believing - Psychology Today
• 5 Ways to Get Your Unwanted Emotions Under Control - Psychology Today
• Methodology behind checking media bias and level of factual reporting

Action Plans Accelerate Results

Collaboration is way more effective with a simple execution plan.  

Any time you have a team collaborating to achieve an outcome, an action plan is critical. It guides alignment on a unified approach and accelerates meaningful results. Depending on the size of the initiative, it can be a simple list or it can be a full blown project management system. One method does not “fit all”.  The best approach is the simplest tool for the scope of the work. 

Regardless of the tool, key components to include in the plan:

• Objective (why is this needed, how important is it)
• Goals and success metrics (what does winning look like)
• Defined scope to drive focus (what's in, what's out)
• Pilot (how can we achieve a quick win and accelerate learning)
• Key milestones with one clear owner (what are the big overarching critical pieces)
• Action items with clearly defined outcomes, due dates, and one owner (who does what by when)

Action Plan Best Practices:

• Design a team that has diverse perspectives, strong contributors, and is a manageable size (3-7 is optimal to enable speed and collaboration)
• Review the draft with your key stakeholders. Invite feedback and incorporate their ideas in to the plan.
• Load the document in a shared location that is easily accessible by all team members
• Establish standard status reporting processes and channels, including meeting cadences to drive progress and visibility across all impacted groups (working team, SteerCo, leadership updates, etc.)
• If an item is off track (red or yellow status), include the plan is to get it back to green
• Highlight progress of significant achievements and people that are making the difference