Questions of the Week

Where are the opportunities in your schedule to say NO more often? 
What specific commitment on your schedule should you cancel or delay because it doesn’t align with your goals? 

Describe the perfect gatekeeper. Who is someone you should add as a gatekeeper in order to protect your schedule? If you did this, what changes do you see happening and what immediate impact would it have on you personally and professionally? 

So, what’s the number one priority that would ….Make you the most money.....Give you time back….allow you to spend more time with…. Help you get to the gym more often….ease the weight on your shoulders. Describe what completing this priority would do for you.

When you think of accomplishing these goals, which one brings you the most energy? What steps can you put in place so you can make this materialize.

Do you follow a Daily, Weekly and Monthly calendar?   Write down your goals for the month and break them into chunk- sized bites that you’re able to work on a daily and weekly basis to avoid overwhelm.

Get Out of Your Own Way and Out of Your Head! 

There are many times that I feel anxious, like I should be doing something more and often happens while in the middle of actually doing something. Do you ever feel that way? When did we begin convincing ourselves that we are human doings versus human beings? With being connected due to our phones and social media, it is no surprise that there is more pressure to make us feel we need to constantly perform to get even more accomplished.

“Show me your calendar and your checkbook, and I will tell you what is most important in your life.” – Zig Ziglar

Many times, we get near the ledge which can be what overwhelm can feel like because we treat everything like it matters and it matters equally. If I don't prioritize, everything feels like a priority rather than taking things and breaking them down in small chunks. One thing to be mindful of is that overwhelm is not an identity, it is a temporary moment in time. I am… is the most powerful affirmative statement and it creates an identity or label. You are NOT overwhelmed; you are simply experiencing an overwhelming moment or temporary feeling that can be worked through. 

That feeling often comes from: 

·     Inability to say no or over committing.  

·     Treating your schedule like it's an object, where its something you do once or once a week and the schedule is supposed to tell you where your time is going. Our schedule is something that we are supposed to use as a tool.  It is no different than a carpenter using his saw or hammer. A schedule is designed for you to tell your time where to go, instead of wondering where it went.  

·     One of the other things that happens is people keep everything in their head, rather than actually writing it down. I call this habit Breaking Miller’s Law.

Miller’s Law 

Miller's Law essentially states that our short-term memory as humans has the capacity to recall 5-9 things at any given time or the “Magic Number 7.” The “Magic Number 7” refers to our short-term memory, not our intelligence or IQ.  Developed in 1956, Miller's Law says that there's a maximum of seven things, plus or minus two, that we can keep in our short-term memory at any given time. An example of this is if you go to the grocery store and you didn't bring a list, so you're relying on memory. Here we are, walking down the aisle, and you visually are stimulated as you see something and you remember you needed to get it. While this happens, you often forget something else because of the effect from the Magic 7. If you are anything like me, you’ve put the groceries in the car and heading home when boom! You remember whatever it was you meant to grab. As soon as you put the item in the cart, it frees up space to recall something else. Also, for some reason, if I go to the grocery store without a list I’m spending over $100 and I’ll never quite understand how that happens. I only came shopping for a few items! Oh wait! It happens because of Miller’s Law. So, when we don't write down what's important to us, we end up susceptible to violating Miller's Law because we rely too much on our short-term memory -- oh, I'll remember that -- and then we end up not remembering it.  

In order to work at your best and avoid breaking Miller’s Law is simple…. Write it down, Write it down. Write. It. Down. 

Another way to avoid feeling overwhelmed at first is to see things as they are, not make them worse than they are. It is easy to increase the significance of challenges based on the way we describe them.  For example, I'm putting out fires!  I'm drowning in paperwork! This buyer is killing me! These are all examples of where something is happening and yet described in a worse way.  I've never seen a human being physically drown in paperwork.  I'm sure it could happen if the shredder exploded. However, I've never actually seen or heard of it happening. 

Number two is by describing the way you want things to be.  “Start with the end in mind,” as Stephen Covey taught us.  

And last, build a plan to make it that way.  This is how we get out of overwhelm, we constantly unpack.  It's like if you go to the airport, we all know the magic weight is 50 pounds.  If you go over 50 pounds, what happens?  Well, now they're going to fine you or you end up opening your suitcase, grabbing what you think is a pound and put it into your carry-on. Then, you zip it back up and get on the plane.  That's how you get out of overwhelm.  You unpack by writing all that you could do and working into a list of what you should and ultimately will do. Then simply move FORWARD!