Month: October 2020

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Hold Steady, Adjust the Sails

Holding to your course isn’t about standing still.

I’ve spent a lot of time on sailboats. One thing I learned is that if you want to get to your destination, you have to stay on your compass heading. Holding to your course on a sailboat means watching the changes in the wind, trimming the sails as needed, understanding that boat is always buffeted by currents, guided by the rudder, moved by the engine and the fluctuations of everything around her.

Hold steady is a nice command to hear your captain say. I’ll give all you sailors that. It calls up memories of relaxing, just a bit because nothing huge is changing right now. We know where we are, and we know where we’re going. Hold steady is not a call to correct course, to realize you’ve lost your way, and it’s not a call to sleep at the wheel. Hold steady could be fighting to keep moving, inch by inch, when you’re tacking into the wind – heading just a bit to the left, then weaving just a bit to the right in order to stay on course. It could be heeling way over, the boat tipped so far that everything in the cabin slides, as the ship slices forward, as you brace your feet to keep from tumbling across the cockpit. Staying the course when you’re close in by land means keeping vigilant, watching for hazards. One thing it doesn’t mean is inaction.

Sorry folks. I know it’s been a year of changes and blindsides. I know you’ve had to confront the fear of the unknown, sailing your ship out of sight of land, when all you have to guide to yourself is the memory of the destination you set out for. I know you’ve lost ground, you’ve suffered injuries and loss, found yourself in strange waters. Holding to our course is nothing short of using all our courage and stamina to keep pushing forward.

Last week, I didn’t put out a blog. It was a concious decision. I spent the weekend working on a presentation for my coaching business and I wasn’t willing to overwork. So, I missed delivering my blog. I’m making changes, adjusting for the current conditions. I’m turning off the engine of endurance, which I’ve been using to launch this business, and working with the current conditions.

Another thing I’m changing is the amount and quality of information around politics. During the early days of the pandemic, I wanted the most current information at my fingertips. Now, it’s clear that I’ve done all I can do to adjust to the new way of things and I can focus on holding steady, looking far out ahead and making sure I’m tracking towards my destination. No need to watch for lobster pots and shipping traffic. We’re no longer in the harbor. Now? We’re in the long game. I need less details and more quality. Longer articles and less hype.

If we’re going to keep heading where we want to go, we have to keep adjusting and keep believing that somewhere out over a perfect circle of a horizon, beyond which we can not see, is the port we set out for, the destination we imagine.

All we have to do is stay alert.

All we have to do is adjust to changes as they arise.

All we have to do is stay focused; all we have to do is hold steady.

I’ll meet you at the dock.

And that? Is how we move forward.

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You Are Not Your Project

When you do a great job on your project, you’re good- right?

October is one horrifying month. Yeah, there’s Halloween and we’re closing in on the end of the world as we know it – otherwise known as the US 2020 election – but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about our goals. The stuff we said we’d deliver on. All that stuff that looked so possible & promising in January? We’ve got, like, this month to get it squared away before all of the US workforce takes off on holiday, trying to use up all their postponed vacation time.

You know what I mean. You just can’t count on a full staff for the last two weeks in November and December, even in a good year. You know you can’t count anything in 2020.

So where does that leave you and your goals? A little freaked out, am I right?

Look, yes you need to deliver at work. You need to check out your objectives, figure out where you can squeeze a few more in, and maybe get ready to explain what really happened this year. (Good luck with that. ) For the most part, that should be easy. Get yourself a nice hot cup of coffee, shuffle into your home office, aka, the dining room, and with a calm and relaxed manner, go check the list.

But that’s not what happens for a lot of us. For a lot of us, checking out all the high flung ideas we had ten months ago looks more like restlessly shuffling back to the kitchen wondering if it’s too early to start in on the potato chips, then plunking down in front of the old laptop, flicking through emails, while a familiar unease settles in our gut and we work faster and faster until finally, the day is gone, our eyes can hardly focus and we can knock off for the day – without checking that list.

What the heck is that about?

If you’re like me, that’s about confusing your project with yourself.

I got a great lesson on this topic this week when I tried to vote my mail-in ballot. I sat down, made sure I had a clear table, with no coffee to spill, a perfect black pen and plenty of light. I read the instructions carefully. I voted cautiously, filling in each oval like I was playing a real-life version of mine sweeper. I got the correct paper into the correct envelope, didn’t detach the wrong thing, peeled of the correct thing, sealed it up. One last step. I needed to sign it. I took my pen and started on my given name.

And then my brain kicked in. My signature didn’t look like my signature, did it? I hesitated. Now what should I do? I put pen to paper and finished off my surname. NO! That looked nothing like my signature. I asked my husband. Should I cross it out? No! He insisted it was fine. I put the ballot in the second envelope, sealed it and fretted. We drove our ballots to the drop box, made a production of it, brought the dog. We put them in the slot and then – I was certain that my ballot would be rejected. I had failed to sign my name enough like I sign my name.

This is the most important election of my life. Except, of course, for 2018 , which was pretty gnarly. And 2016, which was super important. And then there was 2000, and the year I drove around with a banner for Michael Dukakis on my truck or the year I voted for Ross Perot. Those seemed important. But this is the most important election ever – and my vote wasn’t going to count.

My consternation grew until I was forced to sit down and coach myself. Here’s what I found – I’m pretty sure the state I live in will go the way it always does. I’m pretty sure our local and state elections are going to go the way they always do. My vote, in the grand scheme isn’t likely to change much.

But my vote matters to me. I want to vote; I always vote. Failing to vote and in such a daffy way as not being able to sign my name – seems to say something about me as a person. Like maybe I’m a fruitcake and not nearly as smart as I think I am. Failing at this simple task called into question a lot of things about myself.

I kept coaching myself – it didn’t take long to realize all my agitation was the result of me confusing my vote – with myself. My vote is a mark on a paper, indicating who I’d like to see in office. It’s not me. It’s not even a symbol of me. Let’s face it – a lot of my life, I haven’t even voted well. Voting is something I do, but if I fail to vote, I’m still a nice woman from Jersey who tries to be kind to people at the grocery store. I’m still me.

The same thing applies at work.

You are not your project. Your project isn’t even a symbol of you.

If you’re good at your project, it means you’re good at your project. It doesn’t mean you’ll be good at the next one. And conversely, if you ball it all up, you can still do well on the next one.

Again, you are not your job performance.

How do I know? Who are you if you don’t have your project? Are you someone else? No. You’re still you. With a different job, still you.

For more on this, check out Lesson 7 on my 30 Lessons page.

Why is it important to keep the idea of who we are separate from the work we do?

Because all that time I was fretting about my ugly signature, here’s what I wasn’t doing – I wasn’t calling the county clerk to see if there was anything to be done. I wasn’t fully focused on the rest of my life and I wasn’t enjoying myself or adding value. When we conflate what we do with who we are, we risk handicapping ourselves with fear. We make it all too much, and we over-react.

All of that drama takes away from actually doing the stuff we wanted to do. All of that, makes our worst thoughts more likely.

October 2020 is hard enough. Don’t make it harder by confusing who you are with what you do.

And that? Is just a better way to finish the year.

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Right Size Your Work

Thinking about the space your job takes up in your life is one way get more control.
Click here to listen to the blog, plus some riffs. Or click the video above to see the VLOG. As always, you can read the blog below.

I talk about space a lot. It confuses my coach. I say – I want more space in my life. I want more space around this task. I’m looking to add space.

“Wait,” she asks. “Are we still talking about work?”

I learned to think about time in terms of containers by reading Julie Morganstern’s book, Time Management from the Inside Out. She’s a professional organizer who translated cleaning out closets into a theory of time management. Now, I think about work in the same way.

Julie asserts that the size of a closet is finite. You get so many cubic feet and that’s it. At some point, you can’t put any more in. I like to add an addendum to that – within the space allowed, you have a finite amount of items you can put into your closet while still allowing enough room around them to keep the closet usable. Usability is flexible. There’s a maximum amount of usability – one item per shelf – and a minimum amount of usability – I can only take out the last thing I shoved in there.

When you get the most amount of items in the closet and can still use them all easily, you’ve right-sized your space. When you hit that, you can maintain order in your space easily for years.

Right-sizing your work is the process of shoving work back into the time allowed, or fluffing it out so that it fills your time nicely. Right-sizing your work is how you build for long-term endurance. Like managing an amazing pantry it’s a balancing act of things you really need and stuff you want to add in – and it’s totally possible.

Why Right-Size?

  1. Make sure you get to do the things that matter to you
  2. Ensure that you deliver peak performance at work, at an advantage to yourself.
  3. Because life is better when you’re not exhausted & missing out 
  4. Because life is better when you’re not beating yourself up for things you didn’t do
  5. To maximize your experience of work and life.

Are we still talking about work? I have a broad definition of work, as you might guess. I love work and so, I don’t groan thinking about adding in more. For me, work is anything you do, on purpose, to accomplish a return on investment.

What is Right-Sizing Work?

We all overwork and underwork in our lives. Some people overwork at their day-job. Some people underwork. Some people have side hustles they overwork. Some underwork at their small business. We invest time in relationships for a return of connection. Are you overworking or underworking that? What about your personal tasks?

When you overwork right-sizing means keeping work small enough to avoid diminishing returns – which occur when you are exhausted and it takes longer to deliver the same result. It also means making work fit inside the time you are willing to exchange for it.

When you underwork right-sizing means keeping work large enough to deliver returns on your investment. If you spend a lot of time worrying about work you aren’t doing, that’s a sign you are underworking. In this case, you want to focus on consuming the time you are willing to invest.

Is all this starting to sound like planning? It’s more than that.

Plan your time like you’re putting items into a closet. The space is finite so you have to choose what can go in.

How to Right Size your Work

  • Create positive boundaries – set cut off times that  allow for real benefits, recognize and celebrate all that you accomplish.
  • Set clear objectives for small blocks of time. Don’t plan to “work on a report”. Instead, plan to “create the first draft of my quarterly budget slide dec”.
  • Be willing to cancel, disappoint people and say no. When you overwork, you’re used to doing this to your friends. Be willing to do this with meetings and favors. When you underwork, you’re used to canceling on your work plans. Be willing to cancel on friends.
  • Have clear priorities. You’ll never get it all done.  At least I hope not.   So the only way to know which results to schedule is to have priorities.  They also help you say no. A lot.
  • Plan daily and weekly at the very least. The weekly planning session is where you face the hard fact about the space you have in your week for the things you want to do. Don’t make this about perfect, make this about learning. Plan your week, then at the end, review your progress. Adjust the next week’s plan. The daily planning session is where you quickly move tasks or time when the world throws you a curve.
  • Be kind to yourself. Always, always – this is the most important thing. It’s not about getting a A in planning, it’s about building a life that’s right for you, in every way.

And that? Is just a beautiful way to live.