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So Thanksgiving is over and you’re heading back to work. Let me ask you, did you plan on doing some take-home work this weekend? Did it get away from you? And are you wondering how you’re going to get it all done? If so, you’re not alone.

At it’s most basic, time blocking is the practice of blocking out chunks of time on your calendar to get your most important work done. In this basic approach, you decide what result you want and then block out time to achieve that. It’s different than saying I’ll work for two hours and see how far I’ll get. It’s more like saying, I’ll work for two hours and have a rough draft of my powerpoint at the end of that time. You block out that time and drive hard for one hundred twenty minutes, determined to deliver that draft to yourself.

If you’ve dragged work from last week into this one, I highly recommend you use this approach in the near term to get yourself some relief.

There’s a more elegant approach to time blocking that actually builds you a life framework you can use to keep the most important things in your life front and center.

Welcome to Time Blocking – 2.0

Last week we talked about energy and how you need to manage that along with time to figure out when you’ll actually do stuff.

This week, do the same exercise but this time, block out general times when you’ll be doing the same type of task on the regular. Your basic Monday through Friday, 9-5, is one giant time block. You always go to work during those hours and it’s the same every week unless you’re on vacation.

Our sleep schedule is another time block. 10 pm to 6 am, on the regular, if you’re lucky, is one big time block. We don’t have to decide every day if we’re going to sleep at noon and work at night because we have a set schedule.

I went from always in debt and hating working with money to debt-free by dedicating Monday evenings to money. It’s Money Monday at my house and I know that bills are paid on Monday, financial questions are answered then and financial planning occurs then too. I don’t take classes or plan to shop on Mondays. It doesn’t even occur to me, because Monday is for money. Tuesdays are for marketing my business and Thursday is grocery night. Friday night is for novel reading. You get it. Mornings are meditation, spiritual thought work, yoga, and dog walking.

I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do in these blocks but I know I’ll be doing that type of activity on that day, at that time.

The beauty of laying out a time map, using time blocks, is that you can see make sure that the things which are most important to you have a specific slot you can count on. I don’t worry about bills on Tuesday because I know they were all paid on Monday or will be paid next Monday. I don’t worry about having time for my dogs because I know I’ll be walking them in the morning.

Here’s how it works: Create a simple grid. 24 hours down the side, 7 days across the top – just like I had you do last week.

Using different colors, map out the things you have to do, and the things you want to make sure you fit in.

My only hint to you is to leave yourself some blank time each day; don’t book yourself for every minute.

I started mine with just sleep, work and money Monday. Once that was solid, I blocked in one more dedicated spot and so on. Compared to scheduling every minute of your day, it’s a much easier way to gently build up your ability to count on yourself to show up and get it done.

There’s an even better reason to do take up time blocking. When you see time as blocks of space in which to fit what matters to you, you’re less likely to wake up ten years from now and find that you missed out on the things that matter to you.

When you draw out your week in a grid, time becomes solid. You can see that it has limits and you can you see what your time overruns cost you. You start to put the right blocks in the right place and from there, you can build the life you want. One block at a time.

And that? Feels darn good.

If you want help building a personal time map, using time blocks, book a free 25-minute session by clicking here.

“You live a life of the mind.” When my father said that to me, I don’t think he meant I’m a genius in hiding. It might have been more like a way to note that I spend a lot of time daydreaming and talking.

In order to have any shot at being successful (by which I mean, have a roof over my head) I needed a lot of help figuring out how to get things done. Time management, to me, is the art of figuring out how to actually do the things you want to do.

That’s where energy comes in. I first really took a look at the synergy between time and energy when I read Julie Morgenstern’s Time Management from the Inside Out.

Think about yourself. Are you a morning person? Or do you have the most energy at night? Do you prefer tackling a large project obsessively or are you happiest doing small chunks? When is it easiest for you to do things you aren’t drawn to but want to do?

I’m a morning woman. I can do almost anything in the early morning. After dinner? I’m pretty much toast. I get distracted, wander around the house, and forget what I needed to do. I have to tie a string between my wrist and my plan to have any hope of getting things done at the end of the day.

I’m an obsessor. If I can sit down and work on one thing until my fingers fall off and I’ve dehydrated into dust and string, I’m in. It takes a ton of energy for me to switch tasks. Good to know, since my workday is non-stop interruption.

Different activities impact energy also. Doing creative work gets me energized. Crossing off a lot of fast, small tasks that have meaning gets me feeling strong.

Falling behind on my schedule or feeling rushed? Sends me right down the tubes. I’ll be looking for candy and dog videos if I’m not careful.

What about you? Think about the things you do that give you joy, make you feel strong and successful, get you excited. Then think about what drags you down. Now, how can you use this information to help you manage your time?

Speaking as a daydreamer extraordinaire, I can attest to the fact you’ll need to work this out on paper. Working out how to merge time and energy in your mind? Will not get you there.

Start by figuring out what types of things you want to do. Exercise? Work on projects? Clean the house? Clear out emails? Take meetings? Make phone calls? Relax?

Now, figure out how to combine them into time slots so that you can use energy in your favor.

For me, exercise is a first thing in the morning activity. One, because it takes very little energy to get me to exercise in the morning but at the end of the day I need a boatload of will power to do it. The added side benefit is that I’m bouncing with enthusiasm after I’m done, which sends me into the office ready to slay my day.

Responding to emails plays into my preference for obsessing on one activity and my love of little tasks in rapid succession. So I need to create ways to stop myself and pull my head out of my inbox. Not easy. What do you think I should do?

How about putting a task I love, like a creative project, on my calendar after my dedicated email time to help me stop?

Actually, doing email at the end of the day is optimal for me. First, it stops me from getting to things before my team can do them, and since it plays into my natural endurance, I can do it even when my energy is low.

So for me, checking email on my phone before I go to work, to make sure I catch the urgent issues, and then avoiding it like the plague until the afternoon is a recipe for productivity.

You can also consider combining sound, color or motion to add energy. If I listen to rock music before or during a difficult task, it feels easier. Using a standing desk and headphones keeps me upbeat. Color pencils? You bet. All of that makes things like budgeting way more appealing.

To apply this process follow these steps:

• Draw out a chart – seven days across the top, twenty-four hours down the side.

• Block out 8 hours a day for sleep. Non-negotiable. Have you seen the research on sleep?

• Fit the types of tasks you need to do into the chart – it’s sort of a brain teaser – so be prepared to think.

• As you fit things in ask yourself these questions?

1. Will I have the energy for this at this time?
2. What do I need to after this or before it to keep myself on track?
3. If I don’t normally have the energy but I need to fit it in, what can I do before or during to get myself the energy?

In my program – Reboot Your Day Job – I personally walk you through this process so you can get a happy, healthy grip on getting stuff done. Even if you do prefer to daydream.

And that? Is my pleasure.

Want to Reboot YOUR Day Job? I have a coupon code – available to my newsletter readers. Sign up here and get your coupon for 15% off… from now through the end of the year. SO FUN.

Sometimes the beliefs you hold don’t play well together, and yet…they’re kinda stuck in the same brain with you. Holding two conflicting beliefs is a recipe for confusion and suffering. The good news is getting them to shake hands and be friends is totally doable.

Let me tell you a story. When I was a girl, I thought my parents were easy-going and supportive. For my part, I could go anywhere my legs or bike could carry me and nobody ever checked my homework. Both were hard workers who set a good example. When I was frustrated with my ability to live up to my own expectations, I was encouraged to just do my best.

I was raised with a real sense of self-sufficiency and independence. There was no doubt that if I put my mind to something, I could achieve it. No matter what, I could always do a little bit better. No matter what, growth was possible.

Sounds fine right? I was all set to be a self-confident, competent little person.

Instead, I was hyper self-critical and unable to ask for help. I floundered, lapsing into depression. One day, a counselor handed me a book on depression and I was introduced to the idea of mutually exclusive beliefs.

I searched my mind, listing out all my beliefs and found this happy pair:

I just needed to do my best.

I could always do better.

Good times, right there.

Each one of those beliefs sounds positive, innocent and believable. Together they’re a nasty little circle of sharp teeth and discouragement. A perfect instrument of personal suffering.

Beliefs are just ideas that we’ve heard over and over, thought over and over and agreed with repeatedly. They get internalized and then we don’t take them out and look at them ever again. This saves us a lot of time. We don’t have to constantly reprove that gravity exists.

Here’s the thing, we need to clean out our old beliefs, just like we do our sock drawer. Some of them have no use anymore. They don’t fit, they’re out of style or they just don’t go with our lifestyle. Sometimes, they’re mismatched.

Here are a few really great ones:

• You have to work hard to get ahead.
• I don’t have enough time to get my work done.

• There’s never any budget for training.
• To excel, you have to be learning all the time.

• It’s selfish to want more money
• The company pays for performance.

• We strive for excellence at work.
• We strive for rapid response at work.

To figure out your mutually exclusive beliefs, just write them down. Sit down and list as many as you can in ten minutes. That’s a LONG time. Then as the next day or so goes by, add any you missed.

Look at your list – are there any that are in direct conflict with each other? Write them together on a page. You can reconcile the beliefs without disputing them using “but” and “and since” statements – as in this example:

• It’s selfish to want more money but money is how we pay for things and there is no other way to support my family than to obtain money and since I want my family to do well, wanting more money is part of that. And since nobody can tell me what to do with my money, who’s to say if my having more is selfish or just smart or the way I turn around and add value to the world.

• The company pays for performance but I think money is selfish, it’s a little hard to excited about that. I want to perform well because I believe in doing excellent work and since the company uses money to let people know when they do a good job, I’m not being selfish, I’m just being me and money is the result.

Or you can dispute the beliefs directly – using “it’s possible” or “What if?”

• You have to work hard to get ahead. – It’s possible I can get ahead without working longer hours.
• I don’t have enough time to get my work done. What if I can find a way to get my work done in a new way that will allow me to get ahead?

If you would like to explore your beliefs and how they hold you back, sign up for a free session with me. Click here. Sessions are done using Zoom. You pick a time that works for you and then we both show up at that time and discuss what’s holding you back currently. I provide an outside perspective and tools to help make working through issues quick and effective. At the end, I ask if you if you want to sign up for more. You get to say yes or no. Simple.

Sometimes getting rid of a roadblock created by mutually exclusive beliefs is ridiculously simple once you can see them laid out. Here’s the solution my mom gave me for mine.

Just do your best for now.

You can always do better later if you want to.

And that? Is just good to know.

What is the one thing you are just not good at? If you have any answer at all to that question, chances are you’re holding back a skill by believing it’s a talent. You probably don’t do it often. You’re a science, data or business geek. You learned to drive a car, so you get that skills are built. So did I. Yet, there was that one place in my life where my brain was out to lunch on the whole difference between the two. And that one area – was money.

I’m going to tell you about my money story, but bear in mind, I might as well be talking about building websites, or analyzing data or planning a sales launch. Although I’m going to tell you how awesome I think I am with money now, stay with me because you can be just as incredible – at whatever it is you’re struggling with today. How do I know? Read on.

I was no good with money. Everybody in my family, except my brother, knew this. From the time I understood I shouldn’t put money in my mouth, if I got a quarter, I spent it. My best friend was a saver. Sadly, I was not.

I’ve been up to my neck in hock since the third grade. When I announced my desire to quit playing the cello three weeks after my parents rented the instrument, they informed me I could quit but I’d have to pay off the year-long lease- twelve dollars a month. So at the age of eight, I already owed more money than I’d ever seen. And that’s the way I stayed, all the way into my thirties.

During my teens, I learned from my parents that bill-paying was a task that was nerve-wracking and emotionally charged. When the bills were spread out on the dining room table and money was being discussed, a kid could get her feelings hurt if she interrupted. A kid ought to find something to do outside. A kid oughta know, money was scarce and dangerous.

During my twenties, people my age were told we were the first generation who would be worse off than our parents. Owning a home would be impossible for us. We dealt with insane interest rates – 17% on homes, 25% on cars – balloon mortgages and seven percent unemployment. Money was a struggle.

I continued the bill-paying traditions I was raised with – piling drama, fear, and resentment into the activity, putting it off for weeks and then getting socked with late fees and overdrafts. The verdict was in, the case was closed and the judge had retired. I was bad with money.

Then one day, heading into my home office to slay the dragon of debt, I had a weird thought. At the time the idea hit, I was exactly five feet into the room. The sun was out, I was thinking about how I didn’t want to have meltdowns as I paid bills and the thought floated into my mind – “What if money is a skill?”

That one thought, so obvious, so clear, was like a ray of light from heaven shining down on me. What if I was bad at money because I hadn’t learned about money?

What if I could be good at money?

I had honestly never considered such a thing. I thought being good with money was a talent, a trait, a set-in-stone facet of my personality. The minute it occurred to me that I could be wrong, I was practically giddy with the possibilities.

That changed everything. First off, I decided to never have a bill-paying meltdown again. I simply decided to pay bills once a week, on a weekday so I didn’t ruin my weekend. Bill paying night became sacred. I read every book on money I could get my hands on. I tried to make more, spend less, save money upfront, and pay down debt. I refused to see my raises, making sure that any additional earnings went into our 401K or savings or investments. I refused to take on any new debt and I refused to pay for anything I could do myself. I almost killed myself applying driveway sealer in August by hand. I now pay for that service with pleasure.

Today? I’m damn good with a greenback. I enjoy bill night and most of my thoughts about money are happy.

My problem wasn’t that I was bad at money. My problem was that I didn’t believe I could be good at managing money.

What one thing, if you could change it, would make a huge impact on your life or work?

That one thing is a skill. Relationships are skills. Managing time – skill. Mastering good health? A skill. Learning a new language, mastering a new product, writing great marketing copy? Skill, skill, skill. Relaxing? Skill. Small talk at parties? Skill. Loving yourself? Practice makes perfect, girlfriend – that shit is a skill.

You can change that one thing. Trust me.

And that? Is worth believing.

Oh, and the one thing you need to know about talent? It’s optional, dude.

If you would like help figuring out where you need to skill build so that you can blow open the doors on your life, Book a free 25 minute session – click here. We meet on a video call, camera’s on or off. It would be my pleasure.

Hey, aren’t you tired of people telling you to think positive? Yeah, me too. I have a pretty good idea that thinkin’ a happy one isn’t going to fix things around here. Don’t tell me it’s all roses and sunshine out there. It’s not. I mean have you seen the news? Frightening dude. Halloween’s over and it’s still scary out there.

If that’s true then why do I recommend thought work coaching to help you get better results? Because positive thinking is not the same as choosing the best thought for your situation and feeling happy doesn’t always get you to take the action you need. Today I’m going to coach myself, right here, right now – so you can see how the thoughts we chose – change the results we get.

Here’s my situation: I have a day job and a side hustle. I think to myself – I’m not having fun at this, it’s too much. When I think that, I feel boxed in.

Emotions drive our actions. That is big news for most of us.

Basically, when I feel boxed in, I tend to look for an escape hatch. Physically, it feels like I have energy coiled at the base of my spine and in my quads. My shoulders hunch a bit, my foot taps and I’m about a nano-second away from bursting out of my chair. Like – to go get a coffee, or see if anyone needs help or get that thing from the printer that I sent there three hours ago.

So the actions I take when I feel boxed in are – look for a distraction, start and stop work, answer an email, check my phone, get coffee, go to the printer – you got it – escape. All that action gets me the terrifically self-defeating result of still not having my work done, still having too much to do and basically, not having any darn fun.

OK so far?

Positive thinking would have me choose something better like: “I love my job and my side hustle and it’s all fun.”

There’s a problem with that thought. When I try it on, by thinking it in my head and checking out how I feel when I think it, I feel – disbelief.

Disbelief feels like resistance and a hard wall in my mind. When I feel disbelief I basically shut down that train of thought, make a nasty face, and return to a thought I believe.

Disbelief basically turns my positive thought into “Maybe I don’t love my job and my side hustle because things are not fun.” The result is no possibility of feeling love or fun in regard to either my job or my side hustle. Good times.

Here’s the deal: Changing how we think requires that we work with a bunch of different thoughts that we believe until we find the one that gets us the best result. Sometimes we have to try on a lot of them.

Here are five things I can think about my situation:

1. I chose to have a side hustle and I can choose how much to work on it.
2. Nobody’s making me sit in this chair and type.
3. The reason I do both is that I’m committed to it and that’s enough.
4. I’m really good at time management and this is just a new challenge.
5. This is my time to wake up and this is the practice

All of these are true for me. I believe them all. So far so good. But which one should I use to refute my brain when I catch myself thinking this isn’t so much fun?

• #1, I chose, I can choose: This one gives me a feeling of anxiety because I worry about not choosing to work enough. That feeling of anxiety leads me to search for a distraction from the uncomfortable feeling and we’ve already seen how that ends. I still have to choose how much to work because all the work is still there.
• #2: Nobody’s making me – This thought actually might be the winner because when I think it, I feel powerful, like ‘damn straight, I’m the boss of me.’ And when I feel powerful, I type faster, stay focused and get stuff done. The result is I make myself sit in the chair and type. (SO IRONIC)
• #3: I’m committed: Ugh, this thought makes me feel uncertain, like, is it enough? Am I committed? And when I feel uncertain, here’s how I behave – I start googling stuff and journaling. So not helpful when I want to get work done. The result is I either redefine my commitment or I reject it.
• #4: This is a new time challenge – When I think that, I feel confident but I want to create a time map and make a plan. Both good ideas but not when I’m in the middle of something – so this could be a winner depending on what my goal is. Today, I want to finish my blog. That means this is not the thought for today.
• #5: My time, my practice: This thought is my mantra for the year, all about how I’m wanting to be more present. It makes me feel self-respect. When I feel that way, I might elect to get out of my chair, if I’m uncomfortable or need a break or have spent too much time – it helps keep me from overworking. So this might be a winner if I was in the middle of a ten-hour work-a-thon.

If you would like a free 25 minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. Got a problem you’ld like to think differently about? I’m your gal.

What I’ve just shown you is a real example of thought work. I didn’t start with an idea of which thought I wanted. I just wrote down as many thoughts as I could come up with that I actually believed, then I put them through a thought pattern – situation, thought about the situation, feeling created by the thought, actions created by the feeling and result. For more on this pattern, check out my 2-minute video here.

To get great results and feel better, don’t just pick a happy thought, pick an effective thought.

Nobody made me sit here and write this, but now? I’m done.

And that? Is Just Good.

So I’m typing this blog up on the exact day it will first appear.  I deliver my blog on Mondays at 6 am – and I’m starting this off at 5:13 am.   Worse yet, my web hosting platform just locked me out.   I still intend to make my deadline.

Did I forget that I needed to get a blog and newsletter out to you guys? No.  I purposely made a decision to show you one of the core concepts of my Reboot Your Day Job process – refusing to overwork.

This past week, I’ve been running promotions on social media to get a copy of my “Work Less Starting Tomorrow”  PDF and companion video – both free.  Ironically, one of my favorite social media sites picked up a story about a German company that is trying to move to a five-hour workday – which blew my mind a little because most of my clients come to me praying for an eight-hour day. So I was thinking about how to show the people that I most want to help – the people stuck in overwork hell – how to get free of it.

OK, so hold those thoughts.   The final leg to the stool is that I’m personally applying my own process to an overworking problem in my life. 

Here’s the story:  I was overworking at my day job.  I didn’t think it was a big deal, because frankly, I worked seventy hours a week for the first fifteen years of my working life.  I went from working three jobs to keep and staying just above the poverty level, to owning a brick and mortar business, which was open seven days a week, to working for a mid-sized company.   Working for a corporation, I started hourly as a file clerk, moved to the help desk and was thrilled to be able to get overtime for the first time in my life.  Working fifty hours a week was a walk in the park.   As I moved up, working seven days a week was no skin off my back.  It was reasonable – to me.  On-call 24/7 system support? No sweat.  In my house, my husband, myself, and our son – all of us had jobs that included unexpected changes to our plans, even if that plan was sleep.

Becoming a workaholic was kinda like hopping into cool water and staying in as the heat rose. I didn’t really notice it.

In 2017 when I embarked on a journey to reclaim my life and figure out what was causing this feeling of not quite rightness.    I was happy – kinda.  But I felt low-grade anxiety most of the time.  I was always worried about something at the office.  I fretted over my mistakes, and I thought about work All – The – Time.   Something was wrong but what?

I quit all activities except for my volunteer gig and my day job.  I went on a diet, and I hired a life coach.

But the biggest thing that changed for me was I stopped overworking. I accidentally stumbled over a process that helped me get better at work, at my life, have less anxiety, and see all the ways my working style had been holding me back.   True dat.  All those extra hours had been really sub-optimal for my performance. 

My blogs from this whole year and my website are a product of me explaining what I’ve learned. 

In short order, my work week had been stuffed back into a nicely sized bag of reasonable.  I still put in more than the 40 hours a week that’s mandated but not much, and I do it because that’s the size work week that suits me. 

But here’s what happened next – I opened a business since I had a bunch of free time.  Then I opened another one and then?  I was back in the boiling pot of overworking again.  The difference?  This time, I’d been out of the hot water for a while, so I noticed it right away.  I didn’t like it.  I wasn’t willing to swim in that stew anymore.   So, I’m applying my stop overworking process now to my new business. This means when my granddaughter showed up on Saturday, and my blog wasn’t done, I played with her.  When Sunday dawned and my new rule – no work on Sunday was in play – I had to decide. Would I cave in and work or would I practice what I preach?   I took Sunday off.

I knew also that I couldn’t just get up extra early on Monday morning to kill myself with overwork at three am to make up for taking Sunday off.  I got up at five am this morning – as always.  Because the key to stopping the overwork habit is to let yourself get into a box like this and figure out how to get out of it.  

It was really uncomfortable on Sunday.   The thought of this blog followed me all day.  Last night, I woke up several times, worrying about it.   I held firm though and for the first time in months, I’m going to work on Monday with a clean house and some homemade soup for lunch – because that’s what I used my day off for.  Phone calls to both my parents were made while I cleaned.  I also bathed my dogs, got their nails filed back to short, cleaned their teeth and ears.    I organized my CD’s.  Yeah, I’m having a good time remembering what it was like to listen to one artist for an hour.  (It’s great.)  I did my laundry.  I dressed my older dog in a pumpkin costume and she and I went to the local hospital and did a couple of hours of therapy work there.  I listened to a divine book on tape. 

I lived my life.

If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure

Then I got up on time and blew out this blog – a real-life, real-time example – of how to get back on the road when life bumps you off it.  

When I tell you that the key to stopping overwork is to stop overworking and then figure out how to deal with the fallout, I’m not kidding.    If you try to catch up first and then stop overworking it – will- not – work.   You will never catch up.

But you absolutely can figure out how to get more done in less time – when you give yourself less time.

And that’s just good to know. 

Happy Monday Folks!  Work hard, work smart, and work less.

So here’s my confession. I’ve spent a lot of my work life fairly certain that my boss didn’t like me. Not that I needed my boss to like me, I mean, that’s their loss right? Right?

Don’t get me wrong, I work at a great company and I’ve been blessed with tremendous managers. But you know, org charts change, people move around and reporting structures are often a shifting landscape.

So, many times, I’ve been unsure as to where I stood with regard to my boss. Once, I was completely convinced that my soon-to-be new boss absolutely did not like me. I just knew it in my bones. And that? Was scary.

Being part of the tribe and knowing our standing within the tribe is one of those life or death things. We’ll take serious risks and work very hard to maintain our standing and feel secure in our position and when that position is unclear – my friends, you can find at yourself with a good old fashioned case of anxiety.

Good thing feeling anxious is a really great way to be productive at work. (Not.) Better yet, once we’re anxious, our performance slips and we really do have something to worry about.

If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure

But what if there was another way?

Demoralized and worried, I talked to my coach. She asked me if I thought I could control what my boss’s opinion of me was. I’ve been around the coaching block a time or two so I didn’t take the bait. We can’t control other people. Full stop.

OK, so stop worrying about what you can’t control, she said. And then, she suggested a radical new idea. I should start taking action on what I could control. My new boss might not like me, but I, for sure, could like my boss.

I’m pretty sure I just blinked at her. What did that even mean? I was the underling. How was this a solution?

Trust me, she said. Can you like your boss?

I thought about it. Sure, I could like my boss. I like just about 98% of the people I meet. What would that get me?

Here’s the deal – when we like other people, we get to think nice thoughts about them. When we think cool things like – my boss is well respected, understands a lot about some areas I find interesting, has a great sense of humor, is a decent human being and has a lot to manage, we start to feel – friendly. We start to look forward to meeting with that person, we look for ways to help, we’re open and enthusiastic and we stay positive when we’re around them. Soon, we’re just having a good ol’ time and who cares if they like us or not? How could we tell? We’re just busy having fun.

And guess what? Who doesn’t like to work with a person who behaves like that? See how that works? It’s a no-lose situation.

But if we tie how we’re going to feel to how we imagine someone else feels, we’ve lost all control. Because we have no control over how other people feel and now we’ve attached our own feelings to something we can’t control. NO FUN.

Emotional adulthood is when we decide to assume the mantel of command, and take charge of our own emotional navigation. It’s when we take responsibility for how we feel and let other people worry about themselves. Emotional adulthood is available to all of us, right now.

So that’s what I did. I really did like my new manager, and I was able to focus on all the positive qualities this person had. I stopped worrying about what my manager thought about me. I focused on my work and the fact that I was working for a manager I was determined to like. Guess what? My anxiety went away and to this day, I have a big, expansive feeling inside when our paths cross. Who knows if that manager likes me? I sure as hell like them.

And that? Is just good to know.

There’s an argument to be made for dedicating some part of each business week to self development. Clay Christensen’s article How will you measure your life? made this idea tangible to me. You can catch his great Ted talk here. Two ideas in that article that caught my attention. Achievement bias and marginal cost thinking.

Marginal cost thinking for the purposes of his talk is when, in order to maximize profits, you discount your sunk costs and preferentially undertake tasks that rely on your existing infrastructure rather than building out new capabilities. This means that established companies naturally become tied to undertakings that rely on those structures. New upstarts don’t have existing structures to leverage and so they innovate faster. Achievement bias, which is my own term for a concept he introduced me to, takes the basic short term pleasure construct and adds a new twist.

We all know that we’re wired to be efficient, which basically means we prefer to take familiar, dopamine-driven actions like tackling our email instead of working on our projects, hitting up the office candy bowl instead of going to get a salad for lunch, chatting with office mates instead of doubling down on our work. If you’ve been reading along with this blog, you know that much of our control in life comes from being aware of these patterns and getting our prefrontal cortex in charge of things inside our heads.

Christensen ups the ante on this by pointing out that it’s worse than we think.

We are motivated as humans by the desire to learn and grow, have more responsibility and contribute to the tribe. In other words, we want to achieve.

Here’s the rest of the news – some of what we do in the name of achievement falls into the short term pleasure vortex.

What???

People who are drawn to achievement, which is basically all of us, will prefer to do tasks that help us hit short term goal markers over things that build out personal infrastructure.

Dudette. Did you see that coming? Me neither.

It’s marginal thinking on a micro-level.

This helps explain how goal achievement can be an avoidance tactic and an addictive practice all on its own.

Before you head off to get a cookie and check your email, let’s break down what our personal infrastructure is. It’s the systems that keep us running. The stuff we need to keep the lights on in this business we call being alive: family, friends, exercise, nutrition, sleep, relaxation, purpose, meaning, goals, thinking that processes your experience – whether spiritual or creative – you get the picture.

You have a personal work infrastructure, too. That’s your specialized knowledge, your personal networks, your industry knowledge, your skills, training, and experience. And for some of us, when we get a bit of spare time, we preferentially tackle some task that will give us immediate achievement instead of investing in these infrastructures.

This explains how come when we have a few minutes, we spend it cleaning or catching up with work, or fiddling with something rather than sitting down to plan out a family reunion next year, or reading up on the latest business trends.

It’s easy to notice when a company is letting its infrastructure get out of date and choosing short term profit over long term competitiveness. It’s also easy to notice when a programmer creates technical debt in the drive to bring a program to market.

But this pattern also shows up when we put off working on our development in order to meet our day to day goals, fail to attend training in favor of getting to inbox zero or insist on attending every meeting on our calendars instead of working through a self-study course.

If you’re like me, you’re not looking at emails, meetings and day to day work as short term pleasure-seeking. These behaviors trade short term gains for future payoffs. They are achievement bias built on marginal thinking at a personal level.

And that? Is just good to know.

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