From Schedule Overload to Clarity
Don’t be overwhelmed by a busy schedule; sort your activities so your brain can deal with clarity. Get-It-Done Guy has the solution.
My coaching client came in, all verklempt. “I feel like I’m being pulled in a thousand directions!” I explained the cause of his overwhelm was simple: no minions. With minions, when something had to be done, you just wave your hand imperiously and proclaim, “Minion, go do something!” Your minion scurries off and does the something. Without minions, you have to deal with everything.
Unfortunately, my client didn’t have minions. I don’t, either. No one except Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, the Google guys, Marissa Mayer, and Oprah can really afford minions. And Rosie O’Donnell. I’m pretty sure she can afford minions, too.
So the rest of us just have to learn to make do with being frantic, overwhelmed, and on the verge of exploding.
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The Problem Is Mixing Activities
Unless what causes all that overwhelm isn’t actually the thousand different things that come in. Personally, I’m really good at procrastinating. Right now, I’m surfing the web, looking for new pens and pencils to buy. So how can I possibly be overwhelmed by stuff, seeing as I’m not doing any of it?
What causes your brain to go wild is when you have a lot on your plate that requires different styles of thinking. When you have phone calls to return, expenses reports to fill out, a vacation to plan, and governments to topple with anonymous blog postings, you brain just spins.
See also: How to Survive Communication Overload
As I discuss in my book, Get-it-Done Guy’s 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More, the three kinds of activities are focus, admin, and spirit activities. I learned these from Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup books, and he learned them from somewhere else. I don’t know where they originated, but they’re awesomely powerful.
Some Activities Make Progress
Focus activities are the things you do because they’re directly relevant to your job. They actually get productive stuff done that moves you forward.
When Europa is handling marketing for Bernice’s plant store, Green Growing Things, her focus activities include deciding where and how the store should advertise, arranging promotional events with the local homeless shelter (the homeless problem in town seems to be under control, ever since Bernice started carrying Audrey 2s…what a funny coincidence…), and reviewing the sales figures to understand customer buying behavior.
Not everything I’m calling focus activities require mental focus. Focus activities in this sense are just the activities focused on making real progress.
Some Activities Support You
A life of pure focus would be one of unimaginable progress, as you do only what’s needed to get results. But the universe isn’t that nice. In an effort to keep everyone employed, the universe invented the idea of “administrative activities.” These are activities that really don’t move things forward, but you need to do them to keep things running smoothly. These can be a huge source of overwhelm. Any one task is small, but there are lots of them.
When you fill out a form, unless it’s to place an order or acknowledge receipt of an order, it’s probably admin work. Expense reports? Admin work. Running to the store to buy extra office supplies? Admin work. Brushing your teeth? Admin work. Gotta keep those teeth working so you can chew efficiently!
Admin work usually doesn’t take much concentration, it’s scattered, and it usually only taxes a little time.
One person’s admin work can be another person’s focus work. Tracking receipts and preparing taxes is admin work for me. It has to be done, but it takes away from my focus activities. For my bookkeeper and CPA, however, it’s focus work. For me, spending two in-depth hours with a coaching client shifting their beliefs so they can accomplish something amazing is focus work. For my CPA, that would be non-billable time – pure admin work.
Some Activities Nurture You
The last kind of activities are activities that nurture you: spending time with family and friends; writing that song to surprise your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, significant other, or polyamorous family unit on their birthday; and making beautiful wooden sculptures to take to Burning Man and, well, burn.
When you’re doing spirit activities, they’re things you enjoy for the sheer love of it! You aren’t being productive; you aren’t being efficient. You’re living! Spirit activities are the whole point of all the rest.
Declare Focus, Admin, and Spirit Days
Start scheduling your month by declaring each day as either a focus, admin, or spirit day. Then schedule each day as pure focus, admin, or spirit activities. Now on focus days, you won’t feel distracted by the nagging admin tasks that need to get done. You’ll know that you have an admin day scheduled, when you can place that all-important order for zombie reanimation powder. On your admin day, you’ll happily do all those little tasks, without feeling like you’re neglecting the “real work.” You know you admin day will free you for tomorrow’s focus day. Then, you can make your world domination plans.
Spirit days are especially important. Just forget work entirely and go enjoy life! Bring a pencil and pad so you can jot down the amazing work insights you have during the day. Once you’ve jotted them down, let them go, and keep enjoying your spirit time. Use a pencil and pad because it’s much faster and less distracting than spending two hours typing a single sentence on your smartphone.
This is one of the most effective, powerful scheduling techniques I know. You need a bit of discipline to keep appointments scheduled only on the right kind of day, but it’s worth it. I find it best to schedule a full day for admin, focus, or spirit, though if I naturally reach an endpoint, I let myself switch modes.
You may feel scattered in a thousand different directions, but you can pull yourself back together as easily as a zombie sprinkled with reanimation powder. Just declare admin, focus, and spirit days, and make sure you keep them separate. Pretty soon, you’ll find you’re getting everything done with ease, and fun. It will be even better than having minions.
This is Stever Robbins. Follow GetItDoneGuy on Twitter and Facebook.
I work with highly successful people on the thinking and mental capabilities that will let them change the world. If you want to know more, visit SteverRobbins.com.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
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Schedule image from Shutterstock
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About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
