Last time I wrote about my little experiment with putting the urgent first. You can read how that went here.
Today, I am writing about a productivity technique that I use that I didn’t even know was “a thing.”
it is sometimes called having a theme for the day.
What this means is having setting aside specific days for a specific focus.
For example, for me I focus on Legacy Clinical Consultants on Mondays and Wednesdays. I will only see therapy clients on those days. That is when I have my meetings and deal with anything that involves the clinical practice. Tuesdays I focus on Ready To Focus (pun intended). Thursday and Friday are The Human Leader/drjeffvanmeter with Friday also being my catch up day. Oh and then Saturday is usually catch up day part 2.
Sounds so very planned out, doesn’t it? And so, my work life is perfectly balanced to accomplish all of my goals in a timely manner. HA! Who am I kidding? Someone reminded recently that one of Mike Tyson’s more well known quotes is “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.” And as my years in psychology has shown over and over, people get punched in the mouth everyday.
Without a doubt, having a focus for each day is very helpful. Plans are important, even vital to success. And if you want, I can write about how I pursue higher levels of productivity.
And in addition to good planning, I would argue that flexibility and resiliency are equally or even more vital. Flexibility meaning how do you adjust to unexpected urgent things that pop up and resiliency meaning how do you get back to your feet after being punched in the face (especially a Mike Tyson punch, that guy hits hard!).
So here’s the plan. You keep reading these articles. I’ll keep writing them. You give me feedback on what you want more of and what you want less of and I’ll see if I can accommodate you.
Next time I’ll write about flexibility and resiliency (or maybe just one of those two).
In the meantime, tell me, how do you handle punches in the mouth? [reminder]