I don’t know about you but I can put off and put off doing something until it becomes, let’s say, a hot potato and then I have to galvanise myself with the deadline looming.
How inefficient this is. Effective but inefficient.
It’s effective in that it ‘makes’ you get on and do whatever-it-is but you waste energy and time putting it off and, ironically, you can take longer because you haven’t got all you need. And, haven’t time left to get it.
Pah!
So, working with a client this week who had her Year End Review on her ToDo list (way down the bottom of the ToDo list by the way), I encouraged her to put herself much higher up the list. If not at the top.
Why wait until the year end?
Why have it in your mind in the lead up to Christmas?
Why wait until those you need input from are already in their own Christmas lead in ie not interested in you at this time!
What was particularly noteworthy is that having had this discussion, my client actually started to look forward to getting the preparation done.
Showing her company how engaged she is in their Year End Review practice. Making herself a priority instead of all the other things she’d put ahead of herself.
The irony is that, just as in our personal lives, when you just get on and do it, that thing you’ve been putting off – you often actually enjoy doing it and find it much easier than you thought you would.
It also frees up precious energy and headspace to get on with other things with more gusto and that’s always worth enjoying.
A final word on the matter…
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“The key is not to prioritise what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities”
~ Steven Covey
And in other news…
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Snow and I stopped putting off Leaf Management in our garden and got going filling bags, bins and adding them to our compost. We had to galvanise ourselves but, as with so many things, once we got going we enjoyed it….for about 10 minutes until more leaves fell. It’s a process and we realised it’s not a “one and done” thing. It’s an ongoing thing…