Tag: exercise

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+1. 15 Minutes. Take Some Time Back

Plus One

When I have the discipline to schedule my day, I try to find time to “+1.”

What do I mean? It’s an attempt to find space to improve a skill or environment for long-term growth or success.

Operationally, this could be an online class or reading a blog post. It could also mean cleaning your room or calling your parents. Even the gym counts. Anything that doesn’t solve a problem immediately can function as a +1.

It’s the “not urgent, important” type of work that helps you build a healthier life.
It isn’t easy, though.
Putting time on the calendar and doing it, well, that is easy to forget.
A few too many emails or slack messages turns into “I meant to…” quickly. Try to schedule it earlier in the day and execute it on the first “break” you have. The sooner, the better.

Challenge: Try to block out fifteen minutes today for “+1” time.

Daily Tracker

  • Meditate – 2
  • Read – 2
  • Exercise – 2
  • Slept at least 8 hours – 3
  • Limited Phone Exposure – 0
  • Wrote (this blog doesn’t count) – 1
  • Shared something – 3
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A Quick Checklist to Understand Why You Are Stressed

What is the rush?

Have you asked yourself that today?

A great exercise is to take the next few minutes and write down the following:

  • Is there anything that is urgent? Can you delegate it?
  • What have you forgotten today?
  • What are my deadlines in the next three days?

One of two things will happen.

  1. You’ll remember something, fix your calendar, and make sure you take care of it
  2. You’ll recognize nothing is wrong at all.

So, whats the rush?

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Take Fifteen

Make it count

A nightly routine is excellent.

Doing the same things every night has several benefits:

  • Picking the proactive activities (say writing a thank you note to someone) compounds and the effects are massive.
  • Things most of us hate, like cleaning up (I know I do) can take much less time before bed.
  • It is a signal to your brain to start to shut down.

This post is going to focus on a proactive activity, reflection.

Reflection is a great tool to understand the past, present, and possible future. The best part, it only takes 15 minutes.

How you reflect comes in different flavors:

  • Meditation
  • Writing
  • Gratitude list
  • A thank you note

The job of this post isn’t to walk you through. There are several tools on the internet to help on that end.

The purpose is to act as a reminder.

 

What did you do today?

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Focus like Warren Buffett (He is the World’s Second Richest Man – Right?)

It works for one of the world’s richest men

Warren Buffet, one of the world’s richest men, has a strategy to figure out what he needs to work on going forward.

After thinking about his top 25 priorities, he ranks them in order of importance from one to twenty-five. He crosses a line under the fifth one.

Every priority under that line he never thinks about again.

Three things stand out about that exercise:

  1. He takes an enormous amount of work off his mental plate. By getting rid of 20 priorities he cares about, he has much more energy to focus on the five that matter.
  2. He gets used to killing his darlings. Instead of priorities becoming a part of his identity, he keeps them at a distance where they stay ideas. They don’t become emotional.
  3. His practice trains him in making the right decision. If five priorities matter, you are going to start learning what’s important faster than if you allowed yourself the opportunity to pick when you wanted to.

This exercise is a simple, yet powerful example of setting your boundaries.

Like setting priorities, this is difficult because you take away your escape route. 

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This Tool Helped This President Run the US Forces in World War 2

It’s about the right thing, not the next thing

Draw a big box on a sheet of paper. Big means, almost the size of the paper. We are going to draw an Eisenhower Matrix.

Inside, divide the box into four equal parts.

Label them, clockwise:

Now, you’ve made an Eisenhower Matrix, an easy tool to help you prioritize.

Keep it by your desk. Whenever you get asked to do something, ask yourself, which one of these boxes does this task belong.

Treat it accordingly.

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These Four Words Can Help You Figure Out Your Priorities

Four words help you think priority out

Before you prioritize, think about building a map.

To do this, gather your team and put them in a conference room. Book some time for focus, because this type of work requires some heavy thinking and discussion.

Once you are in a room, prepare to answer a few questions about the four topics: important, urgent, curious, fun.

Questions (X = important, urgent, curious, fun)

  • What do we find X?
  • Where does X this matter in our history?
  • Why is it X important to the team?
  • How do we implement X?
  • Who is involved with X?

Have everyone go through those questions a few times, and collect the answers.

Why?

This gives you insight on what people find important in the room. What is on top of mind is critical in understanding what makes your team go.

Combine this with long-term preparation.

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Figure Out Your Incentives

Think about the incentives in your life

Yesterday, we talked about incentives, and why they are important.

Today, let’s introduce how to look for incentives, and the questions to ask to figure out just what they are.

It’s important to understand the incentives we have because they lead us to execute actions that affect people other than ourselves.

Our actions have consequences.

A good question to start with is: _______ is important to me because _________

Write down something that you do in the first blank – i.e. work

In the second blank, write that the first few things on your mind. Getting past the first few is important.

E.x. Work is important because of my paycheck, habit, family, social status, projects.

Those things indicate incentive.  As a result, you are beginning to see some of the incentives in your life.

For now, do this exercise a few times to see if there are any patterns.

Tomorrow we are going to discuss the primary incentive, and why that’s important.

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Use This Brief Email Template To Get Clear Objectives

get-clearer-communication-with-a-brief-email

It is simple

There is a simple, 2-minute idea that can improve your team’s completion percentage and improve relations between one who assigns and the assignee.

What is it?

First, let me give you a look into an experience I am sure we’ve all had:

Person 1 gives person 2 a task. Then, person 2 accepts the job. Person 1 marks a date on the calendar when it’s due. Afterwards, person 2 just works in her corner of the office. Person 1 adds another thing and another thing to person 2’s workload. Person 2 misses the date.

As a result, both end up resentful.

Does this sound familiar? I’ve been both person 1 and 2. Both are frustrating positions.

The problem isn’t competency or skill. The issue is communication.

How do you fix it? You check in with the other person.

Take a look at the exercise below for a sample “check-in” email that helps both sides of the equation.

Exercise:

Write a “check-in” email about a project or task.

As Person 1:

Hey,

How is [job name] coming along?

My understanding about the project is you are: [Where you think person two is]

Is there anything I can do to help? [List potential problems/roadblocks]

This job is a [priority level] because [why is it important to the strategy]

As Person 2:

Hey,

I am checking in about [task name here]

Here is where I am: [Small status report here]

I may have trouble with this: [Potential problems and roadblocks in the short-term]

My priorities, in order: [Job list]

This brief email clarifies communication problems by letting people know exactly where they stand. That, in turn, improves morale and helps person 1 create a landing zone(LZ) for later projects.

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“Drop Dead” And Get Things Done

Complexity and Utility

Let’s make it happen

The last two days we talked a lot about closets. I use the closet not only as a practical example but also a metaphor. Drop dead conditions are ideal for all sorts of things, ranging from decisions on products to where you want to eat for dinner.

How are we putting the drop dead condition(DDC) into action?

Before we use it to decide when we are going to launch our next initiative, let’s stick to our closets.

Exercise:

  1. Block out at least 30 minutes to review your closet with a pen and a pad.
  2. Review each item in the closet. Each one gets 10 seconds, no more! I’ve found that our emotions don’t change after 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, we tend to rationalize.
  3. If you like it, NEXT!
  4. If you don’t like it, jot down the reason.
  5. Bonus points! Remove it immediately from your closet. There’s no reason to keep something you hate. Coordinate a gift donation with a local not-for-profit. Get that thing out of your house, for real.
  6. When you’re done reviewing your closet, you now have a list of DDCs!
  7. Place this list in your wallet. Look at it every time you go shopping.
  8. Schedule a DDC action three months later. You will review your closet’s contents and toss what no longer serves you.

This exercise an easy way for you to get comfortable with this framework.

 

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Small Changes Generate New Possibilities

Break the Filter

We don’t know our brains. After 10 thousand years of “civilization,” we still are only scratching the surface of the mind’s ability.

Our brain receives tons of messages every moment. The brain then filters them to the world we recognize.
This filtering system allows us to live life in a simpler way. However, I understand two things:
  1. We each see the world differently.
  2.  To widen the amount of stuff we accept, we have to break the filter.
Luckily for us, the filter is fragile. To break it, all we have to do is try something new.
New experiences open us up to seeing the world differently. Even something as small as taking an alternate route to work will change your perspective because you take in new things.
In fact, that is today’s exercise.

Exercise:

  1. Take note of the way you go to work.
  2. Map out a different way, one that you haven’t taken before. Take that way for a week.
  3. After a week, take the old way back to work.

Now, notice how different things look :-). Taking a new route exposed your brain to new things, breaking the filter. Think about this experience each time you go over something, and it feels “dull.” expand the filter, and see how much new comes from it.

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