Tag: productivity

Find Your Focus Areas!

(Want to watch me share this article? Click here for a FB live: https://www.facebook.com/MColleenKlimczakCPO/videos/812165770032446)

It always delights me when someone quotes me back to me! At a recent meeting, a friend mentioned that her brother had attended one of my Stress Management presentations. Of course, she also mentioned that she asked him to do something and he said “No, that isn’t in my Focus Areas”! (No names are mentioned, for anonymity!)

In my Stress Management Presentations, I recommend identifying and then sticking with your Focus Areas.

The idea is to identify what is important to you, and subsequently, what is NOT important to you. And once you know what is important to you – what is a high priority for you – intentionally spend your time and energy and resources on the high priority areas of your life.

Being intentional on how we spend our resources is important when it comes to getting things done, decreasing stress and increasing feelings of accomplishment and satisfaction.

Reviewing my notes, I realize that Focus Areas come up a lot for me. For example:

  • When writing an agenda for a board meeting – “What is important? What do we have to make sure to talk about?”
  • EVERY WEEK when I check in with my 2 accountability partners, I report using my Focus Areas as writing prompts.
  • In a recent conversation about the lingering effects of lock down and the pandemic, as in, “even when in lockdown for months in my home, I still didn’t want to work on jigsaw puzzles or knit a blanket.”
  • Even in casual conversations with my son. As in “Mom, you should watch this entire YouTube series on conspiracy theories.”
    • “Um, no. No, I should not.” Binge watching anything, especially something on conspiracy theories, is NOT in my Focus Areas.

What is important to you? What are your Focus Areas? If you’re unclear on what your Focus Areas are, start by checking three places: Your bank account, your calendar and your texting history. “What is important to you” is what you spend your resources on. Resources like time, money and energy.

Here’s the other side of that statement, though. Are you spending your resources on the areas of your life that you WANT to be important to you? Meaning, do you feel like building your business is important to you, but upon review of your resources, you aren’t spending a lot of energy on that endeavor? Or family or relationships or faith, etc.? As I plan my work today, I use my focus areas to determine what I DO and DO NOT want to spend my time on.

OK, so my Focus Areas are:

  • Service and Faith: School Board Work, Community Work, Ministries at church including Choir, Cantoring and Baptismal Prep
  • Home / Family: First thing first, my husband and sons. Then family and friends. And “Home” is the care and nurturing of home, cleaning, cooking, projects, holidays, etc.
  • Personal / Wellness
  • Educate Me: educational pursuits, learning new skills, reading non-fiction, learning new music.
  • My Company. I have subcategories, or business specific focus areas, too. They are Coaching, Clients, Presentations, Marketing and Business Specific.

What might your Focus Areas be? Career, Family, Health, Hobbies or a specific interest, Adventures, Friends, Money, Spiritual Needs, Personal Growth, Physical Fitness, etc..

A caveat: Our Focus Areas are an internal choice. A quick way to identify what might NOT be one of your Focus Areas is any time the idea comes from outside of you and is accompanied by a Should. As in almost ALL ADVERTISING! or “Wow, you should totally get a tattoo and run off to South America if you want to live a fulfilled life like me.” Huh? Um, no, thanks.

Additionally, our Focus Areas can change and evolve over time, just like we do as humans.

Knowing what our Focus Areas are helps us to make good decisions on how to spend our resources. They also give us a rubric for deciding on how to NOT spend our resources. Even if it means we respond to a request with “No, I am not willing to do that, it is not important to me, or part of my Focus Areas”!

Clutter Hot Spot: Your Tech Accessories

The challenge with this hot spot is that there isn’t always just one spot.

Sometimes the tech pieces

are

all

over

the

place!

The original inspiration for the Clutter Hot Spot series was client interactions in January. And in one week, I had 3 clients who had tech accessories stirred up into every space we were organizing!

IF we ever hope to find them again, we need to assign JUST ONE HOME for our less-often used tech accessories.

In my office, our ONE tech accessory home is a desk drawer. Right next to me as I write this article. It’s not exciting or big or complicated. It holds tech items that we might need again. In preparation for writing this article, I looked in there earlier today. The boxes for my Apple watch and airpods are in there (new-ish). Extra lightning charging cables (we buy these a few at a time), charging cubes, earphone covers, users manuals, the extra cord that came with my new monitor in its labeled bag. Also, mesh bags for corralling tech accessories when we travel. A few items I came across are now obsolete, like my last two Fitbits and their very specialized chargers, and those are all now in the basket in the garage waiting for a E-Waste collection event.

Let’s review the important parts of the story above:

  • One and ONLY ONE home for tech accessories you might need again.
  • The habit of putting tech accessories in that ONE home when we get them, and putting them back in there after we use them!
  • Labeling the accessory and what it belongs with to eliminate future questions.
  • Everyone in the house knowing where the extra tech accessories live.
  • The habit around reviewing the technology at least once in a while, to determine what tech accessories we need to keep and which ones need to move along to E-Waste recycling.
  • Making sure your E-Waste actually gets recycled. Check your local recycling resources for E-Waste recycling near you. If you’re near me, check out my recycling page for resources. (https://peaceofmindpo.com/2019/06/26/organizing-resources-to-reduce-repurpose-and-recycle/)

Look around your home and establish that ONE SPOT for your extra tech accessories, and commit to moving your tech clutter there as you find it!

But, What If It Is Amazing?

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” – Marianne Williamson

It is so easy to believe the bad stuff. And there is a lot of bad stuff sometimes, I know. Most of our brains, especially brains with ADHD, or anxiety or depression, trend negative.


I pride myself on having a positive inner narrative, of making sure I keep an eye on the good things inside and around me. I know I am a much happier person that way, much more productive, certainly more pleasant to be around, and with positivity and good energy to share. And I do.


Recently, I identified a place in my mind where Fear had snuck in. In one small area, I had let fear guide me, keeping me from moving ahead on a project. And when I identified fear in one place, I also realized that I had let the fear in one area leak quietly into other areas of my life as well.


Sneaky thing, fear.


Fear was keeping me stuck. I had fear of failing and of succeeding, at the same time. Go figure! Illogical, of course, but sometimes our thoughts are illogical!


I worked through some things over the last week, using tools I have from my coaching practice on my own challenges. The first step is awareness that there is a problem. I completed perspective work, I listened to my intuition, I checked in on my own needs and values. Yes, I coached me with my coaching tools!


And what came to me was, “Fear can be scary, but what if the other side of the fear is AMAZING??


What if this scary thing, when I get through it, results in something totally awesome? Fear wants us to believe that negative things can happen, and they can, but so can amazing things, in equal measure. The AMAZING results are actually more likely than the failure, in this instance.


So let’s ask…. (and we will stick with organizing, though you can swap that word out for anything else you want, too):


What are you afraid of?

  • Afraid of failing at organizing?
    • Every thing we try is a learning experience, there really isn’t failure there.
  • Afraid that organizing might be difficult?
    • Ok, but how much more difficult is it to struggle every day?
  • Afraid that organizing might be easy, and I’ll realize I should have done it years ago?
    • Ok, but why bother beating yourself up about the past? Show past-you some grace and enjoy today’s success.
  • Afraid that the path might not be easy or straightforward?
    • It won’t be, and that is ok, too.


Now that I am aware that Fear had me stuck, I am looking more to the AMAZING part.

Yes, I have work to do. I already had work to do, now I can do without being afraid, too.

Yes, things may get hard. But things were hard anyway, and now maybe they can also get easier!

Fear is scary, but join me on the other side of Fear for AMAZING!

Do What You Can and Forgive Yourself For What You Can’t.

I am really good at a lot of things. Not bragging, it’s true. We all have that list, the list of ways we excel.

Just this week for example:

  • You want a delicious dinner for 14? “Sign me up, I’m your girl!”
  • You need music for a first grade Christmas pageant? “Fun, let’s do it!”
  • You need someone to manage teams of teenagers at 2 different pancake breakfasts next week? “No problem, let’s do this!”

However, the other side of that piece of paper has a similar list of things I am not good at.

  • You need someone to shop for Christmas presents? (… crickets…)
  • You need me to lay floor tile for you? “Um, nope.”
  • You want hand-sewn Christmas gifts? “Not it!”

My point? My friend summed it up. I received a great text the other night:

“I loved your message for the holiday season. ‘Do what you can and forgive yourself for what you can’t’. You inspired me to put a dent in the holiday list tonight.”

I think my friend who texted was more profound with my words than I was, so I’m quoting her. We had been discussing sticking with our strengths and giving ourselves Grace during this super busy (especially for Moms) time of the year.

If you need to hear or read it one more time, friend:

Stick with your strengths and give yourself grace.

“Do what you can and forgive yourself for what you can’t.”

P.S. I wrote this as a weekly newsletter, and I liked the content so much I wanted to eternalize it as a blog article. Hope you liked it. Have a great day!

How to Break the “Just One More Thing” Habit

This is not what I had planned to write about this week, but readers asked for More! when I admitted in last week’s newsletter that I had and also conquered my tendency for “Just One More Thing!”.

You know, “Just One More Thing!”? As in … we need to leave in 5 minutes, of course I have time to write 3 emails, or start a load of laundry, or make one more phone call.

Perhaps you have this tendency, too? It is well intentioned. For me, I just wanted to get as much done as I could so I would wring productivity out of every last SECOND of my day. Except, this practice is not very productive and it occasionally tripped me up. It might only impact me or you, but the more complicated our schedules become, the more likely this habit is to impact others negatively as well.

20 years ago, I often fell into this flawed thinking, and this judgement error was exacerbated by the fact that I was the mother of small children. Even if I thought I had an extra 5 minutes, we all know how quickly those can pass as we assemble socks or shoes or backpacks for school. And I was also setting a bad example, pushing-pushing-pushing the deadline for leaving on-time to arrive on-time. (*You could swap out child references with co-workers in the above sentence and draw the same conclusions.)

What about leaving for work or for home or anywhere else you need to get to on time? “Just One More Thing” only works when everything else works exactly as planned. And we also all know that day-to-day life rarely works exactly as planned. There is a last minute search for keys or phone, slow elevators, traffic or bad weather, and as one thing leads to another, we find ourselves rushing around, arriving late and out of sorts.

I recognized and began to remedy my issue of “Just One More Thing” when I worked downtown and commuted on the train. If I drove, it didn’t matter if I left my office a few minutes late. I could just make it up on the drive or get home a few minutes late. No biggee. BUT… if I didn’t leave my office at 4:55 pm, I would not be on the Blue Line Platform in time to catch the EL train to the Metra station to get on the train that got me home by 6:05. Trains don’t care about “Just One More Thing”. Instead, I would have to take the next train that arrived half an hour later and made more stops. And that made a BIG difference.

WHY should you break the “Just One More Thing” Habit?

Why? Because you’re not a jerk. “Wait, Coll, how could ‘Just One More Thing’ make me a jerk?” Late for meetings, drop-offs or pick-ups? And what if you’re the one who called the meeting?! Unreliable? Missed deadlines?


Why? Because you respect yourself. Last week, a friend (you know who you are!) mentioned the words “self-sabotage” when she commented on my “Just One More Thing” admission. Ouch. Hard truth, but truth nonetheless. We have to respect our own boundaries. And we can’t expect others to respect our boundaries if we do not.

Why? Because there is value in “calm”. Or “On-time”, or reliable or consistent, or having time to say Hi to a friend or sitting in your favorite seat at the meeting because you didn’t succumb to “Just One More Thing”. (Find your why and remind yourself!)

Here’s How to Break the “Just One More Thing Habit”:

Realistic Time Estimates: Know how long tasks take. If you have 10 minutes, what can you really accomplish in that time? Two 5 minute tasks or one 10 minute task and nothing more. Nothing more than 10 minutes in 10 minutes! OR… one short task and take a few minutes for a deep breath and an early start. (I know we just talked about realistic time estimates in a recent article, but it bears repeating!)

To Do Lists: Keep a to-do list, so your tasks and ideas are reliably collected and you don’t have to worry so much about JUST ONE MORE THING before you leave the house, go to your meeting, etc. With a reliable list, you can pick up where you left off.

If you really only have 5 minutes right now, “send out the ships” to others first. My accountability partner uses the term “sending out ships” to describe those communications that require a reply or action from others.



I know my pace for work. I do not know, or presume to know, other people’s pace for work. Therefore, I try to send out requests or messages to others ASAP to give time to answer. Then I make a note of when I sent the message or request, when I need to follow up, tack on a great bit WAIT and then move that task to that future time or date. As I write about sending out ships, it feels like a matter of prioritizing, and perhaps it is. But this strategy helps me communicate more effectively and focus in on what really needs to be said or done. Which leads me to….

Prioritize. When we have limited time to complete a long list of tasks, we have to identify what has to get done right now and what can wait. Don’t get distracted by shiny things or loud requests. (Loud and shiny don’t make a task important.)

Know Your Absolute Deadline, and add time in from there. Check your traffic app for commute time, check the weather for possible storms, know your route and a few alternatives. No matter how well intentioned we are, we cannot travel back in time. (Trust me, I’ve tried.)

Give Yourself Grace, as you figure this out. For goodness sake, be as kind to you as you are to others and cut yourself some slack. Forgiving yourself ahead of time for NOT doing “Just One More Thing” is a good place to start!

Is It Time To Tweak Your Routine?

I feel like I talk all the time about Routines. I think about them often and how to make mine work better for me. And I spend a lot of time during presentations and coaching calls discussing the importance and creation of Routines for others.

Maybe I do talk about them all the time, though – after a brief review – I don’t seem to bring it up here on my blog space very often.

I am tweaking my own Routines this week and this month, and I thought I would bring you all along for the ride.

What are our Routines? Our routines are the set of tasks we set about doing on a regular basis – daily, weekly, monthly, etc. – that help us handle the essentials of survival and maintenance in our life and / or our work.

Routines:

  • provide structure to our days, should we need it;
  • ensure that essential tasks are completed as often as necessary;
  • help us stay balanced and make sense of life and work;
  • save us time, help us be productive, eliminate stress;
  • are a great foundation for anything else that needs to happen daily or weekly.

We create routines through repetition. Our routines are attached to certain times of day – “I get out of bed at 6 and take a walk”; or certain events – “I take a shower and change my clothes when I get home from a client appointment”. And our routines are tools – tools to make our life run more smoothly. Or building blocks, providing a strong foundation.

Routines are habits, but they can also be changed or improved as changes in life requires them to change. And let’s face it, life has required many changes recently.

I tweaked my routines back in March as my state’s shelter-in-place orders began, and I usually tweak my routines for summer, as school and kid schedules change, so I know it is time! I can sense a change, a need to review and re-establish my routines when things start to feel a little out of sync, just a little wrong. As though I’m wearing the right shoes but on the wrong feet.

So, how to make changes? Or create a routine from the beginning?

Start with Needs.

I need to take a walk every day for optimal health, I need to take my supplements. I NEED to do these things, but the WHEN is more flexible.

During the school year or when my husband actually has to drive downtown, we walk at 5 am. Lately, it’s more like 6:15. Needs remain the same, WHEN can change.

List out your needs. You can list all your needs for the day, but I will start with morning. My morning (anything between waking up and starting my work day) Needs may include, in no particular order:

  • take a walk;
  • take my supplements;
  • make my bed;
  • make sure I have something planned for dinner (maybe even start something in the crock pot);
  • pray;
  • shower and get ready for my day;
  • start a load of laundry;
  • water my garden;
  • You get the picture.

Your list may be longer or shorter, and may contain tasks my list does not. And that’s just how it should be.

Next, assign any specific times to your needs and then put them in a logical order. Looking at the example above, I might order them like this…

  • 6:15 am Take a walk;
  • water my garden (when I get home from my walk, since I’m outside);
  • shower and get ready for my day (because it’s hot and I’m sweaty after my walk);
  • make my bed;
  • start a load of laundry;
  • take my supplements (coupled with the dinner planning, since I’m in the kitchen);
  • make sure I have something planned for dinner (maybe even start something in the crock pot);
  • pray (I do this at my desk, usually when I sit down to start working);
  • 8 am Start my work day.

Perhaps you have different routines for different times of day. I have personal or house specific routines around dinner time and bed time, and they are created the same way – start with needs, move on to times and convenient bundling.

And perhaps a routine for your work day would help you be more productive? Same process!

I suggest both a daily and weekly routine for work place productivity. My day-to-day schedule can change – today was not a typical Tuesday (I started with a 1.5 hour coaching call and then sang for a funeral), but the first few tasks I complete every day when I sit down at my computer – check email, check business social media accounts, confirm tomorrow’s clients – are the same whether I start at 8 am or noon.

When it comes to a weekly routine, I find it helpful to assign tasks to each day, for example:

  • Monday – strategic planning, client care
  • Tuesday – write article and publish newsletter
  • Wednesday – update website and social media
  • Thursday – check in around presentations
  • Friday – billing and invoices

If this idea works for you, great! Fill in your own essential tasks instead of mine. Just like a daily routine, having a weekly routine around NEEDS, in this case the NEEDS of my business, ensures the continued health and productivity of my business.

So, how can you tweak your routines this week? Determine your needs for your self and your home and your work. Make sure the Needs that need to be met daily are added to your routines, and the same for weekly.

Choose the best time for your routine tasks to be completed. Are you a morning person? A night owl? Maybe you hit your stride late in the day?

Look around – is there anyone in your house or office better equipped to do a certain task? Maybe there are tasks you can delegate!

Put your tasks in an order that saves time or makes sense. Try it out for a week or two and make sure it’s working for you! And expect you will need to review your routines every few months to make adjustments accordingly!

I will be working on my own daily and weekly routines this week, too! I know we will all be better off after spending a little time figuring out the best way to spend our time! Cheers!

Let’s Decide Now How the Next Few Months Will Go

Setting goals is a great way to make progress in life. Personal, professional, spiritual, wellness, you name it. The process lends clarity to our efforts, and provides deadlines and motivational boosts.

Today we are half way through 2020. Wow – July begins tomorrow! This should be a great day and time to set goals in your focus areas, move forward, do big things, etc…. But that feels heavy right now, doesn’t it?

Is it safe to say – the last few months weren’t what you expected? Personally, I know that to be the truth. If you set goals for 2020 back in January, perhaps you have made progress, or perhaps you barely recognize your reality today.

In business, we often look at the year by quarters. So, 2nd Quarter (Q2) of 2020 was April / May / June. And I can say with certainty that Q2 2020 was incomparable to any other quarter before. Ever. In business and in life. We saw it coming, back in Q1 2020. But let’s face it, we didn’t know really know what was coming.

2 Quarters completed, 2 Quarters to go

I’ve had two coaching conversations in the last 2 days about 3rd Quarter Goal Setting, 2020. And what both conversations had in common was that all parties involved – me and my two coaching partners – agreed that setting Q3 goals feels WAY TOO BIG for right now.

There are still unknowns. A LOT of unknowns. We’re still feeling our way through Phase 4 reopening here in Illinois. We’re carefully placing our feet for the next step on the path.

Goal!

Despite the unknowns, I still want to set goals for Q3 and Q4 2020 and I suggest you do the same. However, here are some things to think about as you set them!

What are your focus areas? I can’t answer this one for you, but as an example, mine are:
Wellness, Family, Home, Personal, Business, Educate Me and Service.
I set goals regularly in each of these focus areas. The “Focus” in focus areas works both ways – I only set goals that fit into one of these focus areas, AND I set goals in each of these areas. In theory, that means nothing gets neglected AND I make progress in the areas of my life I’ve decided are important.

For July, instead a few large goals, I am setting more incremental goals for smaller time frames. I am more likely to succeed on those smaller but more plentiful goals, and I will feel the motivation boost that comes from DONE! more often. (Today, a client and I deemed that boost ‘a happy dance’!)

Because I cannot control the world or others, I am setting goals that I actually can influence. For example, I’ll look at my own wellness, habits and internal growth. A goal for July may be schedule 10 Presentations for the second half of 2020, but perhaps those will be presentations I host myself. I won’t set a goal to “make new coaching clients call me”, but I can set a July goal to update my website and social media to include language about coaching.

Smaller goals allow for more flexibility, too, for mid-journey course corrections or adding new goals into the mix as life or circumstances dictate. Unfortunately, there is still uncertainty looking ahead at Quarter 3. But we can choose to make progress on our own goals in our own way at our own pace.

So, my friends, what will your next month look like? Your next quarter or half a year? Setting goals will help you determine your own future despite the “unknowns” we still face! So let’s get to it!

The Post-Deadline Lies We Tell Ourselves

Have you ever had these thoughts before:

“I can’t wait to finish this project… life will be so much easier when it is done.”

“I’ll have so much free time when this semester is over.”

“Wow, whatever will I do with all my free time after this project / deadline, etc.?”

Or, “After the holidays, things will finally settle down.”

A friend and client brought this up to me years ago – the game she plays when she is in the middle of a semester (she is a teacher) or writing an article: the “when I finish this, I will finally be able to slow down / take a break / relax for a while / few days / few months” game. But that break never seems to happen.

We work and work towards a deadline, and think fondly though fleetingly about how nice and relaxing it will be once that deadline is met and the project is complete. And then we complete the project and meet the deadline, yeah! Great, Way to Go!!

However…then the basic survival and maintenance tasks we have neglected while we hustled to meet our deadline clamor for our attention. The house is sort of a mess, the cabinets are a little bare, the desk top or work space is strewn with project remnants and papers, the laundry has piled up and your in-box is atrocious.

Plus, the other projects that have been neglected while we finish come rushing forward for our attention and we end up right back into overwhelm. There – can you see it? – the next deadline / project is already looming on the horizon! Agh!

So, what could we do instead?

When the deadline is successfully met, article submitted, we can revel for a bit in the glow of “Done”, “Finished”, “Accomplished”, before jumping into the next big project.

We can take some time to take care of those survival and maintenance tasks. Grab some lunch, some water, a break outside in the sunlight. Take a shower and start that load of laundry!

We can factor in recovery time (I am saying this to you and to my self). I am slowly and with resistance learning that we need to factor in recovery time after major efforts. Talking with a friend, they spent an entire weekend day tackling yard tasks and were sore. So the next day, they laid low and took it easy. Recovery.

We can find some closure around the project or semester or article or whatever that big THING was that you’ve been working on. Clean up your work space, file your papers or info, leave yourself a few notes for follow-up, send a few thank you’s to folks who lent a hand. Take a few deep breaths and smile.

We can clean out our brain with a 30- minute cranial cleanse of non-project related tasks and ideas, or collect any notes-for-someday you may have written yourself while in the throes of that project. For next time, keep a bullet journal or make notes in an Evernote or Google doc as random thoughts occur to you and save them for later so as not to distract from your deadline!

And during your next brief down-time, look ahead and schedule some of these catch-up tasks for yourself post-deadline. We can leave ourselves a plan, maybe a check list of self-care, recovery and clean up tasks, to give our tired post-deadline brain and body a break!

Is the Phone Really Dead?

Someone: “My phone is dead.”

Me:  “Is the phone really dead?”

Someone: “Yes, it won’t charge.  It doesn’t hold a charge.  The charging light doesn’t even go on.  Tried it a couple of times, the phone is dead.”

Me: “Let’s break it down.  The problem might not be the phone, that is just the part we see.  The problem could be the phone (the most expensive item to replace, of course!), but it could also be

  • the cord, 
  • the cube, 
  • the outlet, 
  • the connection between any of these components, or
  • in many cases sometimes, ‘user error’ (a nice way to say I or you may be the problem).”
  • And the problem was the charging cube, in case you were wondering.  The phone recharged and works fine.

I love a good challenge.  I love to solve mysteries and problems like this.  And yes, sometimes, the phone really is dead and the problem is exactly what it presents itself to be.

But sometimes it is not.

“Is the ceiling fan really dead?”

“… It doesn’t turn and the light won’t turn on.”

Yes, but is the ceiling fan the problem, or:

  • Is there something wrong with the wall switch?
  • Is the circuit tripped?
  • Is it the on-off switch on the fan?
  • Is it the connections in or out of any of these?
  • (turns out, it was the connections in the ceiling to the base unit).

My handy husband and son spent an hour and solved the mystery a few weeks ago instead of just going out and spending money on a new fan which wouldn’t have worked either, because the problem was in the connections in the ceiling.

This works on more subjective challenges, too. 

“Hmmm, This person and I don’t seem to be communicating well.”  Is the problem with

  • the message? (one of you doesn’t want to hear it or want to say it?); 
  • how it is being said? (the tone, the jargon)
  • the method of communication?  (you would prefer to text, the other person prefers to talk on the phone)
  • the timing? (the sender or receiver is distracted by something else more important or urgent)
  • something even more  personal or subjective with either the sender or receiver that has nothing to do with the process or method?

If you have a problem to solve, whether it is objective, like fixing a cell phone or ceiling fan, or more subjective like interpersonal communications, it pays to take a moment and break down the problem into smaller pieces that can be examined on their own.  Perhaps the solution is right in front of you!

Create a “Done List”, In This Strange Pause Time.

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I want to talk again about lists! (see my article from 2 weeks ago, It’s Time to Make Your Some Day Soon list).

This week, I challenge you to start your Done List. In the past two days, I’ve had two conversations about Done Lists. I LOVE a good Done List. Not a To-Do list of what still needs to be accomplished, but a DONE List, of accomplished tasks and completed goals. (Woot Woot!!)

There are lots of benefits to creating and keeping a Done List. Every week I share a Done List with my accountability partner, where I get to share successes from the last week based on my goals. A mini-celebration, if you’d like, with imaginary confetti and fan fare in my head. I get to share my Done List, re-assess what still needs to get accomplished, and craft this week’s plan. But first I get to celebrate!

What are some benefits of the Done List?

  • Dopamine boost that comes with a sense of accomplishment;
  • acknowledgement of learning;
  • release and stress relief from met deadlines;
  • a clear conscience!

Have you noticed? Time is passing strangely – the hours pass slowly but the days pass quickly. As the days pass without acknowledgement, our efforts could also pass without notice.

I have been amazed, though, by what people are accomplishing during this Pause Time. Big things, little things. We are all finding new and interesting ways to do our regular stuff, and also new and interesting ways to do new and interesting things. People are growing beyond their comfort zones and stepping up to help as needs require. Way to go, everyone!

Here is a little piece of my own Social Isolation Done List so far (in no particular order)? I…

  • successfully made yeast bread after years of telling myself I didn’t know how;
  • caught up on my VIRTUS training modules (there were many!);
  • took LOTS of Zoom webinars to find out how to host Zoom Webinars;
  • presented my first and then many more presentations as Webinars on Zoom (has been on my to-do list for years!);
  • recorded and shared a newly created Webinar with a training center just this morning;
  • transitioned many in-person clients to virtual organizing and coaching (also on my list for years!);
  • cantored for two Masses that were recorded and / or live-streamed for Holy Week;
  • made progress on the back-log of my non-fiction reading pile;
  • started to learn to play the ukelele;
  • attended meetings virtually last week that I can never seem to find time for in a normal week; and
  • cleaned up the yard for Spring.

Maybe your Done List is simpler: “Worked, maybe a lot; served others; made it through today; found beauty where I could; reached out and made connections with loved ones.” All important and noteworthy.

The point is, tracking our accomplishments can help us to find positivity and hope in this strange unsettled time. Days are passing without our usual noteworthy experiences – how many birthdays have already been celebrated without the parties, how many events have been rescheduled or cancelled all together? Weekends look different now, and may look remarkably like any other day.

So, my friends, make a conscious decision to create and maintain your Done List this week. Appreciate your own efforts and applaud your own accomplishments, with a little (or a lot of) celebration!