How are you doing with discernment. Are you finding yourself getting pulled into areas you are not quite sure how you got there?

The Merriam-Webster defines it as “the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure”.

Today’s work context can be a bright landscape of lots of different options, and priorities. Discernment helps us ascertain what is truly important.
​
When we don’t discern what’s important – now, or in the bigger picture – we can find ourselves falling into the trap of the Shiny Red Object Syndrome (which I recently heard abbreviated as SROS). The shiny red object syndrome is like today’s social herding – lots of noise and light draws a big crowd. While it may appear “just the thing” to do or follow, below the surface it may not meet your needs.

Our time and attention are limited which makes DISCERNMENT a critical skill to support focus, especially in a digital and remote context.

In order to build your muscle in the area of discernment, consider these questions:

1. What’s really important?
2. What are the top 3 priorities- for you? For the organization you work for/lead? For others?
3. What has been imprinted by URGENCY? (Note: Urgent does not always mean important. Someone else’s crisis may not be your own.)
4. In the bigger picture, what’s important to pay attention to OR put a focus around?
5. If you were to look back at this item/task/priority in six months, what would you say was the value of it?

I hope that these questions will get you thinking about what’s truly important for you, and your work, and organization.

For more on this topic:

• Check out this article by Patti DeDominic about the Importance of Discernment for Business Leaders and CEOs here.
• Check out this post about Discernment and the Entrepreneur, particularly as they focus on collaboration here.

​
Best,
​Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

Are you a remote professional? Join us at the Remote Pathways podcast as we explore the people, places and pathways to remote work. It's a new podcast I co-host with Michelle Mullins.

​This year, the topic of habits is getting significant focus. Books from authors like James Clear and his Atomic Habits book, along with older ones from writers like Gretchen Rubin – Better than Before, and Charles Duhigg, the Power of Habits, each take a deep dive into the topic.

When I went to write Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack, I wanted to encapsulate some of the practical exercises I had been doing with individuals, teams and groups for many years. As I write in Coaching Business Builder,

“Habits and practices are things we do automatically, sometimes unconsciously, because they have come so ingrained. There are many schools of thought that create a link between habits and success. That habits lead to success.”

As the tagline in the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack asserts:
Daily Steps + Consistent Action = Momentum

Habits play a key role in shaping our regular actions. Habits are things we do automatically, and if we are able to instill regular go-to activities that can help us move forward, it can support automation of tasks and activities.

Habit development takes place over time. While the commonly held time-frame a decade ago was that habits took about 21 days to form, today we know that many take longer than that. Lally’s research has been influential in expanding that window to approximately 66 days to a new habit. Check out James Clear’s article on this and other research.

Habits are connected to our behaviors and therefore results. It’s our regular behaviors which shape the results we get. As my doctor recently asserted, my regular habit of walking more than 12,500 steps, along with other factors has helped to lower my cholesterol and blood pressure in the last couple of years. While they were not at a danger zone they were in the higher zone.

Another one of the habits I have built in over the last few years has been around work flow. My Mondays and Thursdays are full, long days, which does free up some time on either Wednesday or Thursday for blocks of writing and other creative pursuits. As an author, and writer, finding these times are critical for reflection and creation.

This year, take a look at the goals you have set for yourself. What are the results you are looking for? Increased sales, new programs, building your network? Work backwards and reverse engineer what are the behaviors you are going to need to undertake on a regular basis?
​
As you consider your current goals and priorities:

1. What will help you be successful this year?
2. What are the habits that are going to help you?
3. What are the regular activities you want to build into your work?
4. What are the consistent behaviors and actions you want to or need to undertake to move you towards your goals?
5. What could amplify, or magnify, your regular behaviors?
6. What's missing that could make a difference?
7. What consistent flow do you want to get into?

Enjoy your thinking around habits and perhaps you will also pick up a resource.
For more on this topic, check out these posts from other writers:

• 7 Steps to Developing a New Habit – Bryan Tracy 
• Three Steps of Habit Change - James Clear
• Zenhabit’s Cheat Sheet – 29 Ways to Successfully Ingrain a Behavior 

While each author has their own framework, notice what is consistent across them.
 
Enjoy the reflection and action!
Jennifer

As a Fitbit embracer (no paid commercial endorsement here – just my own love of how it’s made me more aware of my lifestyle choices), I’ve become fascinated by the new sleep score provided to me every day when I wake up.

An increasing number of studies are pointing to the importance of sleep as part of our regular routine.

As someone who embraces and requires, early morning time at my desk (I’m usually there by 5 or 5:30 am), I do know that it’s a trade-off-and that my body really does need as close to 7 hours as it can get in order to not only function, but thrive.

Linked to memory, health, immunity, sleep is a key part of high performance. Studies now also show that we can get too much sleep.

What are you doing to incorporate more quality sleep into your regular routine?

Best,
Jennifer

Week 45 Focus — Renewal
Focus Question: What does renewal mean for you?

Description
The fields of sports and business shows us that teams that excel, are great at both “playing hard” and also resting hard.
 
Just as physical renewal is essential after a long race, periods of renewal are key in business to help us remain at our prime. What does renewal mean for you? When is the last time you took time to renew?
 
Decision fatigue, social media burnout, task switching and cognitive overload, take a toll on us as professionals. When things become unbalanced it can also become luggage we bring into our family life.
 
As solopreneurs, keeping ourselves “at our prime” is key as the business relies on you. Without you there, it’s unlikely that it can keep going for long. Therefore, renewal should take a priority.
 
Here are some different ways to consider renewal:

• Taking vacation time on a regular basis
• Scheduling time away from our work (i.e. conferences, meetings with colleagues)
• Enjoying a compressed 4-day work week at different parts of the year so you can enjoy a longer weekend
• Having clear boundaries around “when you are ON” and “when you are OFF”
• Swimming/running/hiking/going to the gym over lunchtime on a regular basis
• Going on a retreat

What will help you renew?
 
Activity
Consider your skill base right now. What is one skill area you could become more effective in to boost your impact as a people leader?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Take a look at your calendar. What have you done to build in renewal periods on a WEEKLY, MONTHLY and QUARTERLY basis?

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram
​

​Week 42 Focus – Prioritization
Focus Question: What do you want to focus on today?

Description
There are many competing priorities in a business. What are the things you want to focus on today? This week?
 
As solopreneurs, it’s unlikely that our To-Do list will ever be complete. We can overwork ourselves to the point of burn out.
 
As virtual and remote professionals the issue of prioritization takes on immense significance given that we are likely to be part of multiple teams, working across different time zones, with each team and leader having different priorities. Having to work more autonomously, and independently, we also can benefit from prioritizing what’s important from the “bigger picture” of what’s on our desk at any given moment of time.
 
In Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack, I share four different prioritization tools which will help you identify what is going to give you more focus:

1. The Strategic Issues Mapping
2. The SWOT
3. Covey’s Urgent/Important Matrix
4. Urgency/Importance Matrix

 
Activity
Work through the relevant tools for your work and business right now. If you are doing some longer-term planning, refer to the SWOT and/or Strategic Issues Mapping. If you are feeling overwhelmed, stuck or working on immediate priorities consider using the other prioritization tools.
 
Connection to the Workbook and Planner
You will find the prioritization tools listed on pages 114 to 119. You might consider exploring:

1. The Strategic Issues Mapping
2. The SWOT
3. Covey’s Urgent/Important Matrix
4. Urgency/Importance Matrix

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

This week’s Weekly Planning Hack, gets you to consider the question “If not now, WHEN”? Many of us have a list of items that sits there. While it is invaluable to get these ideas out of our head and onto a resting place, these lists can grow to be unmanageable and can create a sense of overwhelm in and of themselves.
​
This week pull out any lists you have been creating and ask the question – If not now, WHEN?
​
Some items may naturally fall into your calendar (Schedule them!), some may go back onto a new list to immediate To Dos, and others may gravitate to a new long-term list.

In exploring this question, you may find yourself at the end of the process, with yet another long list. Two different frameworks you might apply then:
1. The 4 D Model. Going through that list and further refining it into:
     Do it – And give it a time frame.
     Dump it – Let go of it.
     Defer it – Put it off to another time. (And schedule this in your calendar/planning        system.)
     Delegate it – Consider who to delegate it to, and when they will do it
 
2. Prioritization – Using the impact/likelihood matrix (see section 4 of PlanDoTrack or Coaching Business Builder), assign each (or most) of the items a priority. Schedule these in accordingly.

​Enjoy your prioritization!

Best,
​Jennifer

​Being able to create a micro-pause within your working context can help support focus, clarity and momentum. In our work as coaches, we often create a “micro-pause” with the organizations we work with. In my research around the value of group and team coaching, I continued to hear about the value of the “pause”, the fact that a coaching conversation would provide a pause for people to stop and think and look around.

This is something we all can be doing in our work – stopping to see what is working well, and what’s not. What needs to be tweaked, and what needs to be overhauled.
We often need to “Slow down, in order to speed up”.
 
Here’s a great article for entrepreneurs who feel like they may need to always be “on” by Jules Schroeder entitled “The Slow Hustle: Why Every Entrepreneur Needs to Slow down In Order to Speed Up”.

Questions to consider this week:

• What value would there be in having more pauses in your schedule or work day?
• What are the micro-pauses you want to create?

Best,
​Jennifer

​As I often write “we live in an era of digital distraction”. From bings and pings, quirks and quarks, digital distractions are everywhere.

Digital distractions can include:

• The pings and bings of email. Dr. Gloria Mark’s research found that it can take us upwards of 22 minutes to focus again after a disruption
• Social Media
• Instant Messaging
• Other messaging such like Messenger, What’s App and others that may not get turned off when others do
• The impact of too many emails coming in all at one time

Questions to consider:

• What is the cost of digital distractions for you?
• What do you have control over?
• What can you turn off at certain points of the day? (Note we can disconnect from the internet, turn off phones, and select what email we get. This may be a discussion point for the team, particularly as people may not be able to work as efficiently with all the distractions. What is possible in your work and the work you undertake?)
• What are the things you can do to focus more?

Wishing you the best,
Jennifer