 In the remote workspace working ahead (a little bit) can be an important practice, especially if disruption is more the norm than the blip in your work style. While some things will change if we undertake them too early, there are several things that you might benefit from working ahead around. Consider these items:
Over the course of a day, we can pull off tangent many, many times. That may be the reason that several schools of thought in time management assert to get the most important, and often the most difficult thing done first. I see this happen in my work on a regular basis, especially when I work around proposals, and presentations. I need a certain amount of creative and deep thinking when doing these two things, and if I can, I’ll find very early times of the day to at least get started, and sometimes finish, these tasks. Usually I am thankful given that inevitably urgent pressing matters pop up, requiring, my time, focus and brain power. If you were to invest in starting 30 minutes a day earlier, or getting a head start on thinking on a train ride, what would you want to work ahead around? 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!
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 Over the last month we’ve been exploring the five different productivity keys of PlanDoTrack. The last one is celebration. When are you pausing to take stock of your accomplishments? When are you stopping to celebrate what you have achieved? Taking time to celebrate is critical for business success so that we:
Celebration doesn’t always mean a big party. It can mean, taking 15 minutes in a team meeting to acknowledge achievements and share insights learned. Celebration typically involves stopping, pausing, sharing and harnessing what’s working. What are the things which are going to earmark a time for celebration in your team? For more on this topic check out:
Best wishes, 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!  Tasks expand to the amount of time we give them, according to Parkinson’s Rule. What are the time windows you are placing around the tasks and projects you are working on? As we know, time spent does note equal results and/or productivity. In fact, corralling your time and putting a boundary around key tasks may help you. What type of tasks might benefit from a boundary? If you are an entrepreneur or solopreneur, consider:
If you are a remote worker, this might include:
Many of these become big black holes where there may be a point of “diminishing returns”, or in other words, value in spending time on the activity only up to a certain point. With social media for example, what can I get done in 20 minutes that 45 minutes might not accomplish? Is the 45 minutes I spent doubly impactful, or just a little bit more? Notice how you prefer to work and what’s useful. The same can be applied around the time spent on personal activities:
What are the boundaries you want to create around your work? Kind wishes, 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!  This week’s blog post takes us into another layer of five of the productivity keys PlanDoTrack’s philosophy is grounded in. Taking time along the way to pause is critical for learning. If we go back to the educational model of David Kolb’s ERGA, he asserted that learning happens through a four stage process:
One of the key challenges in today’s business context is that we are often moving so fast we don’t have time to stop and pause. On an individual level, consider the benefit of:
Areas to consider as you create the PAUSE
Enjoy your pause! 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!  The third productivity key which PlanDoTrack is grounded in is that of momentum. Creating momentum where things seemingly take on a life of their own, where strengths and/or velocity is leveraged, is key for business results. Momentum can involve consistent action as well as experimental action. It often will involve more risk than normal so that frequency of action is faster. Momentum may also involve incorporating strategic thinking so that you are looking further down the horizon to estimate where your actions will take you. Thinking about what happens when you ski or boat – we are usually looking across to the horizon for a point at which we are aiming for, to set the course over the medium or longer term, rather than immediately looking to the short course. So, what can we do to create momentum? Here are some of the ideas I shared over at the Teams365 blog (my daily blog around leadership and teamwork issues). “Some ideas to keep in mind with creating momentum around anything - whether it's getting more exercise, having more one on one time with your staff or eating better - are:
Check out this additional article which may be of interest by Glen Llopis. Enjoy! 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!  We are exploring five of the different productivity keys captured in PlanDoTrack. The second one is around experimentation. With today’s business context characterized by change and disruption, experimentation can be an important strategy in product development, service delivery and also learning. Just as in an experimental mindset, we can approach some of our project work from a trial and error standpoint. While these may not be all projects, some areas may be earmarked for innovation and experimentation. Adopting an experimental mindset can lead to an ongoing cycle of trial, results, learning, iteration, adjustment. Some of the areas you might consider experimenting with could include:
What are the changes you are noting in your industry? Where might experimentation be of service? For more on this topic check out:
What does an experimental mindset mean for you as a team or business? What can it look like? 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!  What are you noticing about the things that are helping you keep moving? Having led thousands of conversations around productivity with leaders, business owners, groups and teams over the last fifteen years, I felt it was important to distill these down to more generic keys for productivity in my 2019 publication - PlanDoTrack. Five of the core themes which PlanDoTrack is built upon are the mantras of:
Let’s take a look at each of these in turn. We’ll be taking a deeper dive into each of these in the coming weeks here at the PlanDoTrack Blog. For more on these, also be sure to check out the associated questions embedded in Section 4 of PlanDoTrack. Today’s post explores the topic of FOCUS. In today’s VUCA context, being able to focus while also keeping an eye to the horizon of possible opportunities and threats, is key. Focus is paramount as a remote professional on multiple levels including:
Activity:
For more on this topic, check out an earlier 2020 blog post here. Wishing you the 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!  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:
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:
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!  Our next Weekly Planning Hack is to give things boundaries. Parkinson’s Rule asserts that activities will expand to the time we give them. If we block off huge swaths of time, do we use them most effectively? Are we clear about the smaller tasks (i.e. cleaning out the car for a seasonal detail) which can fit in around the bigger tasks? At the same time where might we need to say NO to certain things? What activities are taking important space which is needed for other things that are going to move you ahead in the medium- and long-terms? As you approach your focus this week, here are some questions to consider:
Giving things boundaries can feel challenging in the moment AND as we do it can be liberating. What do you notice about your boundaries? Enjoy the conversations! 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!  I started with the Weekly Planning Hacks a year ago this week. When I decided to add this as a new column, I was hoping that it would be a great mid-week booster shot and focus item. So much in productivity and getting things done in today’s digitally disrupted world is about “fitting things in the margins of our life” (to paraphrase Thoreau). If you haven’t been along on the last year’s journey of all 52 Weekly Planning Hacks, I hope that you will take some time to explore the different posts I have shared, as well as the Facebook Live sessions I have also hosted. Over 52 weeks there have been a wide range of topics covered. From the Pomodoro Technique, to focused 15 minutes of work bursts, from delegating, to saying NO. Take note of which ones you have experimented with, and what impact it has had. Is it time to revisit some of these once again? Thanks for bringing me into your screen for the last year. I’m going to be continuing this focus for at least another quarter so please stay tuned for the mid-week posts and join me when you can for the mid-week Facebook Live posts. Enjoy! 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 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. |
AuthorJennifer Britton is the blogger behind the popular Teams365 blog, a daily,blog for team leaders and members since 2014. Her latest publication is the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner. Pick up a copy at Amazon. Pick Up a Copy
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