Last week’s Weekly Planning Hack was about Focus on opportunities. This week’s is about the flipside, acknowledge the threats. As we have seen in recent months, the threats around a business can be just as important as requiring a pivot as other things.

Threats can range from changes in the business context, to new taxation regulations to changes in competition.

What are the threats you are facing as a remote professional  or in your work?

It’s important to be as proactive as we can be with threats and consider what are the things that are going to help us avoid them. This might include creating contingency plans or other.

What are the external threats that might derail your work? What are the things you can put in place to mitigate or minimize that possibility?
 
Enjoy the reflection,
Jennifer

The last several months have been a challenge for most in business. With a pandemic surrounding us, keeping things focused on the opportunities, rather than the threats swirling, has not always been easy.

There is a part of our brain known as the Reticular Articulating System, which works to focus on what we filter and let through to our brain and what we ignore.

There’s a well used phrase “What we focus on, expands”.  It’s sometimes also known as the shiny red object syndrome. You start noticing a new type of car, and then everywhere you look, there it is. In part, this can be because of what you are focusing on.

Think about your mindset at the moment. Where are you focusing? What do you notice?

Are you taking time to focus on the opportunities that exist? These might entail:

• Ways to do things differently?
• A different process?
• A new partnership?
• Joint ventures to expand into a new market?

What else would help to expand opportunities?

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!

In coaching, we often ask clients to think about the structure, of their accountabilities and what they have committed to doing going forward.

If someone is working on becoming more efficient by doing things once rather than returning back to it time and time again to perfect it, a structure might be “better done than perfect”.
 
If someone is wanting to become better at minimizing the paper on their desk or emails in their inbox, it might be a note on their desktop saying “Touch it once” or “Get to zero”.

For someone else, productivity might mean becoming more efficient with their time windows, and having an alarm or a timer to note when it’s time to sign off. By creating more urgency, it can help us move through moments of procrastination or increase our pacing.
​
Finally, for someone who wants to get better at getting into the routine of working out, the structure might be having the gym bag in the trunk, or a pair or running shoes in the car, to fit in the later in the day workout, after shopping or work (if you are out and about). If you are home, it might mean setting a timer and having your gym things ready for when you are ready to head out.
 
Structures can be visible – a post it, a note on your computer. Structures can be auditory – a song, or an alarm, or even a verbal note.
What are the structures which are going to support you in achieving your goals this quarter?
 
Enjoy!

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 Weekly Planning hack is about CONDENSING. To condense something is to make it more dense, thicker, or collapse it. When we condense things down, we return them to their elements.

In planning, productivity and business it’s important that we condense things down to their core elements so that things are more clear.

When you think about condensing things in work or business it might include:

• Prioritizing all the different Quarterly project options you are working on – What’s going to give the greatest impact? What’s really important?
• Simplifying some of the marketing text you are going to use in a campaign
• Simplifying processes in order to streamline
• Taking some projects off the list

​What else could be condensed?

Best,
​Jennifer

“What doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get done.”

When I went to name the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner a few years ago, it was first called Get ___ Done. The more I did work with professionals of all kinds (remote workers, leaders, entrepreneurs, the more apparent it was that metrics were an important part of productivity. We can get things done, but is it the RIGHT things, in the RIGHT ways?

“Metrics that Matter” gets us thinking about the things you want to track. What’s important to you? What’s important to your work or business? How often are you pausing to see where things are at? What are the metrics that matter?

As I shared in a September 2019 community call for Coaching Business Builder, metrics matter for several reasons including – they help to:

• Anchor

While we may be a Jack or Jill of all trades, it can be important to bring “Experts” on board as well

• Provide Data

Offering a variety of engagement types – products and services, which can allow you to expand your reach and geographic impact

• Scaling

Scaling your business beyond a one-on-one hourly revenue approach.

• Know Where We are Going

Keeping your work fresh, so that you are working around similar issues but in different formats

• Resource Allocation

Inspiration and Expansion of ideas
 
What’s important to note about metrics in your work and world right now?

What are you doing to track them? This week? This month? This quarter?

If you haven’t taken a look at your metrics from the last quarter, take a look back at them now. What do you notice?

Best,
Jennifer

“If you concentrate on small, manageable steps you can cross unimaginable distances.”
- Shaun Hick
​
This week’s focus is part of the main equation of my body of work, with PlanDoTrack which is Daily Steps + Consistent Action = Momentum.
​
What are the daily steps you want, and need, to be undertaking around major projects? What are the things you want to be doing to generate some momentum and energy of its own?

This links back to Week 43 and the Weekly Planning Hack of Consistent Action in 15 minutes a day. You can read that here.

While I was doing a search through some of my older Teams365 blog posts, a daily blog I started around leadership and teamwork issues back in 2014, I came across this post from 2014 about the importance of working in 15 minute blocks:
It's often said that when you experience writers block to just sit down and aim to write for 15 minutes. Many writers swear that this gets them going and out of the block.

Today's check it off tip is an encouragement to chunk things down to 15-minute blocks, so they are more manageable. Perhaps your office is already buried in files and paperwork, or your to do list of small things is already several pages long.

This week experiment with chunking things in 15 minute blocks and seeing what you are able to check off the list!
Source: https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-276-check-it-off-9-15-minute-blocks

Adopting the mindset of consistent action through daily steps helps us to chunk down tasks. When things are busy and perhaps ever changing, starting to move projects forward in a way where we are focusing on daily steps in smaller chunks helps keeps things moving. If larger projects are put on hold until there are larger periods of time they may not get done.

To experiment with this, think about the things that can be done more quickly or in an adjusted way?

Enjoy!
Jennifer

“No matter how trivial the recollections seem, note them down, and try searching for a pattern in them.”
- Dr Prem Jagyasi

In periods of disruption, it can be valuable to take a step back, out of the fray and notice the patterning around you. The ability to find patterns in disruption is a skill set which can be cultivated, and also has been indicated to be a valuable skill in leading in disruption.
​
Questions to consider:

• What are the key themes and activities happening? (Consider in your context, in your workflows, or in your team.)
• If you were to zoom out to the 30,000 foot view of this (imagine you were in an airplane looking down), what would you notice?
• If you were to zoom in to the granular sand detail level, what do you see?
• What are the patterns you are noticing?

 
For more on this topic, check out Teams365 #2137 – Navigating VUCA As a Team. You can find it here.

Enjoy the focus!
​Jennifer

"And even, if circumstances required, a contingency plan for his contingency plan's contingency plan."
-Frank Beddor
As recent events have shown, plans don’t always go as planned, especially when the context changes so much. This week’s Weekly Planning Hack is all about contingency planning.

My former world of work with the international sector, and in working with disaster management, was grounded in contingency planning. I like to say that I would start my day with a plan of A – Z which would morph and adjust to become a list of D2  to I2   over the course of the day.

Contingency planning is grounded in flexibility and consistent action. It is reactive, and sometimes proactive, making sure that plans are fluid and always moving.

Contingency planning allows for changes and learning to occur from event to event.
It does require strong skills in prioritization, adaptability, and flexibility.

What can contingency planning look like for you?

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

"If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else."
​–Lawrence J. Peter

Welcome back to an accountability check in. These are built in to provide you with an opportunity to stop, pause and reflect on what you wanted to get done, and how it’s gone.

Pull out your latest quarterly plans and take a look at what your goals were, then work through these quarterly reflection questions. You may also want to check out this 30 minute video and work alongside it with your own copy of PlanDoTrack, or the Coaching Business Builder.

Grab a pen and your planner or journal and reflect on these questions to consider: 

• What were your major achievements this quarter?
• As you consider the goals (and resolutions) you made at the start of the quarter, how are you doing with these on a scale of 1-10?
• Which goals are becoming new habits, or something you can check off?
• Which goals need to be adjusted or let go of?
• What do you notice about your metrics?
• What do you notice about your team?
• The thing that helped me be most successful this quarter has been __________
• The thing that has helped me be happiest this quarter has been __________
• What has helped me be most healthy has been __________
• What I have noticed about my work/productivity/results and/or relationships is __________
• Looking ahead to the next quarter:
• Success at the end of the quarter includes:
• I also need to think about __________

Enjoy the reflections!
Jennifer

“Bottom line is, if you do not use it or need it, it’s clutter, and it needs to go.”
– Charisse Ward via United Mayflower

​This week’s Weekly Planning Hack gets you to take a few minutes to archive materials that no longer are relevant. Whether it’s digital or hard-copy, being able to archive and/or delete information can be key to focus, prioritization and clarity.

As I wrote in Teams365 Check It Off Tip:
“While it might seem like adding time that you don't have, clearing things off and out, like your desk, or inbox, on a regular basis can create the space for new energy and clarity. What needs to get cleared in your office right now? Is it your inbox, old files? Take 15 minutes today to clear something and notice what new is created as a result of this.”

Even businesses will have different sets of legislation outlining how long materials need to be kept for. Spend some time checking with your local level government how long you need to keep materials for. Sometimes this may be for a period of five or seven years. Check it out.

Things that you might consider archiving include:

• Emails
• Financial records
• Manuscripts or other creative works
• Client/customer files
• Newsletters

What else could be archived? What could be converted from analog to digital?

Again, be sure to check perhaps with your local small business center in relation to what your local level requirements are for keeping materials and files.

Enjoy the conversation!
​Jennifer