thrive
Productivity Coaching, Time Management Consulting and Leadership Coaching for business and nonprofits - get your most important work done. Collaborating with leaders and their teams to become more strategic, focused and productive. Leadership and Board Coaching, Strategic Planning Facilitation, Productivity Coaching and Time Management Consulting, Professional Speaker.
Productivity Coach, Productivity Consultant, Leadership Coach, Time Management Coach, Business Consulting, personal productivity, time management, nonprofit, board coach, collaboration, strategic planning, facilitation, change management, leading productive teams, project planning, board development, volunteer engagement, association management, workplace productivity, executive director.
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thrive Tag

24 Jul

Posted at 10:40h in Focus and Prioritize, Productivity for Leaders, Space, Stress Management, Time Management

What is YOUR Success Formula?

Look at how you filled your parking spaces last week.  There are 10 spots. Our math savvy friends know that each spot is 10% of your disposable time.  We will use this to create your formula.

Some of you may have created two parking lots. One that reflects how your life is today and one that reflects how you want your life to be.  The one that reflects the way you want your life to be will drive your success formula.

You are creating a vision for success – a “SUCCESS FORMULA” based on

  • your definition of success
  • your unique focus areas
  • your core values
  • your aspirations.

Keep in mind that each spot is equal to 10% of your disposable time.

Now assign a percentage to each of your parking spaces…

Example:

  • if you have 5 spots for work that’s 50%
  • if you have 3 spots for family that’s 30%
  • if you have 2 spots for self-care that’s 20%

This is my success formula:

Success Formula example

What’s your success formula?

Here are some other examples to spark your creativity:

Success Formulas

Now you have a visual based on YOUR DEFINITION OF SUCCESS.

Use Your Success Formula to Drive your Priorities

  • Create a visual that is motivating and appealing
  • Post your visual where you can see it daily
  • Use your visual to drive how you spend your time, and how you set your priorities; ask yourself:
    • Does saying yes to this support my success formula?
    • If I say yes to this what will I be saying no to?
  • Do the math – if something gets 10% of your formula then it gets 8-10 hours a week. If something gets 40% of your formula that is 32 to 40 hours a week.  Try logging how you spend your time.  You’ll be amazed at what you learn.

Integration: A key component of experiential learning (which is doing while learning, which is what we did in this blog course) is taking the time to integrate the learning.  Here are some questions that can help you to integrate the learning:

  • What did you figure out?
  • What do you see differently?
  • What one change will you make first?

Wishing you SUCCESS on your terms!

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 6th, and final, in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future blog posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please continue to share this blog course with your friends and colleagues.

16 Jul

Posted at 00:00h in Focus and Prioritize, Space, Stress Management, Time Management

 

Life is like a parking lot…   

When the lot is full, no matter how much you’d like to, you can’t pull in until another car pulls out.

  • Is your parking lot full?
  • Do you have more cars to park?
  • What car has to leave to put a more important car in?

We all have 24 hours in a day and we all have 7 days in a week.  We can’t control that.  What we can control, however, is what we do with those hours.

If we break this down, we can agree:

  • We need to sleep: there goes 7-8 hours a day
  • We need time for essential self-care: eating, grooming, emptying the dishwashers, etc. – we’ll give that 3-4 hours
  • 24-12 = 12      or      24-10 = 14
  • You have 12-14 disposable hours a day!  That is 84 – 98 disposable hours a week.

How are you going to fill your parking spaces?

  • For my analytical readers – depending on your disposable hour calculation above each space is 8.4-9.8 hours.
  • For my creative readers – figure 8-10 hours a week per space!

parking spots

Consider your “Unique Focus Areas” you created in Week 2. These can guide you to fill your spots with the things that you identified as mattering the most.

This is how my parking lot looks:  4 spaces to work, 1 space to volunteering, 2 spaces to self-care, 1 space to personal/professional development and 2 spaces to my family.

full parking lot

This week’s assignment: Fill your spots.  You may want to do this twice.  Once for how it is now and once for how you want it to be.

parking spotsparking spots

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 5th in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please share this opportunity with your friends and colleagues.

04 Jul

Posted at 23:32h in Envision Possibilities, Stress Management, Tips for Easier Living

NO is my New YES

I love the word essence. It’s deep and alluring. It goes places that other words don’t go. It’s germane to many of the choices we make.

Last week’s core values exercise tells you about who you are and what you want in your life to be your best-self and live your best-life.  Essentially, these should guide your decisions about how you are spending your time and give you insight into your true priorities.

There is that word again, essentially…

  • Essentially – the crux of the matter
  • Essentials – the fundamentals
  • Essence – the intrinsic nature of something

When we are in our essence, we are making the choices that are congruent with our intrinsic nature. We are not fighting ourselves.  We are not trying to shove a round peg into a square hole, or trying to fill in the corners of a square peg in a round hole.

Are you in essence?

Are you saying “yes” to the right things?

Think about that while you listen to this amazing song by singer songwriter Karen Drucker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhpZKpnrOCQ

This week’s exercise is to make a “NO” LIST.  Name 5 things you will say “no” to that are not in essence with your core values.

  1. ______________________
  2. ______________________
  3. ______________________
  4. ______________________
  5. ______________________

 

What did you learn?

What do you have to let go of to make room for success?

What is important to you about your success?

Are important “yeses” coming into focus?

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 4th in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please share this opportunity with your friends and colleagues.

20 Jun

Posted at 00:03h in Envision Success, Focus and Prioritize, Stress Management, Tips for Easier Living

 

Helpful in the process of getting clear on what’s important is identifying and understanding your core values.

  • A value is your assessment of what is important to you in your life.
  • Your core values are those values that define you as concisely as possible.

Try the following Core Values exercise and see what you learn. Keep in mind that there is no right way or wrong way to do this exercise.

View or Print the Core Values Worksheet here.

Step 1) Circle 16-24 words from the list that best reflect your values.  Feel free to write in any values that are important to you that are not on the list.

Step 2) Narrow your selection by grouping related values together in the boxes provided.

Step 3) Select the one value per box that you feel best identifies a core value. Write that one core value in the corresponding box below.  You may use all 6 boxes, but if you only identify 3 or 4 values that is equally excellent. Example: Courtesy, empathy, friendliness and kindness are somewhat related. By grouping them together it may be easier to determine which of those terms would be your core value.

Do your intentions, focus areas, and characteristics align with your core values?

Do you need to make any adjustments to your intentions, focus areas or characteristics to match your core values?

Do your values support your living the life you want to live?

Take a few minutes and journal about what you’ve learned.

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 3rd in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please share this opportunity with your friends and colleagues.

12 Jun

Posted at 08:42h in Change, Envision Success, Focus and Prioritize, Planning Tools, Stress Management, Tips for Easier Living

When setting intentions and goals it’s helpful to categorize, or as professional organizers like to say; group like things together.  When we see things in categories it’s easier to make choices.

My favorite example of this is black dress shoes. If you put all your black dress shoes together you will likely have about 10 pairs.  When you see them all in one place, it is easier to decide which pairs matter most. Only then you can give away the shoes that don’t fit, hurt your feet, or are too worn to wear.  Grouping like things together brings clarity to what is most important.

We can apply this concept of grouping to the activities, obligations, and priorities in your life as well.  When we “see” them all together it helps us focus on what is most important.

Look back at your definitions of success from last week.  Now consider how you are spending your time.

Are you doing the things that support your definition of success?

How can you group your life areas together in a way that respects the uniqueness of what really matters to you? Here are some examples to spark your creative juices. Feel free to use your own words as well.  I recommend picking the 4 or 5 “buckets” that reflect the things that support your definition of success:

Self-Care Family Spirituality
Friends Volunteerism Service
Activism Business Growth Career
Work Professional Development Health
Personal Growth Fun & Leisure Home Environment
Creativity Relationships Exercise

 

Your UNIQUE Focus Areas:

  1. ___________________________
  2. ___________________________
  3. ___________________________
  4. ___________________________
  5. ___________________________

 

CHARACTERISTICS of your Focus Areas

The next step is to identify CHARACTERISTICS of your focus areas, and in turn the actions that support what is important to you. This will help you get clear about your focus and priorities.

Remember, only when you are clear about what you want to FOCUS on can you FOCUS on it. 

Here are some examples that can be applied to your non-business self:

  • Self-care:
    1. Go to the gym twice a week
    2. Make time to talk to four friends at least once a week
    3. Meditate 20 minutes 4 times a week
  • Family:
    1. Spend at least one hour a week reading, playing games, or actively engaging with my children/grandchildren/nieces/ nephews/etc.
    2. Have lunch with mom once a week
    3. Have a date night with my partner two times a month
  • Service:
    1. Volunteer at least 5 hours a week
    2. Identify one cause to stand behind
    3. Don’t spread myself too thin

And for work:

  • Professional Development:
    1. Read at least one business book monthly
    2. Listen to a podcast once a week
    3. Prepare for certification exam by October
  • Business Self-Care
    1. Leave work by 6pm most days
    2. Work from home 1 day per week
    3. Have lunch with one new colleague each week/month
  • Business Growth
    1. Complete XYZ project
    2. Develop program to improve customer feedback X%
    3. Improve department profitability X%

 

What are the characteristics of your unique focus areas?

  1. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
  2. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
  3. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
  4. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________
  5. ___________________________________
    1. _______________________________
    2. _______________________________
    3. _______________________________

 

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 2nd in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please share this opportunity with your friends and colleagues.

01 May

Posted at 09:52h in Envision Success, Leadership, Productivity, Time Management

Much is being written about productivity these days, though it doesn’t seem to be really helping too many people.  Perhaps it’s because of the “one size fits all” approach I discussed in last weeks blog. My perspective, and why I’m choosing to include LEADERSHIP in my blog theme, is because your productivity is influenced by the productivity of others in your sphere. We don’t operate in a vacuum. The effectiveness of the people we work with impacts our personal effectiveness.

I know, you may not think of yourself as a leader, but I do.  I define a leader as someone who influences outcome through collaboration and communication.

And, I just love this quote from Jed Bartlett of West Wing fame: A leader without followers is just someone out taking a walk…

Do you influence outcomes?  Do you lead people?

  • As a entrepreneur you lead your vendors; be it your web designer, bookkeeper, virtual assistant, graphic designer, professional organizer, or coach.
  • As a member of a team you lead the people on the team. While you may not always have formal authority over them, quite often informal leaders have great impact on outcome.
  • As a subordinate you lead your boss. If you have ever influenced the outcome of a discussion with your boss, than you are a leader.
  • As a volunteer you lead to achieve the mission of the organization for which you volunteer. No matter what your position, your work influences and impacts the team and the outcome.
  • As a family member you lead your family. Think about deciding where to go to dinner. In my family this takes the ultimate of leadership skill!

For you to be effective, not waste time, and get work done, you depend on those around you. You can either isolate or collaborate. When you collaborate, your productivity is impacted by the cultural health of the team.

And if you’re the leader, your success is absolutely dependent on the productivity of the team.

Productivity isn’t just personal, is it?