No, you don’t have to run out and purchase a Mountain Dew, even though that was a super sticky catchphrase! I am sharing a great nugget of wisdom I gained from attending a recent class on productivity. Thanks to some really insightful work/life advice from a super cool business coach Jessica at Cultivate Advisors, I was able to really assess how I spend my week and how I can be the most productive.
Working at home and running a consulting firm where I deliver work products of various types for multiple clients means that I always have ten plus things in the air and am stuck like glue to my calendar. It’s the only way I can organize my day and my week, which works pretty well but doesn’t always mean I get it all done. I have notes included in my calendar for school pick-up times, after-school activities, doctor’s appointments, work meetings, deadlines, and more. If it’s not in there, it doesn’t exist in my world.
One of Jessica’s great tidbits was to schedule yourself in the time to “do” the task at hand, not just your due dates and deadlines. We so often get tossed around in the hustle and bustle of checklists and client demands and meetings, we can forget to allow ourselves the appropriate amount of time to actually sit and do the work. Then we find ourselves in a tizzy at the end of the week scrambling to get it all together before the weekend.
My takeaway was to slow it down a bit and look at pockets of time in my week to work on projects, have prep time, catch up on personal items like bills and errands, and follow up with clients. This method may be too granular for some, but I find it is really helping me to tackle all the things I have on the to-do list for the week. What are some of your time-saving, productivity-inducing life hacks? We would love to learn your tricks of the trade!
