Do you ever feel like there’s not enough time in the day to get all the things done?
Do you feel like you have a good grip on handling the urgent and important matters but struggle with the non-urgent ones?
Here’s what ends up getting stuck on the back burner: operational loose ends, tech clutter, email, and more. If you’re anything like me, you have a list either in your head or a physical one of things you’ll get around to doing someday. Fear not, my friend, because you’re already ready to get this stuff handled and handled often enough so that the metaphoric ‘doom pile’ doesn’t get too large.
Most of you know that I practice a 12-Week-Year goal setting routine, which happens to line up nicely with four evenly distributed quarters throughout the year. Three nice and tidy months. Sort of. See, an actual fiscal quarter is roughly THIRTEEN weeks, so here’s our little secret pocket of time to bang out that sabbatical your brain is craving. Week Thirteen.
Do yourself a favor and schedule specific time for catching up. It’s good for your brain, it’s good for your business, and it frees you from worrying about feeling perpetually incomplete.
MY PRODUCTIVITY SABBATICAL RULES
- No appointments. None. I communicate the event to everybody in my business world that I’ll be out of office during the scheduled time of my sabbatical. I rarely tell people that I’ll be ‘working’ during that time because it’s a slippery slope with a huge chance that the other parties will think that I’ll make exceptions to my no-appointment rules. I know myself well enough that I people please to my own detriment, so setting this hard and fast rule ahead of time will hold me accountable to staying the course.
- I set my business up like I’m going on vacation. Auto-responders go on my email, another agent is on standby to serve my clients, and I even gear my home up as if I’ll be leaving town (I KNOW I’m not the only one who deep cleans their home before going on vacation just so I know I’ll be coming home to a clean one). This piece is important to me because if I’m taking a productivity sabbatical, it’s work focused. Being free from appointment commitments might lead my little squirrely heart to chase a personal project. If the house is tidied before my sabbatical begins, I will be able to plow through catching up without needing to scrub a toilet or swap out a load of laundry. I still make time for those little personal projects, though, at the back-end of the Sabbatical.
- Hard pants are out, comfy sweats are in. Dressing for comfort gives my body a chance to relax enough that it tells my brain it’s allowed to let loose, too.
- Off-site is required. If I’m on a Productivity Sabbatical, I’ll be doing it in a location that isn’t completely familiar to me yet is an environment conducive to creativity and productivity. There are a couple of coffee shops near my home that are perfect for setting up camp all day. Being off site puts my brain into ‘work mode’ and the unfamiliar environment inspires me to hunker down and bang out the tasks I need to complete. It might also challenge me to come up with new and fresh ideas or inspiration to keep moving forward, especially if my tasks end up feeling boring or mundane.
- I MUST have goals for the time off, otherwise much of the valuable time will be wasted on trying to figure out what I’m going to do next.
- A Productivity Sabbatical should only last one to three days. It’s up to you if you want or need to take more time to get caught up, but when you step out of your daily grind, you might be surprised how fast you’ll hammer through those little incomplete tasks. If you don’t have time to actually finish your tasks, especially if you have large ones or restructures in-flight, you’ll be able to use this time to strategize time in the future to work on these items.
- A Productivity Sabbatical should be followed by a minimum one to two day personal one. There’s no trophy for workaholics at the end of life, so make sure you’re making your time here on this planet count, especially for yourself and your family.
Linsey, what do YOU do on your Productivity Sabbatical?
That’s an excellent question and I’m so glad you asked, my friend. Since I’m in the process of lining up my next Sabbatical in the end of March, here’s a short list of things I’ve tabled for that last week of the quarter:
- Sort, purge, and tidy my cloud storage.
- Sort, purge, and tidy my database.
- Map out my personal touches, birthdays, and pop-by’s for the next quarter.
- Update my website and draft six new pages.
- Audit my financials and remove any revolving payments for goods or services I’m no longer using.
For my personal time off, I’ll be doing the following:
- Prepping for our family Spring Break
- Painting the lower level bathroom
- Purging the kiddos’ wardrobes and donating clothing that is to small for them
- Drafting our Q2 meal plan
- Drafting my Q2 workout goals
- Evaluating my last 12 weeks and setting goals for the next 12 weeks.
- Organizing the hundreds if not thousands of photos on our personal devices
It isn’t rocket science, and I promise you’ll feel so amazing after your first Productivity Sabbatical that you’ll be scheduling your next one as soon as it’s over.
I trust you find this idea helpful to you and your business. As always, it is an honor and a privilege to be in business with each and every one of you.
Yours in Success,
Coach Lins
