Live Deliberately
Many of us find ourselves overly busy taking care of so many things and so many others that we end up swamped and possibly even overwhelmed from time to time. Have you ever found yourself with more things on your “to-do” list at the end of each day than when it started? How about being so busy doing work that isn’t yours that you can’t complete your own? Maybe you’ve even dropped social or fitness activities important to your own well-being to take care of a “hot” deadline? Most of us have probably found ourselves in these situations from time to time and that’s okay. The problem is that when we live in a state of surge operations for too long, we may jeopardize our overall health and welfare. Below I’ll share some things I do to ensure I keep my sanity in hopes that if you find yourself in the above-mentioned situations often, they might help.
Take time to schedule your priorities
The late and great Dr. Stephen Covey once said, “thekey is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule yourpriorities.” Many of us are in a constantreactionary mode when we start our day and it continues throughout. Some may feel there is no option due to theircircumstances, but we must remember that we are not victims of ourcircumstances unless we choose to be. Justbecause we have a lot of urgent things to do, does not mean they are allimportant things to do. Identifyingthe most important things to us by aligning our meaning and purpose to ourorganization’s mission is critical to our performance and to our health.
Waking up a little earlier to plan your day whileremaining flexible to a proverbial monkey wrench or two can pay offexponentially. A goal should be to sitfor about 15-30 minutes to ensure all your priorities or “big rocks” arescheduled and allow the “other things” to fill in the gaps. Also, ensure you are scheduling all yourpriorities, not just everyone else’s. I personallyuse a quad chart where each quadrant is labeled Personal, Mission,People, and Extracurricular Leadership. All of what I do fall into one of these fourquadrants because those things are the most important to me. The Personal quadrant lists things likemedical appointments, fitness, spending time with family, meeting an old friend. My Mission quadrant has activities criticalto my primary duties, like administrivia, dealing with manning issues, programexecution, long term goals, etc. My Peoplequadrant lists activities like 1-on-1 mentorship meetings, reviewing records forprotégés, visiting work centers to see how they are doing, and so on. Finally, my Extracurricular Leadershipquadrant has activities like professional organization business, facilitation ofprofessional development courses around the base or maybe a guest speakeractivity, to name a few.
Regardless of the method you choose to organize yourlife, make sure you organize all of it to include scheduling your personal activitiesand I recommend scheduling only the important things and not just the urgentones.
Make self-care a priority
Our comprehensive fitness and resilience are vital toour overall performance and well-being. Thereare times when we must make personal sacrifices, but if you are doing it allthe time, you are hindering your abilities to positively affect others. None of us can effectively pour intoothers if we are running on empty. Sometimeswe need a resiliency day or even week to recharge. Meeting with a friend over dinner or a drinkto catch up can remind us that we are human. Also, physical fitness is instrumental to our overall health. There are comprehensivestudies that show physical activities can enhance brain function and thoseyou influence deserve the best you. Meditationand reflection, cardio fitness, socializing with peers, strength and conditioningand relaxing should be priorities and we should all remember to make thempriorities that we schedule.
Grow
The great philosopher Seneca once eloquently stated, “Aslong as you live, keep learning how to live.” Learning is a lifelong journey that feeds ourcuriosity and our souls. I’ve alwaysfelt that if you are not continuously learning, you aren’t truly living. Some things I do to affect my growth is Iminimize screen time to maximize reading time and I listen to an audio book ora podcast on the 25-minute commute to work and while jogging. You’d be surprised how much learning canoccur during these spurts of information consumption. Some podcasts I listen to are The Joe Rogan Experience,The Tim Ferris Show, Hardcore History, and Naval. I personally enjoy Joe Rogan’s the most oftenbecause of the variety of people he chats with to include Dr. Rhonda Patrick,various Mixed Martial Arts competitors, David Goggins, and even Neil deGrasseTyson. Whichever mechanism you chooseto utilize, whether it’s magazines, journal articles, podcasts, books, etc., makesure you do it with an open mind and learn about what you want to learnabout.
Empower your team
I’ve often found that most people who find themselves busydoing everyone else’s work are victims of their own self-esteem issues (theywant to feel important), or they haven’t taken the time to develop their teams. On rare occasion, someone might findthemselves with completely incompetent personnel or a circumstance where theylack time to educate their teams, but I’ve found that this is more often anexcuse and not completely accurate. Trainingand empowering your team are critically important! Sometimes this means letting them fail and allowingthem to learn from it. Other times itrequires a leader to curb their ego. Andfor goodness sake, don’t let them pass their monkeys to you! If they are capable and committed todoing the task, they should do it! Don’t fall into the trap of doing their work for them mistaking that for“taking care of them.” If you areinterested in learning more and haven’t already read it, thisbook may change your life. Taking the time up front to train and developyour team will open time on your schedule to work on creative ways to improveyour team and organization. So,focus on that in which you have control and influence and make developing yourteam a main dish versus a dessert you pass on when you are full.
Learn to say no
Finally, learn to respectfully say no to commitments youdo not have time for or that aren’t truly important to you. People that say yes to everything often getvery little done and let down the people they care about the most. Simply saying “I really wish I could but I amoverextended and wouldn’t do you any justice if I took that on,” might not bethe answer the requester may want to hear, but in the end will earn yourespect as nothing is more detrimental to one’s credibility than committing andnot following through.
I realize not every one of these tips can be utilizedby all, but hopefully there is something here that can help you if you findyourself endlessly treading water in life. Remember, focus on what you can control, take care of yourself, and scheduleyour priorities.
Editor’sNote: Joe Bogdan is the co-founder of LlamaLeadership, is an adjunct professor of leadership studies and is a seniorenlisted leader in the United States Air Force. He has led various organizations with diverse missions across multiplecountries and currently oversees over 400 people composed of U.S. Military andGerman civilian personnel in Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.