I do a lot of executive coaching around personal leadership. Everyone is struggling with a lack of margin and the ability to get everything done on their list.
The major problem is our unwillingness to say No and reduce the number of demands. The primary reason is that we have not taken the time to clearly define our Yes list first, so may busy but not important things get added.
One of the great lies we believe is that one day this will get better and when things slow down I will make all the changes needed. This HBR post brings some serious truth to the mind games we play:
“We are master storytellers. We tell ourselves fanciful stories to motivate ourselves to get vast amounts of work done in small amounts of time. We jot down task after task after task, sure that we can complete them all within a standard workday. And yet, at the end of the day, we’re stunned to find that work remains unfinished and we have to dash to the finish line. We’re not deliberately deceiving ourselves about what we can do with our time. But despite past evidence, in the moment our predictive engines gum up, and we’re convinced we’ll be able to achieve the extraordinary in an ordinary day.”
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