6 Ways to Revamp Your Weekly Routine

The rapid growth of the business and pace of change leave many executives struggling to stay organized and focused, which results in lack-luster personal results. The key to any productivity system is to focus on value, not effort. By taking the time to plan your week, you can identify the best use of your time and energy and organize yourself for success.

Do a mind sweep

Walk through a list of prompts in different categories looking for things you are trying to remember and commitments you’ve made (what scientists call cognitive load), and get them out onto paper

• This gets the distractions out of your head so you can focus on the work at hand

You’ll have greater clarity

Slow down and make time for clarity.

• You can’t see where you’re going if you’re too busy running with your head down
• Schedule an hour every week to “check in.”
• Reflect on your intentions and observe the challenges or opportunities that present themselves.

You’ll harness the power of emotion

Emotions are a guide, and they help you take inventory of what’s happening in and around you, and how best to respond.

• Slowing down helps you channel emotions into actions that serve you well and lead to success.

You’ll make better decisions

When you slow down and make time for rest and meditation, you lower your baseline for mental stress

• Your mind is free to absorb information, assess circumstances, and make a good decision
• Life is much better when you balance hustle with slowness

Check your longer-term goals

Quarterly objectives and key results

Review the week to come

Use a Defensible Calendar strategy

• Organize your schedule into large chunks with tasks grouped by importance and urgency to make it easier to organize and manage your work
• If a plan is not well organized, request changes to free up continuous time in your calendar to create focused time

Sort by urgency and impact

Make notes on complexity and size and then sort them by two major scales

• Urgency – how critical the task is to this week
• Impact – how much value the task creates in the short and long term
• The value of your planning is not that it will execute perfectly, it’s that you’ll understand what’s on your plate, what your priorities are, and how you want to re-organize things to stay on plan
• Slowness is the antidote to the “always hustling” mindset

You can’t hustle if you’re dead

If your goal is to succeed, then you should be willing to take the time to honor what your mind, body, and spirit need to stay healthy.

• When every day provides 24 hours, there’s really no excuse not to meditate, exercise, cook a healthy meal, or journal.

Look forward to three to five weeks out

Avoid anything that requires you to take any kind of action in the next seven days. Look for things like travel arrangements, larger project work, and creative development.

Reflect back at the last week

See if there are any open items or actions from previous events that you may have missed

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