At Management Craft, Focus Like a Laser Beam coach Lisa Haneberg writes that this week in between Christmas and New Years Day is the very best for getting gobs of your work done, and I couldn’t agree more. In fact, for most of us it will stretch to January 4th or 5th as the whole world eases in to 2008 in that silent, tacit agreement that we’ll all go back to work when the kids go to school too.
This is something to take advantage of!
If you are returning to work today, chances are that you will enjoy a good amount of peace and quiet compared to your usual workplace hustle and bustle. If this is a vacation time for you, it’s highly likely the next few days are ones where family members are quietly retreating to enjoy their Christmas bounty or just have their own space after all the celebrating until New Year’s Eve comes on Monday.
[Unless you have younger children who rightfully grab all your attentions, or you have brand new puppies to care for (like my daughter). They all grow up… One year to come, this will be a possibility for you too!]
To take advantage of these golden weeks, you need just two things: A plan for using them, and the discipline and resolve to make your plan happen! Think of it as a mini pilot for those New Year’s resolutions to come… (more about that later).
Your plan doesn’t have to be too detailed: It just needs to give you some solid direction. Here is the way my two weeks are stacking up.
- Today: 12/26 – No mall crawling for me! I have a home office that is as much a combination of those two words as you can imagine; both official and homey and now equal to year-end messy. This is my day to purge it and prepare it for 2008. Most important tool – my shredder!
- Thurs/Fri: 12/27-28 – I have a redesign planned for one of my websites… two of them if I can get all done. Stay tuned for the announcement!
- Sat: 12/29 – Cookery. Those who know me well are aware that my husband is the chef in the house, and I don’t cook unless I have to. Right before New Year’s is about the only time I cook and bake religiously to honor a few foodie traditions connected to the Russian roots of our family tree.
- Sun/Mon: 12/30-31 – Mostly family stuff, but I’ll also be putting some finishing touches on Ho‘ohana ‘Ōlelo, my monthly e-letter. (You do subscribe for it, right?) When I wrote Please don’t shop for me and talked to my family about it, my son came up with a fabulous Christmas gift for me: Knowing how graphics-illiterate I am, he designed a new web banner for Ho‘ohana ‘Ōlelo that I’ll debut on January 1st.
- Tues: 1/1 – It is sacred for us that we welcome the New Year at home and as family. Most of it is goofing off and laughing about as much as we can in the New Year’s spin on our 4 F’s (Faith, Family, Friends and Food). This year however, you can also bet your bottom dollar we’ll be huddled around the television in the afternoon for the University of Hawaii’s first-ever Bowl game – Go Warriors!
- Wed/Thurs/Fri: 1/2-4 – Though still officially on hiatus, I have planned to complete a mini project a day connected to my businesses, Say Leadership Coaching and Ho‘ohana Publishing. I’m not letting this time escape from me!
So my MWAC-ers, you can come up with your own plan in the same amount of time it just took me to write this out for you – about ten minutes. Just grab a piece of paper, write down some quick thoughts on what you’d most like to do, and assign some dates to them.
My MWA3P (MWA Productivity) Tip for you: Savor these last few days of 2007, and do this BEFORE you get serious about any New Year’s resolutions. We can talk about that later.
Now I’m off to tackle this office of mine. Have a great day!
Related posts:
- Give yourself an early Christmas gift: “Project: Sweet Closure 2007” was Part 1.
- I am still Living Mahalo with my Dailies. On that list, these mini projects make up that number “4.” when I am on hiatus, my “Ho‘ohana: Complete your day’s work as planned (whatever I’ve calendared in my Strong Week Plan/ per my Weekly Review).”
- If you are hearing about MWA3P for the first time, check out this 4-Part series: MWA3P: Better workplace productivity the Managing with Aloha way! The series offers an overview of the Productivity Coaching we do at Say Leadership Coaching:
- MWA3P: Better workplace productivity the Managing with Aloha way!
- MWA3P: Part One – The Individual’s Performance
- MWA3P: Part Two – Productivity in the Organization
- MWA3P: Part Three – How Organizational Culture Happens
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