Now that we are facing summer, the challenges we face seem to be greater every year. Summer is a time when we must manage or adapt to the summer schedule for ourselves, our families, children, employees, customers, and clients. How do we juggle it all?
What if you planned your priorities over a rolling 12-week period? As you complete one week, you add another, so you are always looking at 12 weeks. If you consistently work using this time block, you can then adjust as you discover time challenges or the availability of resources. Both can happen whether you are a leader, a member of the staff, a business owner, or responsible for showing up every day in a brick-and-mortar storefront.
I’ve always said, “What gets on my calendar gets done”! I know that we must practice discernment when it comes to where we spend our energy. Have you found that everything takes longer than you think it will? I know that I have. With that in mind, there are items that inevitably continue to get moved further down on our “to-do” list.
The most valuable asset we have is our time. We can’t buy more of it, and we keep telling ourselves we have “plenty of time”. What I’m suggesting is a structured approach to reduce the overwhelm and stress we feel as summer gets underway.
- Embrace a strategy of focusing on a rolling 12-week period.
- Pay attention to what is taking your time and assess whether they are the right things.
- Release your guilt – hard one, I know!
- View your time as an asset.
- Let go of things that don’t matter…
Make this summer different. Don’t kill yourself planning experiences or making schedule adjustments to accommodate everyone else. Be present this summer – stop and smell the roses!
What are you looking forward to? Let me know!