3 Systems to Get More Done (Ep. 8)

Do you ever feel like a juggler in a circus act?

You have so many things to do every week, and you feel constantly and perpetually behind, like you're checking tons of things off the list, but you can never truly catch up. This scattered feeling leaves us more stressed than we need to be each week.

In today's conversation, I'm going to share with you three systems you need to regain control of your week. First, we'll start by tackling how to figure out what to do today with a few filters to help you make those decisions. Second, we'll talk about a system that helps you organize your weeks. Finally, I'll share a system that you can use to reflect on the past week, learn from your mistakes and move forward, optimizing your time with those lessons.

Stop living in this chaos and constant stress and listen for these three systems that are going to truly help you revolutionize how you spend your time and how you move forward in your business and your career.

Resources:
Episode 3: Overview of the Weekly Preview - Weekly Optimization Reflection - How to Navigate Life Without Missing Important Moments (Ep. 3) (theothersideofbusy.com)

Episode 4: Using the Ideal Week - Theming your Days - How to Simplify Your Week Using Themes (Ep. 4) (theothersideofbusy.com)

02:19 System 1: Prioritize Your Daily Big Three
06:16 System 2: Structure Your Week
08:48 System 3: Weekly Reflection
13:32 Bonus: Email Management Tip

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Or send me a DM:
https://www.instagram.com/jenna.piche

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennapiche/

5 Ways to Calm the Calendar Chaos:
https://theothersideofbusy.com/chaos

Transcript

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Do you ever feel like a juggler in a circus act? You have so many things to do every week, and yet you feel constantly and perpetually behind, like you're checking tons of things off the list, but you can never truly catch up. The scattered feeling, this disorganized feeling leaves us. More stressed than we need to be each week. Well in today's conversation, I'm going to share with you three systems you need to regain control of your week. First we'll start by tackling how to figure out what to do today with a few filters to help you make those decisions. Second, we'll talk about a system that helps you organize your weeks. So you focus on the most important work and don't get distracted by that busy work that isn't moving you forward. And finally I'll share with you. A system that you can use to reflect on the past week, learn from your mistakes and move forward, optimizing your time with those lessons. So soon, you're a well oiled machine. Stop living in this chaos in constant stress and listen for these three systems that are going to truly help you revolutionize how you spend your time and how you move forward in your business. And your career. As women, it's easy to feel over-scheduled over tired and some days just over it. It's time to ditch the guilt. Still get things done and have time left for ourselves and the most important people in our lives. How do we do that? You're about to find out. Hey there. My name's Jenna Pasha. And here I share with you the latest bio-hacks mindset shifts and calendar control strategies to get to the other side of busy. I'll bring you insights on how to get more done during the Workday, so you can shut it off and prioritize what truly matters. And today's conversation. I'm going to share with you three systems that you need to get more done so you can stand above the scatter and stress. And really have a focused plan for your week feeling accomplished and moving forward. Make sure you stick around to the end where I'm going to share with you an easy way to cut down on the time you take to process email, which can be the bane of some of our existence. So don't miss that. All right. But first let's dive into our three systems system. Number one, that you need to step above the disorganization. Is proud to decide what to do today at work. So many clients that I talked to say, there's just so much on my list. I come to work feeling scattered and an organized, and so I just tackle the first thing in front of me. Which may not be the most important or urgent thing, but we feel like we're getting something done. Right. I remember a day where I was working in a corporate marketing department. And had pages and pages of to dues and amazingly, no meetings. So I thought this is great. I'm just going to rip through my to-do list and I'm going to get caught up. And I had a list. Third, he things long, so many pages back to back. But I sat down and I grinded in and I did the work. And I got to the end of the day and I thought, oh, I'm going to feel so accomplished. But I still knew that I had all these other deadlines coming up, all these other meetings and I hadn't worked on the important work. Because I was so busy trying to check off the things on this list. So our to-do lists are really just a distraction. They're taking us away from the important urgent work. Another problem. That we have, as we use our email is our to-do list. And then we have a hard time stepping out and prioritizing what truly matters. So here's what you can do. Instead, we need a system to help us decide what to do today. And that system is to prioritize a daily, big three. And you've heard me talk about this before, but it is a foundational way. To move yourself forward first. Y three, because the human brain can't focus on more than three things at one time. Or arguably, maybe one. But by choosing only three things we are truly focusing in on what's most important. This also helps us get to the end of the day, feeling like we've actually accomplished something because the things we put on that list are only going to be the important and urgent things. So we get to the end of the day, not asking that question of. I was busy, but did I really do anything? Was I really productive? Because we know that what made that list truly was. So, how do we know what makes that list? Right? How do we decide what makes the daily big three? The first question that you ask is what is urgent and important. What is urgent and important mean will important means you're taking a look at the things that grow your business or the things that are part of your job description that move you forward that move your team forward. And you look at those core activities. Those are the important pieces of work, strategic initiatives. Um, Business development. Uh, putting together new products. This is all important work. An urgent means it has some kind of deadline. Right. So those are the things that are great candidates for your daily big three. Now you might bill your daily big three with urgent and important items, which is great. Or you might say everything is urgent important. I don't know what to do next. Then let's simplify. Okay. There's an amazing book by Gary Keller. It's called the one thing. When it uses this focusing question, when you get overwhelmed. You simply just ask. What is the one thing I could do right now that such by doing it, everything else would be made easier or unnecessary. Now what this focusing question does is it really helps you get full year on what is the most urgent important thing right now? What's the one thing I could do now that makes everything else easier or unnecessary. And then you do that thing. And you ask it again, right. By using these filters. We really understand the most important work to do today. We stop wasting time wondering what we should do and start actually doing the work. So system number one. Is implementing these filters to help you get the right work done and decide what to do today. System number two, that you need to regain control of your calendar on remove yourself from this scattered and unfocused mind. Is to have a structure for your week. I encountered so many clients who just accept every meeting that comes their way. They have a two hour black and they say, great, what am I going to do with this? We waste a lot of time being the pilot, deciding where the claim is going to go. Rather than actually letting the plane fly. Right. So we need to have a plan for our weeks. Uh, structure for our weeds, such that when we show up with these one or two hour time blocks of areas, where we can get something done, we already know what we're going to do in that time, rather than wasting a half hour, trying to figure it out. So, what does that structure look like? Well, it's creating an ideal week for yourself. It might start with themes and I've talked about this in episode four, so I won't dive too deep in this. If you want to go check that out, I'll link to it in the show notes. But ultimately it's thinking about the types of work that you do every week, every month and organizing them into themes Monday might be your content and creative days. Tuesday might be your financial and strategic days. Wednesdays and Thursdays might be client meeting or external days. Friday might be. Team meeting days or vendor meeting days, or maybe a no meeting day where you really buckle down and get the work done this truly moving your business or career forward. But having a plan for every day of the week. Is truly impactful and saves you so much time. So you're not wasting it deciding what to do, and you can actually get down to the work. You don't have an ideal week, at least spend some time Monday morning. Blacking out the pockets of your week, where you don't have meetings. And assigning that time to strategic work. This guarantees that you don't spend that time catching up on email or getting bogged down by the busy work. And you truly have a plan to leverage that time to move you forward. Because if we continue in the busy work, onesy, twosy, little things, That other people are asking of us, but aren't moving us forward. We'll never truly use that time to push us toward our goals. And so that is the idea of having a structure and a plan for your week so that when time becomes available. You know what to do with them. So that's system number two. And system number three, you need to bring yourself clarity and structure to your week. Is to create some time to reflect on that week. The military does an after action review. After every mission, they do, no matter how many they have done, because they know even the best laid plans can fall apart when you hit the ground. And so can our plan for our week. But by analyzing what's working and not, we can try to avoid some of the same mistakes moving forward. If we don't take this time out. We never take the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and we might continue repeating them, which is the definition of insanity. So. Schedule half hour, either on a Friday afternoon, sometime over the weekend or on a Monday morning to truly ask what were my goals for last week? Um, how far did I get on them? What worked for me and what didn't and how can I learn from that? And move forward next week in a more optimized way. So I don't waste time and I can truly leverage the time that I have. This is so important. I have done a whole episode about it. So you can go check out episode three. The outlines, the weekly preview. I'll also put a link in the show notes. But ultimately having a system to ask what worked well. What didn't and why can be a game changer? In terms of optimizing your time so you can move forward and spend it better. Next week. Right asking what can I keep doing? What can I improve on? And he just stopped doing that's getting in my way and distracting me from the most meaningful work, making me feel unaccomplished and unfocused instead. How can I change that? The clients that I work with that approach these systems. As an experiment. Let me try it on and see how this works. Are the ones that truly see the most crowd Gress. Trying the daily big three. Even if you think you need to do more than three things today. I can be game-changing. Because it's just one step in helping you focus on the most important work, trying an ideal week or some kind of plan for blacked focus work can really help you save time and deciding what to do. And doing a weekly preview. So you can learn from your mistakes can really give you insights, even if just one nugget to optimize for next week. So I'm working with a business owner who came in telling me I feel so scattered in an organized and everything people ask me for. It's just another to do on my list. How do I get above the fold and feel like I get out of reactive mode? And what we did was help her implement these three systems. And now she is running like a well-oiled machine. Using and leveraging these to make the most of her time. And now when she gets requests to do things outside of work, it doesn't feel overwhelming. Like one more thing to do because she's able to put the work on the shelf. And shut it off and go enjoy life outside of it. And ultimately that's what I want for all of you. And that's what these systems allow you to do to help you save time, to make one time decisions that make all other future decisions easier because you don't need to decide. Uh, repeat or reinvent the wheel, but you can instead spend that time doing the work so you can shut it off and prioritize what matters. Okay, hope this was helpful for you. If you have used these systems and you've optimized them at all, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me a DM on Instagram. I'm at Jenna that Pasha. P I C H E. And let me know how this is going, or if you have questions, that's a great place to send me those as well. All right. I'm going to share with you in a moment, an easy way to cut down on the time it takes you to process, email another way to reclaim some of that time for your calendar. But first. If you already feel like you have better control and focus. Hearing about these systems today. Amazing. I hope you go implement them and let me know how it goes. But from my experience, some of us need a little bit more help. Clearing out that busy work and really being able to focus on the important work that moves them, their careers and their businesses forward. So put together something that's extremely valuable. It's a resource called five strategies to control the calendar chaos. And in it, I share with you a filter to help you get rid of the work and the commitments that are standing in your way. Preventing you distracting you from doing the most important work. And I show you how to get rid of them. All right. You can sign up for that. Well, the other side of busy.com/chaos, or just click the link in the show notes. All right. So I promised you a way to process email more quickly, so you can actually get to the most important work. Do you feel like it takes you for ever to process your email? I talked to so many clients who say that email is the bane of their existence. Here's a way you can cut down on the time. It takes you to process email. Close your email during the day. I know it sounds simple, but rather than keeping your email open all day and using it as a to-do list, you open it once in the morning for say 30 minutes and set a timer. And once before you close your day for 30 minutes and set a timer. Email is meant to be correspondence. It is not meant to be your to-do list. So before you say Jenna, there's no way I can do that. You only answer the emails that take two minutes or less, you are processing. Communication. If processing that email's going to take you more than two minutes. You schedule that to do for later, when we work out of our email, it can be so overwhelming, just like another to-do list, like we've talked about today. So rather schedule that work for another time. Could it in your electronic task management system, but don't leave it in your email to stare at and overwhelm you. These 30 minutes are for processing communication. They are not meant for doing the work. Doing the work is then what you will do in between your email times. All right. By keeping your email closed during the day and processing quick communication, scheduling tasks out of your email to do sometime throughout the day or later that week. You will reclaim. So much of your time. And your sanity. So please give this a try. Let me know if email becomes a little bit more friendly and if you have trouble doing this. Look me up, shoot me a note and I'd be happy to give you some more steps along the way. I hope these tips today of both email management and the systems you can use can help you rise above the busy work rise above putting out fires. So you can truly focus on the work that's going to move you forward. And then when we prioritize the most important work, we can shut that off. And prioritize what matters. Outside of work. All right. That's all for today until next time may the work that you do create the meaning and the life that you truly deserve. I'm rooting for you.