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Most Thursday mornings you’ll find me in a co-working session with members of the Productive Flourishing Academy.
Part of the routine in our coworking sessions is to start off with a word pulled from a deck of motivational cards. My friend, the group leader, pulls the card, and the idea is to use the word that emerges to create alignment or a point of focus throughout your day.
When my turn came, she pulled the word “Relaxation”.
Ummm… no.
“I have a mountain of tasks ahead of me and I don’t have time to relax today,” was my instant reaction.
Luckily, I have my own set of this particular card deck, so before diving into the task I had planned (which ended up turning into this piece of writing) I decided to pull a new card. Take that, universe!
So what card did I pull?
“Risk.”
Well-played, universe. Well-played.
What am I supposed to do with these mixed messages? These two words — that are now at the forefront of my mind — seem to be at odds with one another.
As I moved into the work I had planned to do during this co-working session (namely a speech I had to give the following week for Toastmasters, a public speaking and leadership club I’m a part of in NYC), I couldn’t get these two words out of my head.
These ideas, risk and relaxation, don’t seem to fit together. More than that, they seem to be on opposite sides of the spectrum.
When I heard the word relaxation, what came to mind was an extreme state of rest, inaction, becoming sloth-like.
To enter a relaxed state is something too often we feel we need to earn. I’m allowed to just relax? Without doing anything or accomplishing anything first?
So when my friend pulled that card for me, I rebelled. Because I have a too-long list of things that need to get done (yep, violating the 5 Projects Rule) before I can even think about allowing myself to relax. Calm will have to wait.
I recognize this mentality runs counter to a lot of what has been written about here at PF, including pieces I myself have written. It just goes to show, we’re all in a constant state of learning and unlearning.
Still, relaxation is a self-care practice — and a necessity — we can all get behind. But risk? Risk seems to imply anything but rest and relaxation, and seems, well, downright dangerous.
Risk implies action, making a change, getting uncomfortable, and putting yourself in a position to fail (the horror!).
It’s inevitably scary to take a step in a new direction. Our minds and bodies perceive this newness as danger and set off all sorts of alarms to try to get us to do anything but this risky behavior — fight, flight, or freeze.
Taking action, no matter how big or small, is inherently risky.
But what happens if I put these two words together? What if relaxation didn’t need to mean a full and complete stop to any activity, but instead it could mean an easing in?
And what if risk didn’t require actual danger but simply meant trying something new? What if it was just about easing into the discomfort of putting myself in a slightly different position than yesterday?
And as I was thinking all these thinks, and most definitely not writing my Toastmasters speech, it dawned on me that the exact combination of these themes — getting more comfortable (relaxation) with being uncomfortable (risk) — is one that continues to show up in my life.
A recent example: I’ve been starting to get back into writing. More specifically, I’m starting to share my writing more frequently. Risk.
I’m leaning more and more into my instinct, and how it relates to both writing and sharing; this article is an example. Relaxation.
Ease can be about letting go. Letting go of expectations, of perfectionism, of the outcome. And that is inherently risky. Where are you holding on too tight? What small action can you take today to move yourself closer to where you want to be?
The post Relaxing Into Risk appeared first on Productive Flourishing.
Consider two truths: (1) it’s usually easy to tell what the next step of a project is at the end of a working session, and (2) it can be incredibly hard to figure out what the next step is at the start of a working session. Part of the reason we can get entranced with our best work is that, once we get on a roll, it’s really easy to keep it up. Likewise, part of the reason we avoid our best work is that the colder the project is, the harder it is to get started.
Charlie shared this in Chapter 9 of Start Finishing before he went on to explain the idea of leaving yourself breadcrumbs (thanks, Hansel and Gretel) as a way to address this tension.
For me, it’s always been a core piece of the book but also how I now approach my work (well, try to). I recently shared this with Charlie along with my frustration that we didn’t have a blog post about it so he challenged me to write one. So here I am.
Like many of the concepts we share here at PF, the practice of leaving yourself breadcrumbs is a relatively simple one to apply and a powerful tool you can use to move your best work forward.
I found the power of it lies in three areas: 1) there are different times you might put this into practice, 2) the many (some surprising) benefits it brings, and 3) learning the art of leaving yourself effective crumb trails.
Here are the best times to leave yourself a crumb trail. (If you think of others, let me know in the comments!)
At the end of a focus block
As Charlie mentioned in Start Finishing, knowing your next step is easier at the end of a working session than the beginning. Yet, often we run out the clock (sometimes overrun the clock 
) and jump right into our next thing. Breadcrumbs can ease the transition between working sessions. The key is intentionally leaving time at the end of a focus block to do so.
Trust me, I know how easy it is to fall into “but I just need to do ONE more thing!” (It’s never just one more thing and likely you won’t finish it in the next five to ten minutes anyway.) We think we’ll seamlessly pick up where we left off because it’s clear to us now. Because we won’t have that same clarity later, we’re better off stopping and leaving notes to come back to.
When you need to put a project on hold
It happens. You’re into a project and then plans or priorities change, new circumstances pop up, something happens that means you need to hit pause. Whether you know when or if you’ll be able to come back to your project, leaving yourself notes before you file it away will help ease the process. When you pick up the project again a week — or year — later, those notes will help you more easily dive back in.
And in the event it becomes a dropped project, your notes can serve as the After Action Review that might inform another project down the line. Either way, the act of capturing notes will allow you to set the project down to focus on the project that needs your attention now.
You have a “not yet active” project
The Five Projects Rule states “no more than five active projects per timescale”. But what do you do about those miscellaneous thoughts, ideas, and tasks that come to you related to a project you’re not actively working on but hope to in the future?
A client recently asked me what to do with character and plot points for novels she wants to write but simply doesn’t have capacity to work on right now. (The creative muse does not often follow the Five Projects Rule.) This is where breadcrumbs can be incredibly useful. The client created a folder where she stores the notes as they come to her and built a monthly routine to go in and sort through, connect pieces, and leave herself notes on where her characters might go next. Now when that novel project is ready to move into “active” she’ll have a great head start.
Before AND during vacation.
Breaks between work sessions are sometimes extended breaks with the intention of disconnecting from our work. During these times it’s especially beneficial to leave our future selves notes so we can pick up where we left off. But as Charlie has shared, your mind can have a hard time slowing down even when (maybe especially when) you’ve slowed down your physical pace.
Don’t fight it; plan for it. Have a space to drop these thoughts quickly and get back to your vacation. When you return to work, add these notes to the breadcrumbs you left yourself prior to vacation and smoothly transition back into work mode.
How often have you spent half (all?) of a focus block trying to retrace your steps? Trying to figure out where you saved that file? Or maybe most frustrating of all, spending your precious time, energy, and attention (TEA) redoing all that work you either forgot you did or can’t find? When done consistently and with intention, crumb trails can save you not just time but a lot of frustration, too.
Accelerates your path to Flow
You’ve built focus blocks into your schedule (hazzah!!) because you know they fuel your highest-value, deep work. But there’s a caveat here: you need to be able to get into that deep focus to move your project forward. If you spend too much time figuring out what you need to do or retracing your steps, you’ll find it really hard to get into that blissful state of flow where you tune everything else out and hone in on the work. Crumb trails guide you straight back to the work, which means you’ll be less likely to wander off the path, get distracted by something else, and get to the end of your focus block dissatisfied that you didn’t actually do what you intended to do.
Use your precious TEA on the work, not figuring out what the work is.
Be ready no matter your mode
We can’t always dictate the type of work we’ll be primed to do when we come to a focus block. As much as we can do to plan them around our typical energy cycles, sometimes we hit up against resistance and no matter the effort, we just can’t seem to make ourselves do the planned activity.
Making a practice of leaving yourself breadcrumbs gives you options.
Feeling creative? Open up that writing project and pick up where you left off.
In more of an intake vs. outtake mode? Grab that list of items you wanted to research and hit the books or one of those YouTube videos you’ve bookmarked.
Just need to do something but don’t have creative energy? Find one of those admin projects that you never seem to get around to, consult your notes to figure out the next steps, and get going.
See your projects from a new perspective
When you come back to your project (and breadcrumbs) fresh, whether that’s an hour or a month later, you may just see things you couldn’t while you were in it.
This is especially true when we take an extended break from our project like a vacation or longer. That time away can be a blessing, allowing us to come back to our project(s) with a clearer head and a lighter heart. We can more easily prioritize next steps and projects without worrying that we’ve forgotten something.
Put down the (mental) load
Our minds, our own personal supercomputers, don’t like open loops. So while you may have stopped working on your project, your brain has not.
While I can’t promise this practice will completely stop you from waking up at 3am trying to solve a problem, it will drastically reduce the occurrence. Leaving yourself crumb trails frees up your attention so that you can be more present for the other projects, people, and experiences in your lives. And it gives you the ability to come back to this project at an appropriate time (hopefully allowing you to sleep a little more soundly.)
Put your subconscious to work
Crumb trails not only reduce our conscious cognitive load, they also free our subconscious minds to work the problem, turning information over and looking for new connections.
When we create crumb trails we’re also leaving ourselves mental notes to come back to. We can rest easy now that the project is no longer front of mind taking up valuable processing space. That doesn’t mean our minds aren’t working in the background.
Those ideas that come in the shower or washing dishes? That’s the work of your subconscious.
Helps us see what needs to be deferred, delegated, or dropped
Capturing breadcrumbs forces us to think through our next steps. Doing so, we may find a blocker or new opportunity that could impact the project plan and timeline.
A crumbtrail may reveal a need for resources or another project standing in your way that require you to put the current one on hold (defer). Or maybe you’ve hit a roadblock you don’t have the capacity or capability to overcome, but you know someone who does (delegate). And sometimes, our breadcrumbs give us insight into projects that we’re holding on to because they serve a past version of who we are but don’t serve us today (consider dropping).
Now that we’ve covered when to leave yourself breadcrumbs, and why it’s a valuable practice, let’s talk about how to do it effectively.
Find your Goldilocks level of information
The amount of detail you’ll need to leave yourself will depend on two things: 1) what serves you, and 2) the length of time between work sessions.
We all have different thresholds for just how much information is helpful vs. overwhelming.
Speaking of “future you,” consider when in the future you might be picking this back up.
If you’re planning to come back later in the afternoon, a few quick bullets will suffice. But if you’re putting this down for the day or week (or longer) make sure you capture:
Make a habit of it
As I shared above, there are a lot of different times and uses for breadcrumbs. The more often you do it, the easier and more intuitive the practice becomes. Try adding it in as a regular feature of your day:
Experiment with different capture and storage methods
Breadcrumbs are only useful if you can find them when you need them. The method you use to capture them and where you store them may depend on the type of project you are working on.
But Maghan, what about those miscellaneous ideas and tasks that pop into my brain at random times? We’ve got you covered here too! Our Action Item Catcher (in PDF, and now a feature inside the Momentum app) allows you to get these out of your head and into a central place. Then when you have time, you can move these notes into your relevant project plan or project breadcrumb list.
Like I shared at the start: simple concept, powerful tool.
What’s one small way you’ll incorporate breadcrumbs into your day today? Future you will thank you!
The post Breadcrumbs: How to Find Your Way Back to Your Project appeared first on Productive Flourishing.
Much like the mid-month review is a great time to assess progress and reconfigure your plans for the remaining weeks of the month, doing a mid-week reassessment has many of the same benefits for the remainder of your week.
Let’s say you made your weekly plan as you closed out last week. Or perhaps you did your planning first thing Monday.
But now it’s Wednesday morning (or maybe Tuesday evening), and you’re starting to get that feeling: I’m behind, I’m not going to get all this done, I haven’t gotten to my important projects yet, and the days are getting away from me…
That exact moment is a great time to see how you’re doing with your projects, observe what else popped up in the first couple days of the week, and determine what you might need to do to reassess and redistribute your projects. (Real-life examples of emergent projects might be: enduring a stomach bug, dealing with a visiting sister whose return travel was delayed, or multiple Slack tag-ins requiring your attention.)
You may already know that because of everything else going on, those lovely focus blocks you’d set aside Monday and Tuesday for moving your top two or three projects forward got eaten up. Now you’re looking at the remaining three days of the week and wondering how you’re going to get everything on your weekly plan done.
First hard truth: you probably aren’t. At least not without some extra hours, Dunkirk spirit, or pushing yourself beyond your regular limits. Which may be necessary once in a while, but in the long term is a recipe for burnout.
So instead of just buckling down and “doing more,” now’s the time to reassess and replan your week.
Step 1: Review your week. Here’s a quick list of questions you can ask yourself as you’re reviewing your previous weekly plan and retooling it for the days you have remaining:
What did you get done? Celebrate those wins, especially since you made them despite your distractions.
What emergent projects popped up? Remember: emergent ≠ urgent. Projects can be things like managing illness, inlaws, and other surprises that have nothing to do with your work or business. But they take time, energy, and attention, so they’re projects.
What projects got displaced / delayed? Determine where these need to be moved to — is it later this week, next week, or further into the future?
Step 2: Revise your plan. Now that you’ve taken stock of what has happened so far, you can look forward and make any necessary revisions to your weekly plan.
Have your priority projects changed? Try not to get caught up in the urgency spiral here. Take a moment to look at your monthly projects to remind yourself of the bigger picture.
What steps are needed to move these forward? Chunk them down into 2-hour blocks or 15-minute tasks that can be done this week.
1⃣What needs to get done first? Remember first in priority doesn’t always mean first in sequence.
What tasks make sense to batch together? Reduce the amount of time you’ll spend context switching by pairing similar types of activities together, or combining a series of tasks related to the same project.
Step 3: Renegotiate. Chances are there is going to be some level of negotiation (with yourself or others) needed in order to clear space in your schedule.
What can you shift around to give yourself time to get momentum on your priority projects?
Is there anyone you need to tell about any change in plans?
For the projects or tasks that need to get deferred, remember to leave yourself breadcrumbs (be kind to your future self). Leave yourself notes that will help you easily get back into the work later without spending time figuring out what you were doing, where you were, or why you were doing it in the first place.
Didn’t do your weekly plan yet? Then today’s the perfect day to create one. This way you’ll make sure you’re not running around the next three days chasing the urgent and missing the important.
Both Wednesday morning and Tuesday evening are good opportunities to do your weekly reassessment. Reinstitute your 10/15 split, do your check-out or check-in, and use that time to reconfigure the rest of your week to make sure your priority projects are getting the love they need.
And lastly, if your plans change, don’t beat yourself up. As Charlie says, that’s the nature of planning: if you’re planning effectively, you’ll always be changing your plans.
The post Reboot Your Week with a Mid-Week Reassessment appeared first on Productive Flourishing.
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