It’s been a busy few weeks – we had a wonderful Time Away retreat up in Sonoma, a reunion and writer’s retreat in Arizona, and finally, I co-hosted a gathering of women in AI.
It was wonderful, and I’m more bullish than ever on IRL community, but – it was also a lot. We all have seasons where our schedules are just too full. (if you know me, you know this is comically true for me on a regular basis – I’m working on it! 🙂
These events reminded me of my favorite “I’m too busy!!!” practices:
1) Define the VIP result(s) for the week. Ideally, there’s only 1-2, and your goal is to prioritize most of your time on just those. Eliminate or delegate as much as you can that falls outside of these priorities.
2) Plan your week ahead of time to reduce cognitive load day-to-day. You know the Steve Jobs black turtleneck thing? This uses the same idea. By scheduling your entire week on Sunday or Monday, you can just wake up and execute each day. You don’t have to keep endlessly rewriting your to-do list. It’s pretty life-changing.
3) Create space for unstructured time. Walking without your headphones, commuting in silence, and sitting outside for a few minutes to enjoy a view all activate what neuroscientists call the default mode network. It switches on when you’re not actively grinding on a task and starts replaying memories, connecting ideas, and quietly solving problems in the background. You need to unplug to recharge.
4) If you find yourself in a perpetual cycle of over-commitment (like I sometimes do!), practice ‘under-scheduling’ for a while: plan for everything to take 50% more time than you think it will, and add buffer time to your schedule.
I could go on – but for the sake of brevity, which I know many of you appreciate, I’ll leave it there. I’ve missed writing to you! Hit reply and let me know what you want to hear more about – the process of writing the book? Sneak peeks of book content? More about what happens inside Time Away?
With thanks for your support,
Kit
