Mountains, Priorities and Catchers.

Happy Friday. It's the beginning of a new month, so now is the perfect time for you to review progress towards any goals you are working on. 

This week, I have been talking about different ways to "get work done" and how to decide the priority of a task or project. Offline, I've been discussing the importance of challenging your beliefs about what you can change or influence in your work.

If you have any questions or suggestions for next week, then I’d love to hear from you.

Stay well. Niamh

The Fridea 💡

Is it really a mountain? Or is it a large pile of heavy rocks?

Quite often, when I ask people if something can be changed at work, the first response is "no". It's always been done that way, there is nobody else to do it, they wouldn't get the buy-in. The list goes on.

But when I ask if there is anything at all that could be done or if there was any time in the past that something like this did change, they stop.

A nudge to challenge their perception of the situation. Is it like a mountain, immovable, and the only way is to climb over, go around or tunnel through? Or is it a large pile of rocks that have been sitting there so long it's "mountainesque"?

If it's the latter, then it is possible to move the rocks. You will probably need help. And it will definitely take a bit of time. But at the end of the day, those rocks can be moved. Are the challenges in your workday mountains, or are they large piles of heavy rocks?

Weekly Live - The 5 Point Summary

The topic for my live video this week was considering different ways to "get work done". The popular productivity tools and strategies don't always work for me, so I shared some alternatives. 

1. People have different working preferences: You might prefer meetings with pre-reading material, and I might prefer to "wait and see" what's presented. Each of us has our preferences regarding how we plan, organise and complete our work. If you are part of a team, could you discuss your preferences to find better ways to work together? 
2. Chaos and clean-up: I spoke about how I prefer to "create chaos" when working on creative or complex tasks. This involves post-its, markers and being able to move around my ideas physically. I then "clean it up" into a list or ordered document.
3. Digital and paper planning systems: I use three different tools for my planning process. I have a weekly birds-eye view using My Desk, keep the details on Trello boards and use a notebook to jot down my daily to-dos. You don't need to use one tool - what's important is that you have a system that works for you.
4. External vs Internal Thinkers: I'm an external thinker, which means it's easier for me to work through ideas aloud. I find voice notes very helpful when I'm alone. When I work with others, I ask someone to be my "catcher". The catcher listens to me ideate and writes down the key points, questions and ideas. (I really appreciate my catchers!)
5. Keep your systems simple and layer different working preferences on top

Here is the link to watch the replay.

Weekly Training Quickview

Every week, I share templates, tools and processes on YouTube to create a better workday. The template for this week was my Priority Review Template. This can be used as a worksheet or a checklist to build your confidence in priority setting.

Note: This is a good one to watch on video. It's linked below.  

Here are the steps:

1. List the tasks
2. Due date: Watch the video for my opinion on this field. (In causes far too much unnecessary stress! When you enter the due date, my template calculates the days remaining until the task is due and assigns a number 1-3 based on the urgency.
3. Reach: Does the task impact one person, a department or the entire company? My template assigns a number 1-3 depending on the impact.
4. Revenue: Does the task impact revenue, (or the main goal for your company). I assign revenue generating tasks the number 2.
5. Calculate the priority score: Days Remaining x Reach x Revenue = Priority Score. I use the numbers assigned to each factor to calculate this score. Now, I can rank the tasks.
6. What is the risk/reward? This is your chance to think about other factors that might affect the priority. Not everything is black and white.
7. Priority Rating: Use the Priority Score and Risk/Reward to decide on the task's priority.

Here is the link to the template. (There is no email address required.)

Here is the link to the video.