Last week one of my clients shared how much happier she was after a recent family vacation.
Not only was her vacation a chance to rest and decompress from the every day work environment, but she came back to work with renewed focus and clear boundaries.
Vacation tends to have that impact on most of us and our businesses.
When we’re planning for vacation, we have a sense of excitement.
When we are within a few days of vacation, we have absolute clarity on what tasks and projects we need to wrap up or delegate before we leave.
And when we get back, we have clarity on the highest priorities to keep the business running.
Unfortunately she wasn’t able to completely unplug while she was away from the office. She still had to do things like submit payroll and invoices (in her company this is not something they delegate).
So instead of trying to tackle individual invoices or different payrolls, she relied on the age old productivity principle of batching.
David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, discusses the importance of assigning “contexts” to items in your task list.
Batching and contexts describe where or when you should be completing a specific task, i.e. on the phone, at the computer, running errands, etc.
Adding a context to your tasks can help organize your project workflow and make your working time more productive.
Instead of playing task whack-a-mole, you group similar tasks and complete them all at once.
Your mind gets in a flow state when you’re not trying to multi-task or switch contexts.
You get in a rhythm and each successive task of the same type gets easier and easier.
When you begin thinking in terms of batching, your brain switches from saying, “I’ll get to that” to “I’ll get to that at the appropriate time.”
What’s your experience with planning, going on, and returning from vacation? Do you get the clarity you need?
Here’s to a productive week!
Recommended Resource
Michael Hyatt and his team at Full Focus is in the process of releasing a new life planning tool that is way better than just reading Michael’s book and doing the exercises. I recently placed my pre-order.
What I like about the LifeFocus tool is that it’s not boring.
There’s no staring at a blank workbook.
There’s no morbid, write my own eulogy…
It’s more like a game (using physical cards) and is something that I can use with my kids to help them figure out what’s important in their life and help them plan their futures.
LifeFocus is all about creating a roadmap to your dream life over the next 10 years, and it actually looks like a fun way to plan.
