Preparation - How to Get Stuff Done

I love seeing people develop and then flourish with their new ideas, confidence and skills. One of the first steps though is simply getting organised: preparation is everything. As the saying goes, every over-night success is ten years in the making. Unfortunately, being organised is more prevalent in one sex than the other: holding my hands up for this absolutely sexist comment <it’s ok, am not about to start the racist’s self-denial sentence starting with “I’m not racist but . . .”>, it seems to me that young women in business at the same age as young men not only seem more driven but far more organised. They are hungry, eager to prove themselves and, although perhaps less confident (call that a thousand years of patriarchy!) they are far humbler. In essence, they kill it.

To get my mentees on the right path, we arrange half an hour on a Monday to review their schedule for that week. For me, I usually try to do this on a Friday, which occasionally results in working a little on weekends, but it gives my brain a little time to prepare. If you’re a regular reader (hi mum!), you know my brain needs all the help it can get. In our 30 minutes we do the simple things first:

• Re-arrange any key meetings that overlap, adding in 15 or 30 minutes here and there to prepare for key meetings or if we’re facilitating the meeting
• We then list out three to five priorities of the week, the key things they need to get done and which can’t carry over to the next week
• There are then sub-tasks for the week, lots of small tasks (perhaps ten or twenty) that may be achieved e.g. completing your time-sheet on a certain day, prompting Greg in accounts to send the report Gina etc. OK, then comes the fun bit!
• Mark the ones you don’t want to do: the phone call to Julius in Marketing that you really don’t like; the chat to your boss to admit you missed a task last week. Often these are tasks that have some fear attached or you find less attractive than the other tasks. Congratulations! You’ve just found your priority list. Complete the onerous tasks first, get them off your mind and done. Most probably they weren’t as bad as what you made out.

​For me, there’s nothing worse than the ‘Christ, I still haven’t done that!’ thought that happens mid-week. In this I have a tradition: after the ‘kerrrrissttt!’ thought, my brain reasons that I need tea to prepare for the event. 'Just brew it, you can work whilst it brews!' cries the hamster of my mind. But even that is the procrastination side kicking in, so I reject my mind’s overtures: ‘Make the phone call, then have the tea as a reward – you’re going to need it after the call anyway!’. Tackle the tough stuff first. 

Image reference:
https://www.girlpowergo.com/Girl-Power-Go-Workshops