One Good Day Can Take You Far

I traveled to Iowa last week to give a speech. It’s not that easy to get to Des Moines from Philadelphia, so I flew in the night before for my afternoon presentation. I was up at 5 a.m. Central time and didn’t need to check out of my hotel room until noon. So I made myself a list and, even with going to the gym and grabbing breakfast, I managed to get through a lot in that uninterrupted stretch of time.?

The funny thing about this is if you’d asked me earlier in the week how many hours I needed to get caught up, I probably wouldn’t have guessed that the answer was one morning. Between a book deadline and several speeches in a week — plus putting our house on the market — I thought the situation was bleak. But things are only overwhelming until you start doing them. One good day can take you far.

To be sure, creating a focused block of hours is easier said than done. Work travel sometimes provides that block for me because I tend not to schedule much other than my speeches when I’m on the road (in case I get delayed or something else goes wrong). I’ve sometimes used a block of weekend hours when my husband has taken the kids. Since these hours aren’t part of the usual work flow, they feel like extra — and hence makes it feel like everything else is standing still for a bit while I get caught up.?

But even if it’s not easy to find these hours, the good news is you might not need many of them. So if a half day seems unworkable, find a 2-hour block when you’ve got some energy — maybe by starting work a little early, before everyone else gets in. Make yourself a list. See how much you can plow through. If you work until your planned breaks and turn off all distractions, you’ll likely make it through a lot. You might not feel completely on top of things, but you’ll feel a lot less overwhelmed. We’re seldom as far from “good” as we think.

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