Ten Magic Minutes, Parts 5,6 & 7

5. ?An Inherent Danger

I recently watched the Chris Hemsworth documentary ‘Limitless’ in which he sets out to discover the ‘secrets’ of living a long and healthy life. Of course, most of the so-called secrets are well-known, sensible life-choices that a simple Google search would have unearthed (but that wouldn’t have made nearly as good TV as swimming across an artic fjord)!

The last episode of the series though was a little bit different. It focused on death and mortality and the idea was that Chris was led through the process of facing the fact that everyone will age and this can be accepted and embraced rather than fought against. It’s a very interesting journey that he goes on and ends with him being asked to imagine his dying moment and what he’d like that to be like. He describes being surrounded by friends and family, with smiles and great memories and life and laughter. Then there’s a powerful moment of realisation as he says, “Wow. This is actually what I have now, most of the time. It’s fantastic!”

The inherent danger with TMM is that we make it all about the to-do list. Work tasks, jobs at home, life admin etc. All of these matter and the more effectively and efficiently we can keep on top of them, the better. However, these things don’t matter the most. Any planning process should keep in mind the big picture stuff. The very best TMM sessions start with reading a personal mission statement, reviewing your values, your top work and personal goals, and perhaps some carefully-chosen affirmations, mottos or statements of intent – what you call these things and the style and format that you prefer doesn’t matter so long as these things are part of your daily routine.

I regularly find myself astounded by my own ability to determine that something is extremely important to me and then to neglect that exact same thing for days, weeks and months at a time! Encouragingly, I’ve spoken to plenty of other people who can relate to this.

The antidote – write them down and look at them every single day! Just like brushing your teeth, the most important things must be built into our routines or we risk neglecting them. I wish this wasn’t the case but my 49 years of life-experience have proven it to be so!

As one of the comments said when I posted the first section of TMM on LinkedIn, “So simple and yet so effective!”

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6. Mondays, bloody Mondays!

After a weekend off from writing, or any habit that you’re trying to forge, it’s so easy to fall off the wagon and find yourself staring at a Thursday or Friday without even having thought about doing that thing that was so much at the forefront of your mind last week.

Here’s where a type of planning is necessary that not only focusses on what you want to be doing, but also how you are going to remind yourself at the right time about those things. As much as the actual act of planning is important, even more so is developing a rigorous planning routine. Daily. Weekly. Monthly. We’re talking serious infrastructure. Regular phone alarms, check-list tracking tools, recurring calendar bookings, sticky notes on the computer monitor – whatever it takes. More on this another time.

Today’s section is about week-planning. TMM daily is crucial, but what about the start of a new week?

Some things are the same – what am I going to do today? – and some are different. There’s a little bit extra that’s needed on a Monday, or a Sunday if you prefer, to make sure that the next seven days are set up to deliver the kind of outcomes that matter for you.

Something like a ‘This week / Next week’ review in the form of a bullet-plan is extremely helpful. Simply list each day and alongside it bullet points of what’s in the diary or top of your agenda for that day. Generally it will just be a few headlines. Do this for each day this coming week and also next week in a way that you can see those fourteen days at a glance on one page or screen. The ‘next week’ part is super-important as it gives you advance warning of what’s coming up so that you can make sure that on your ‘must do this week’ list you can put anything that must be done this week to set up next week for a win – book that hotel, order those tickets, send out pre-event information etc.

All this means that you end up at the start of each week with a really clear and simple bullet-point schedule of what’s happening each day this week and next, and then alongside it your to-do list broken down into ‘Must do this week’ and ‘Do this week if possible’.

Like everything else so far, it sounds so basic as to be ridiculous and if you’re already doing something like this week-in, week-out and it’s working great for you then that is fantastic and you can sit back, smile and appreciate the great disciplined routine that you’ve established. Sadly for most people, in my experience at least, this is not the case and we have to work at it with discipline and determination!

A routine half an hour at the start of each week to review the last and set up the next seems to work well for most people. Following of course by your TMM for Monday!

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7. Weekly Goals

In a moment of enthusiasm and with a clear picture in mind of a brighter, glorious horticultural future, Chris went online and ordered that flat-packed shed to be delivered the following weekend. Those garden tools and assorted outdoor furniture would finally have a home befitting their esteemed status in the household. Roll the clock forward six years and Chris finds himself participating in an LMI Effective Personal Productivity programme and confessing to the group that the aforementioned flat-pack shed is STILL sat in his garage leaning against the far wall behind a load of other stuff gathering dust and impressively be-cobwebbed! Friends, this is no tale of woe. Change was in the air and victory was at hand for this sorry tale was about to become the focus of Chris’ next weekly personal goal.

As someone progresses through an LMI leadership programme – taking typically somewhere between three and nine months – they are faced with the friendly challenge of setting a weekly business and personal goal – something at work and something outside work to accomplish each week that will put a smile on their face and feel like a victory.

We’re not just talking about choosing one random task off your list that would probably get done anyway. It involves thinking about the world as it is right now and choosing a worthy goal that in some way makes your world better over the next seven days. Just like crossing the marathon finishing line, the weekly goals create a line to cross and embed the sense of accomplishment and celebration that, when practiced consistently, can be truly life-changing!

And there was true joy in the room when Chris arrived at the next meeting with the photo of his proudly-standing new (!) shed.

How long should you set aside each week to choose your weekly goals? I reckon about ten minutes should do it!