Making the Summer Doldrums Work for You: Corral Your Work
The summer doldrums officially arrived last week. For those of you unfamiliar with them, here's a simple definition of "doldrums": a state of inactivity or stagnation. The term technically refers to the weather 5 degrees north and south of the equator (a belt of calm and what are described as "baffling" winds) but is commonly applied to different places, times, and states of mind. The stock market, for example, famously enters a period of summer doldrums during August. Perhaps it's a reflection of the doldrums about which we speak today, also occurring during August when, traditionally, business enters its own summer doldrums.
The doldrums can infect other worldly activity as well. Politics "calms down" during August. That's why U.S. president's typically take vacation time at the end of August: crises ease, regular activity virtually ceases. Indeed the last two weeks of August have traditionally been a time when many take vacation.
None of this is perfect science, of course. It's just a general trend or rule that persists over time. It has also been my experience.
Now, with the doldrums taking hold, that doesn't mean you have to be a prisoner of the typical still, humid August air, thereby consigned to a state of languor, flacidly flopping in the breeze, staring into space, with nothing to do. Hardly. Your work, even if it slows a bit, still needs attending. But if, after all, things do indeed slow down a bit, you may have a bit more time on your hands. If that's the case, consider this special project to fill in that time:
Look it straight in the eye and tell it who's boss. From now on you call the shots regarding when and how you get our job done each day. With a little less work to confront, and a little more time to confront it, this could be the perfect opportunity to grab the bull by the horns and take charge of your work day once and for all. What we're talking about here is an extension of our recent posts about the importance of enforcing order in your work (HERE, HERE, and HERE). But now we're going to kick it up a notch.
The idea that you should corral your work popped into mind on a recent Sunday. I'm pretty organized, and really do have an orderly system of getting my work done all week. But that particular Sunday, work started "bleeding" into what should have been a day of respite from the daily grind. The bleeding started started with checking my work email. It wasn't an obsessive checking, but still I was checking more than a few times throughout the day. That might not sound like a big deal, but depending on the email, I wound up then thinking about some idea or issue related to work. That work bleeding into a place it shouldn't be was kind of like what happens if you stick a red sock into your white laundry:
Do that and you get this:
So my Sunday was turning pink and I decided it had to stop - then and there.
If it seems like I'm making a big deal out of this, you're right. I am. Why? Because even as this bleeding sullied my pristine, lilly-white Sunday respite, nothing of any real importance was accomplished. All of that ruminating on work-related matters could easily have been deferred to Monday. Heck, I've already got this pretty orderly system in place to manage things in a timely fashion. It's time-tested and I trust the system. If there was something I needed to address on a Sunday, it would have popped up in my system already. (And there wasn't and never is anything that pops up to be done on Sunday - by design.)
So the next Sunday, I enforced a new rule: no email. Sure, we've talked about this before; and I pretty much observed this practice already. But "pretty much" obviously wasn't enough. I guess it hadn't sunk in that "No" means "No." With that, I noticed that three or four times, my thumb hovered over the mail icon on my cellphone; and each time I caught myself and avoided even taking a peek. Even I was surprised at my success and the relief that ensued. As a result, that Sunday felt markedly different from the previous Sunday - in a good way. I was definitely on to something.
I soon concluded that the goodness I experienced by "corralling" my work on Sunday needed to be expanded. And to reinforce this, lo and behold, on Monday morning, during my usual morning reading, I read something by blogger and author Amy Welborn. Discussing a writing project she was working on, she posted this:
I am a fairly disorganized, reactive, INFP, come-what-may person in general, but when it comes to this kind of project, I am very, very organized – I make a schedule, I write that schedule out, and stick to it. Simply put: I want to keep projects like this in their proper place in my life, freeing myself up to be all drifting and meditative for the rest of the day. Boxing this type of work in a strict schedule is the way to make that happen.
Bingo! It all made sense. Her words immediately fired up my fevered imagination. Yes, I would coral all my work, every day, from now on. Next time we'll see exactly how.
The doldrums can infect other worldly activity as well. Politics "calms down" during August. That's why U.S. president's typically take vacation time at the end of August: crises ease, regular activity virtually ceases. Indeed the last two weeks of August have traditionally been a time when many take vacation.
None of this is perfect science, of course. It's just a general trend or rule that persists over time. It has also been my experience.
Now, with the doldrums taking hold, that doesn't mean you have to be a prisoner of the typical still, humid August air, thereby consigned to a state of languor, flacidly flopping in the breeze, staring into space, with nothing to do. Hardly. Your work, even if it slows a bit, still needs attending. But if, after all, things do indeed slow down a bit, you may have a bit more time on your hands. If that's the case, consider this special project to fill in that time:
Corral your work!
Look it straight in the eye and tell it who's boss. From now on you call the shots regarding when and how you get our job done each day. With a little less work to confront, and a little more time to confront it, this could be the perfect opportunity to grab the bull by the horns and take charge of your work day once and for all. What we're talking about here is an extension of our recent posts about the importance of enforcing order in your work (HERE, HERE, and HERE). But now we're going to kick it up a notch.
The idea that you should corral your work popped into mind on a recent Sunday. I'm pretty organized, and really do have an orderly system of getting my work done all week. But that particular Sunday, work started "bleeding" into what should have been a day of respite from the daily grind. The bleeding started started with checking my work email. It wasn't an obsessive checking, but still I was checking more than a few times throughout the day. That might not sound like a big deal, but depending on the email, I wound up then thinking about some idea or issue related to work. That work bleeding into a place it shouldn't be was kind of like what happens if you stick a red sock into your white laundry:
Do that and you get this:
So my Sunday was turning pink and I decided it had to stop - then and there.
If it seems like I'm making a big deal out of this, you're right. I am. Why? Because even as this bleeding sullied my pristine, lilly-white Sunday respite, nothing of any real importance was accomplished. All of that ruminating on work-related matters could easily have been deferred to Monday. Heck, I've already got this pretty orderly system in place to manage things in a timely fashion. It's time-tested and I trust the system. If there was something I needed to address on a Sunday, it would have popped up in my system already. (And there wasn't and never is anything that pops up to be done on Sunday - by design.)
So the next Sunday, I enforced a new rule: no email. Sure, we've talked about this before; and I pretty much observed this practice already. But "pretty much" obviously wasn't enough. I guess it hadn't sunk in that "No" means "No." With that, I noticed that three or four times, my thumb hovered over the mail icon on my cellphone; and each time I caught myself and avoided even taking a peek. Even I was surprised at my success and the relief that ensued. As a result, that Sunday felt markedly different from the previous Sunday - in a good way. I was definitely on to something.
I soon concluded that the goodness I experienced by "corralling" my work on Sunday needed to be expanded. And to reinforce this, lo and behold, on Monday morning, during my usual morning reading, I read something by blogger and author Amy Welborn. Discussing a writing project she was working on, she posted this:
I am a fairly disorganized, reactive, INFP, come-what-may person in general, but when it comes to this kind of project, I am very, very organized – I make a schedule, I write that schedule out, and stick to it. Simply put: I want to keep projects like this in their proper place in my life, freeing myself up to be all drifting and meditative for the rest of the day. Boxing this type of work in a strict schedule is the way to make that happen.
Bingo! It all made sense. Her words immediately fired up my fevered imagination. Yes, I would coral all my work, every day, from now on. Next time we'll see exactly how.
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