Good evening, everybody. My name's Andy Mee from Veterinary Management Consulting. Welcome to this evening's practise management webinar, that's being sponsored by Simply Health and MWI Animal Health.
Just a reminder, if at any point you think of any questions during the presentation, you can use the Q&A box or the chat boxes, and we'll pick up those questions at the end. Tonight it's my pleasure to introduce our speaker for this evening, Liz Jones. Liz is an established coach with hundreds of hours of experience, having run a successful business for over 15 years.
She possesses a unique ability to motivate and encourage people, and a genuine and authentic approach inspires people to reach beyond themselves and challenge their own boundaries. She's passionate about helping people to lead fulfilling and rewarding lives and to take control of their own personal development. As well as coaching people, she also provides consultancy and support to organisations in leadership and management behaviours, organisational culture, corporate values, employee engagement, and team dynamics.
Her clients include universities, public and private sector organisations across a wide range of industries, as well as self-funded individual clients. So it's a pleasure to have you, Liz, over to you. Lovely, thank you and thank you for the introduction.
Welcome everybody. Thank you for joining us. Just a couple of things before we start on this webinar.
I just wanted to point out the title more than anything. The title being Personal organisational skills for life. And not how to write a really effective to do list.
And I just want to be clear that we're gonna start by actually taking a bit of a step back from our work life and actually looking at this from a whole life perspective. I promise you, we'll spend a decent amount of time focusing on some of the more specific aspects that relate to work. But I want to look at it from the life perspective before we focus on work.
And as with all aspects of personal development, what you'll find as you listen over the next 50, 55 minutes or so, not everything's gonna land straight away. Some of the things that we'll cover might take a little bit longer to settle than others. Some of them you'll love, some of them you mightn't relate to straight away, particularly if you're a reflective thinker like me.
So just a quick signpost for you, there is some supporting reading material that will be made available to you after this session, and once this session's been uploaded for you. Supporting reading and some multiple choice questions. I really strongly recommend that you read through those, when you go through the session again.
It will reinforce what you hear tonight and give you an opportunity to perhaps to carry out some of the exercises we're gonna skim through as part of this webinar. We'll give you a chance to do them in slightly more detail and take a bit of time, more time over it. As we said, we'll take questions at the end, feel free to be jotting them down as we're going along.
But other than that, sit back and enjoy. And one of the first things we perhaps need to think about are, actually, why are personal organisation skills important? Let's face it, we're in the modern age, it's the 21st century, and the human race as a species, we've evolved.
We're, we're no longer the simple hunter-gatherers. Our lives are complicated. They are, they're multi-dimensional.
There are increasing demands on our time from so many different sources. And I'm kind of guessing. That some of this is going to look familiar to you.
Does that perhaps feel a little bit familiar? So that seem to describe perhaps some of your lives. There's the sense that, you know what, there's so much to do and we're juggling so many priorities in our lives.
And in terms of time, Albert Einstein summed it up so nicely. He made a great quote. The only reason time exists is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
You know what, sometimes, doesn't it just feel like it is all happening at once? Whereas time is just quietly in the background, flowing by, it's unceasing, there's a constancy to it. It's infinite.
Can't control time. That's why we don't call this a time management programme, and I kind of flinch when I hear about time management. We can't do anything to control time, but what we can do.
And what we should do is actually we can start by thinking about how we can best utilise the time that is available to us. And one of the first things that we need to do is actually start to shift our thinking. So what are you thinking?
I have a few mantras that I bounce around quite a lot in both in my own life and in my work, and I'm working with clients. And one of my favourites is, you get what you tolerate. So, in other words, if, if we carry on working the way we're working, if we carry on doing what we do, if we carry on operating the way we are, nothing's gonna change.
We are getting what we tolerate. So we're gonna have to start doing something. And as I say, one of the first things is to start shifting our thinking and shifting it from a scarcity to an abundant mindset.
It's not so much thinking about what we can do about time and more about what we can allocate to the time that's available to us. We can't control it, we can't squeeze time, we can't stretch time. It'll be great, but we can't pause time.
But we need to start thinking is. There's enough time for me to do all the important things that I want to do. And some of what we're going to be doing tonight is perhaps retraining our minds to think about things a little bit differently, and certainly from a more practical perspective, the way in which we approach things and the way we approach our lives.
Time, it's the most valuable asset that's available to us. It's the one thing that everyone, everyone on the planet has in common. And Steve Jobs himself said very clearly, it's really clear that the most precious resource that we all have is time.
And yet We allow minutes or days or weeks to slip by without even considering how well we're utilising this really valuable asset. It slips by and we don't even notice it half the time, but what we do notice. It's those tensions, that sense of overwhelm when perhaps we feel that there just isn't enough time available to us.
Or maybe for some of you it's slightly different. Maybe what you know is, are those, those quantum jumps were days or, or weeks or months appear to slip by in an instant. And then we look back and think, oh my goodness, have we achieved everything that we wanted to achieve.
So no, there's no controlling time, there's no time travel. Stephen Hawkins himself said, if time travel is possible, where are all the tourists from the future? So what can we control?
We can control ourselves. And what do we need? We need good personal organisation skills.
And what I'm gonna do now is reveal a list of what, what for me, are the top skills that you need to enable you to feel as organised as you can be. And, and what's great about skills, if we don't have them now that's OK. We can learn them, we can develop them, and we can hone our skills.
So here's a quick run through. First of all, people with really good personal organisation skills have a very, very clear vision or goals in their mind of where it is that they want to be. And more importantly, how they can get there.
Clear vision goals and an action plan of how to get there. And with that comes like a sense of purpose, which is one of the reasons I I don't want to look at work in isolation. I want to look at our whole lives because I want us to feel like we've got a sense of purpose.
Following on from that, a strong motivation. People with good organisation skills are motivated. They have that action oriented approach.
They are active rather than passive. They are the, the can do type. And people who work like that, that, that can very often come naturally once we've got the clear vision and goals and we've got that sense of purpose that are in place.
People with good organisation skills also have the ability to discern which are the most important activities for them to undertake. In other words, they really understand how to prioritise themselves and their activities effectively. Here's an interesting one, people with good organisation skills are self-aware.
Particularly in relation to the demands of of other people, when other people are trying to make demands of us, we are aware of of ourselves and our own strengths and what we need to do to protect our own boundaries. And by definition, With that comes a degree of resilience as well. So if we're gonna have good personal organisation skills, these are some of the skills that we need to hone for ourselves.
So what I'm doing for the rest of this session is to take each of these in turn, give you some examples and ways in which you can develop or to hone these skills, sometimes by using exercises, sometimes by using examples. And the first one that I'm gonna start with is looking at the clear vision and goals. What are some good ways that we can ensure that we have great vision and great goals for ourselves in our lives?
And this is a tool I use quite often in coaching, cos if you want to start working with somebody. It's a really useful tool to help us understand where we need to focus our efforts in the first instance. What I'd like to do is to think about a couple of things.
The first thing I'd like you to think about is your own personal goals in life. Your own vision, if you like. And to start thinking about how clearly can I think about that?
How clear am I about that? And if, for example, you're the type of person who could not only visualise it, but you, you can kind of get a sense of how it feels. If you could almost smell it, you can almost taste it.
And if that describes you, I would say you can score yourself as a 10 out of 10. And perhaps if you're kind of person that's just, do you know what, I've got no idea. I, I, I really don't know what my goals are in life.
You score yourself as a 0 out of 10. But on a scale of 0 to 10, how would you score yourself in terms of how clearly you can visualise, articulate, and think about your goals? Think about for yourself now, where would you put yourself on a scale of 0 to 10?
OK. The next thing I want you to think about, hold that thought on the goals and the score you gave yourself for that. Now, let's think about how well you plan your activities.
What do you like in terms of action planning? Do you have a clear plan in mind about what it is that you're going to do? You might be particularly well organised.
You might have thought things through or planned them in advance. And if that's the case, on a scale of 0 to 10, score yourself a 10. Or score yourself quite highly.
If however be the kind of person that I, I just, I know what, I don't know how to get off first base. I really wouldn't score myself very highly at all. Clearly, it's gonna be a 0, a 1 or a 2, or a 3.
But give yourself a score on a scale of 0 to 10, how good you are at planning, how good you are at deciding which actions that you need to take. What I'm hoping now is that you've got 2 scores, and this is where the goals versus action index comes in. So if you can imagine we've got 2 axes now.
With a vertical 1 representing your goals on a scale of 0 to 10. And this horizontal axis representing your actions on a scale, again, it's from 0 to 10. Think about what your score was.
So say for example, you are the type of person that scored yourself very highly in terms of like visualising the goals. That's great. But perhaps I didn't score so well on actions.
0 to 10, your X would be somewhere around in that region there. Clear on goals, not so clear on how I'm gonna get there. Alternatively, you might not be the kind of person who is constantly busy, constantly doing things, but if you were to take a step back and actually, where is this taking me, I'm not so sure.
Then your ex would probably be somewhere down in this region down here. You might be clear on both. That's great.
Goals and actions, somewhere near a 10 out of 10, you'd be up here. And for some people, you might not score particularly highly on either of them. I found this useful because what we can then do is when we think about where you would plot yourselves on that, let's think about this in terms of quadrants.
Let's divide that axis into 4 separate sections. No prices for guessing that this is the area, this is the zone, this is the quadrant we need to aspire to. This is where the go-getter live, this is where the performers reside, where they're clear about their goals and they're clear about their actions.
It's possible though you found yourself in this zone. I call these the dreamers, these are people who are clear on their goals, not too sure where their actions are. So what these people need to think about, and if you find yourself in, in this quadrant here is what can you do, it's all about thinking about what activities, what actions do you need to do to take you towards these goals.
If you were down here, I haven't described this as feeling a little bit inundated. People in this zone find themselves being very busy, they're doing a lot of things, but are they actually taking themselves forward? They're bogged down with the urgent and the important tasks, but arguably, potentially on a bit of a treadmill cause it's not taking them towards some goals.
Actions for people in this zone would be very much around what you can do in terms of developing some clear goals and visions, and we'll talk about how to do that in a second. People in this zone, the strays, the people wandering around, you need to think about both goals and actions, and I would suggest strongly, think about your goals first. So what this is starting to tell us is starting to help us to think about actually, if we're gonna be really good in terms of personal organisation, we need both goals, and we need some form of plan that's gonna help us to get there.
But why are goals so important? What impact do they have on personal organisations? I think the first thing is quite, quite obvious.
It provides structure, it provides a sense of priority. I mentioned the treadmill earlier. If we don't have goals for ourselves that heading towards, we could feel like we're forever in a standstill position.
We we're constantly on that treadmill and perhaps not getting, getting in any particular, going in any particular direction for ourselves. There's a great analogy that's, that's, that's often used when we're looking at personal organisation, the rocks versus sand analogy. I, I struggle to find the original author on this.
There's so many people that have written about it. However, for me, it really clearly creates, very strong imagery around why rocks are important in our lives. It's worth taking some time out.
You'll find so many examples of this on YouTube. Just search for rocks versus sand analogy. You'll find all kinds of examples that you can go through with varying different lengths.
But the way the imagery works is this. If you can imagine that each of those vases, whatever the, the, the, the, YouTuber is using in that particular example, that the vase represents your life. How can we fill our lives with all the rocks and the sands that make up our world.
And logic would tell us that, you know what, let's stick the sand in first, let's do, let's put the sand in the bottom and then we can pile the rocks up on top of that. But what the demonstrations will show you when you take time out to view them on YouTube is, It's the rocks that need to go in first. And with a bit of jiggling and a bit of shaking around, the sand fills into the gaps.
The sand makes its way through. You fill your jar, you fill your life with the important things first, the rocks. Then we'll start putting the sand in.
But what do we need to do first? First, we need you to choose your rocks. And that's about what do you want from life?
And what I'm about to show you now is a really valuable time out exercise. I'll give you an example and then a walk through now so that you can understand how to do it. But if you do nothing else after this webinar, this is the one thing I really, really endorse that that you do.
Take some time out, suspend all the niggling demands of the work priorities that are bogging us down at the moment, and just take a little bit of time to do this exercise. We call it the life wheel, and it helps to define what are the important things in your life, where are the priorities? Where are your rocks?
This is how it works. This image here represents your whole life with you in the middle of it. Everybody's different, but I'm gonna allow you to have 6 different categories that make up your life.
We could allow you to have more, but you know what, it'll just get a little bit cluttered and it gets a little bit bogged down. But I would like you to start thinking about what would be 6 different aspects that would make up your whole life. Here's some examples that you can start to think about.
People pick from one or more of these. You might even want to come up with some of your own, but I'll, I'll leave these as as some prompts if you like, and these are also reproduced on the supporting document that you'll get. And what I'd ask you to think about is to pick 6.
That will represent your whole life. You might want to pick family as well. Work is quite a common one for people to pick, or their career.
It could be, travel's important to you. It could be your home, your physical environment. It might be a spirituality or a faith.
Now, given the time we've got available to us now, you might not be able to think of sick straight away. But just think of 2 or 3. That would be right that you could think through for for now and come back to the exercise later.
What 2 or 3 can we think about? What I'd like you to do in time is obviously think of 6. Those 6 that you ultimately choose are your priorities, your rocks in your life.
And what you then do I take each of those 6 in turn, and think about the specifics for each one of those priorities for each one of those rocks. And there's a series of questions. I just want you to pick one in your mind now, and, and think about one of those priorities and ask yourself these questions as we go through.
For each one of those priorities, if it was the best it could possibly be for you, if it was a 10 out of 10, what would it look like? What would be going on? If you were to think about the best that that aspect could possibly be, what would 10 out of 10 look like?
If you were to visualise it, what would you see? What would you be doing? Maybe think about who you're with.
Where are you? Oh, more interestingly, where have you been? Here's the strong one.
Here's the one that really for me brings it to life. What emotions do you feel when you think about that aspect being a 10 out of 10? That's really important.
One of the key priorities in your life. And now bring yourself back to the present. Now ask yourself, OK.
What school am I at now? I know what a 10 looks like, but where am I right now? And how does that make you feel?
And this is what we where we start to think ahead and how we can start to plan how we start that journey. What score for that aspect would be reasonable in 12 months' time? It might not necessarily be a 10, that might be a huge aspirational piece.
That might be 5 or 10 years down the line, but there'll be a position where that could be in 12 months' time. Here's where the action kicks in. What do you need to do to get there?
And to bring the emotions back into it, how badly do you want this? So now, You're starting to formulate some goals. You've even started to formulate on a plan about how you can get there.
Because you take time out undertaking that activity, working through each of the six aspects, you will start to end up with some great goals, some 12 month plans. And some really strong actions about how you can start on that journey. This is the first step that the go-getters take, this is the first step that the performers take.
Clearly not enough time for us to go through it now, but definitely go back to the supporting document, take time out from your busy lives and start to work out what your priorities are. I'd never endorse an activity unless I'm prepared to do it myself. I am more than happy to share it with each one of you.
I do this exercise annually. I go through it, I work out what my top 6 are. I review it during the year and the best bit is going back after 12 months.
And seeing what I set out to achieve at the start of the year, start to celebrate some of our achievements. So it's a really powerful exercise because it starts to help you understand where your priorities are in life. Your rocks.
They're your foundations. They are the key foundation points in your, in your lives. And each category that you've selected and described yourself is the equivalent of the rock going into that jar.
These are the things that you need to focus on first, these are the important things. These are the things that providing you with a really strong sense of purpose. And what's interesting is, rocks, or your priorities, got some interesting characteristics to associated with them.
There's often an emotion associated with it. You linked back to it when you started to think about, when you start to think about the 10 out of 10, what were the emotions that it evoked in you. So these priorities will create an emotion in yourselves.
Interestingly, they'll tend not to have a sense of urgency associated with them, and I want you to really hold that thought because we're gonna come back to that. There won't be an urgent pressing need to do these things, other than a sense that deep down, we really want to do it. Typically, the activities, the actions, the tasks that emerge from exploring our arcs and developing them.
There won't be just one task. They're usually multifaceted. They are nonlinear.
In other words, there's lots of activities. We start to chunk our rocks down, there's lots of things that we will need to do to enable those things to happen for us, to take us to those 10 out of 10. So consequently, lots of different tasks, lots of different activities, but all of them will move us forward as individuals.
So in terms of personal organisation, how we capture this, which we're working towards now, you're not gonna find rocks on a to do list. I haven't got a to do list that says family on it. I don't have a to do list that says travel on it.
What I will have are the pebbles, the little bits, the things I have chunked down, the activities. When I started to work out what I want for the next 12 months, they are potentially the things that you will find on your to do list, not the rocks themselves. So there's a danger that they can slip us by.
But your foxs take priority, they are your treasures. And these are the things that they're gonna create that sense of motivation, the action oriented approach that we were talking about. These are the things that move us forward, these are the things that the go-getters aspire to.
So by doing that wheel of life exercise, make sure that you do it for the 6 key aspects of your life. Think about what your 10 out of 10 is. Break that down and think about what would be realistic in the next 12 months.
So let's imagine that you've done your life well, you've done all the 6 segments, you've created a list of actions for the next 12 months, they're gonna move you forward in 12 months' time, they'll have taken you to a point, that's all part of your greater goals. Fantastic. Absolutely delighted they're all in this position.
Great. Meanwhile, and you're probably getting an ah yes but moment flying around in your head, you've already got an ongoing to do list. You've already got work activities that are making the demands on you.
There will already be things in your lives that are happening that are taking, demands of your time and trying to steal your attention. So where we can find that there's a bit of a challenge is around balancing our priorities. So this is about managing the balance between what we want to do, perhaps the things that have emerged from doing the life will exercise, perhaps some of the things that are cropping up at work maybe.
And the things that we feel that we ought to do, that sense of obligation that's, that's kind of weighing us down a little bit. And just because you could do something. Doesn't mean that you should do it.
So what I'm gonna help you to look at now are ways in which you can work out where your priorities lie and what are the important things that you can tackle first. And you know what, I'm not a great one for, for necessarily read, you know, which books to read or recommending books or or saying what's a great book list. It's a very subjective experience, particularly in the, in the sphere of personal development.
That said, however, For me, one of the key authors on personal organisation skills is Stephen Covey, and his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Now, I'm not gonna recommend that you read this book from cover to cover. It was published in 1989, and, and, and arguably it's approach is, is a little bit dated.
It, it's quite a heavy read. It's for those of you familiar with it, it's, it, it's a big thick book. But if you don't read it, I would recommend that you familiarise yourself with all seven habits.
We're gonna, I'm gonna gloss over the 1st 3 habits because I think there's, there's real relevance in terms of what we're looking at here, and we'll, we'll take one of them, in particular, and, and, and look at that in, in, in some detail. . But certainly the 1st 3 habits that Kobe talks about in the, in the seven habits, are the steps that he describes that, that we need to take to shift us from, from, I guess, a, a, a dependent state to an independent state, one in which we can really achieve what he terms as being self-mastery.
In other words, we are in control of our own destiny, if you like, and in control of our own lives. So the 1st 3 habits that he talked about, the first one, habit one, he calls be proactive, and this is where he talks about the importance of having a very strong and a very clear vision. Clearly, that's what we're setting out to achieve when we're looking at our life wheel and the goal versus actions.
That will help you to think about and to articulate your goals and your vision in life. So that kind of takes care of having one. Habit two, he named Begin with an end in mind.
And, and, and that describes, that, that sense around self-leadership or, or personal direction. How do we take ourselves to that point? It's, it's the planning and the direction around the goals, that we set ourselves, beginning with the end in mind, starting the journey, thinking about where we want to be.
But this is the one I want to look at in more detail, and second, habit 3. Put first things first. In other words, how do we, how do we manage ourselves with all these demands, you know, we've, we've got our own plans, we've got our life wheel, we've got our goals, we've got work to balance, we've got so many things that are making demands on our, on our time.
So that's what we'll look at when we start to unpack habit 3. But before I do. No talk on personal organisation skills is gonna be complete with at least.
Some kind of reference to a to do list. And that's what I want just want to look at briefly first. So the to do list, because by this stage, you're starting to amass a whole list of activities, the things that have emerged from considering goals versus actions, what's emerged from doing your life will exercise, how you've chunked that down, what you've promised yourself for the next 12 months.
Then you've put that in a juxtaposed position with all the existing demands that are coming from work, coming from our work lives, whatever they may be. We've got to capture that in some way, shape, or form. And the trick to this is as far as is humanly possible, the number one piece of advice is keep it simple and keep it structured.
Now, there's so many ways, as this picture describes so many different ways that you can capture your to do list. Some people have a preference to do it on paper, old fashioned pen and paper, manual list to do it that way. Others have a preference to capture it on a PC in some way, shape, or form.
And these days, there's so many apps that are available to us, apps on your phones, apps on your various devices. I'm relaxed about it. There's, it's a personal preference at the end of the day.
But there are certain elements to it that I feel are really important and should be included as part of your to do list. The first it's kind of obvious. Let's have a quick description of what it is that needs doing and really keep that quite simple, just as a quick reminder of what it is that you need to do.
But what I also would really endorse that you start to do is to describe which category that activity falls into. And by category, for example, what rock does it relate to? Which of your goals, which of your, the aspects of your life does that fall under?
Is it part of family? Is it part of the home? Is it part of your personal development?
Whatever that may be for you? If it's a work activity, there may be a specific objective it relates to, it might be a particular project that it falls under. But as far as possible, try to categorise where that activity falls into.
The next thing that needs to be on there, again, it kind of obvious, but it needs saying, what's the time frame? When does that task need completing by? Some people like to think about how long it's gonna take, and therefore can start planning in, maybe.
The key thing here is, when does it need to be done by? What's the time frame for that particular activity? But something a lot of people forget is, it's important to date your to do list.
When was the last time that you updated it? This is, this is, a tool that should be reviewed and updated on a regular basis, and you want to make sure that, that you are, you are, keeping into good habits with that, and you've got into a good routine in terms of updating your to do list on a regular basis. So make sure that you do date it.
I'm happy to share with you that my preference of doing this, I'm, oh gosh, I'm such a fan of Microsoft Excel. I'm afraid I keep mine in a simple Excel format. I love the fact that I can categorise it so I can sort it by category, do lots of fun, fun things with it.
You will find the platform that works for you, but as a, as a minimum, please keep those four things on your to do list. Now when you start to populate your to do list, however you choose to do it, my advice would be to start with the actions that are relating to your rocks. Now here's where.
You may wish to separate and differentiate between having a a personal home life to do list and potentially to have a separate one that relates to your work life, and what's happening in your career. So if your home life, it might be the the rocks that you're describing, for work, it could be more related to objectives that you're working on projects, things that are cropping up, it might be related to a specific client or client type. But start with the big one, start with the, the, the, the rocks, if you like, the rocks and the objectives.
The rest, the smaller things, the sand, come down to those later. Now once you've completed your to do list and you're clear about what needs to do, then comes the how do I implement it, and one of the first activities that you need to think about is start to diarize when you will undertake some of those key activities. The two most important items in the toolkit of somebody who's got really effective personal organisation skills is the to do list and the diary.
Both of those are the, are the key things that you need. So get you to do this up to date, diarize what you can. And then what, what you will be left with.
I start to think about what's left over on the list. What haven't you been able to allocate. Start to think about, you know, whose priority is it?
Take a long, hard look at the activities that you're struggling to diarize, struggling to allocate a category to. Just think about, is this something that's gonna end up as a carry forward the next time you do a to do list? Just have a little bit of a think about that.
So that's the to do list. But again I want to help you find ways that you can start to be really discerning about the activities that are on there. And, and what tasks that you are actually going to undertake.
How on earth can you prioritise that? This is where we go back to COVID. Let's talk in detail now about COVID's third habit, putting first things first.
And when Kobe describes the activities that we undertake, he breaks them down into two different categories. First of all, how urgent they are, and he says, basically, are the tasks urgent? Or are they non-urgent?
Urgent activities versus non-urgent activities basically, does it have a deadline, a pressing deadline, or does it not have a pressing deadline? And then the next aspect he he asks us to consider is, you know, is how important is that particular activity? If we're really honest, take really objective viewpoint on it, how important is that activity?
Or actually, if we're honest, does it fall into the not important? So clearly we end up with a 2 by 2 grid with 4 separate quadrants in. Let's look at each of these in turn.
So in the urgent and important quadrant, we start to see activities which tend to arise from a crisis. They are the deadline driven tasks, they are things that potentially could be client driven, for example. Whereas the important but non-urgent activities are things like planning where we take time out to plan or to report or to review.
It could be some form of networking or client relationship building activity. Some maintenance activities fall in that. I don't necessarily mean maintenance with spanners, but all kinds of maintenance activities fall under important and non-urgent health and safety.
It's a classic in terms of it's important, it's a critical activity, but there's no pressing need to do it at that particular time. And then we look at the other two categories. They may seem to be urgent, but actually when we look at it, let's view it in terms of their sense of importance texts, you know, how often do texts come through, may seem urgent because they've pinged and they've taken our attention.
Actually, the importance of them could be questionable. Some scheduled activities, by that I mean the Monday morning meeting or the Friday afternoon meeting. They're scheduled, they're urgent because we know we do them every week, but actually, really?
How important are they? How important is it that we attend? Questionable.
So some of those meetings, a lot of interruptions, somebody in our face or an email popping up, there may seem to be a sense of urgency around it, the importance of it, we, we just need to, to, to question a little bit. And then the non-urgent, not important activities, social media is a classic example of that. When was the last time we found ourselves saying, quick, quick, I need to go on Facebook, something really important's happened.
Social media is a classic example. Time wasters, when, people try to steal our time. Well, look at some of those, people trying to steal our time in more detail later, other people's priorities.
And what COVID tells us, once we look at all four of those quadrants, is the tasks that we have, the tasks that are allocated to us, the tasks that we decide are important, the activities we do. They actually fall into all of those categories. If we're honest, we'll have a little bit in each one of those categories.
What's also interesting is our personal preferences will have a tendency to keep us in 11 or more of those quadrants. And we start to have to question what it is that we're doing, to make sure that we are prioritising as effective, effectively as we can. So quad, COVe took each of those quadrants in turn and started to look at it in a slightly different way.
So let's look at what he called quadrant one, the urgent and the important tasks. We could call the people undertaking those tasks the firefighters, they're very adept, carrying out activities that have to be done very, very quickly. What Coy argues is, and hence colouring in green just to make it more easy for you to see visually, is actually in quadrant 2, where the activities are important but not necessarily urgent.
This is where our rocks sit. These are the activities that drive us, that drive our role, or drive our businesses forward. Remember, this is the planning, the networking, the client relationship building, the non-urgent activities that are important.
It's these activities that we should focus our attention on. Quadrant 3 activities, people who are working in this quadrant more. Tend to see themselves very often as, as, as victims because they feel swamped by tasks that very often are put onto them by other people, or they feel a sense that they have to undertake stuff that isn't important.
And Quadrant 4, you know, you've got a question, are we doing activities that are non-urgent and not important? So my question to you is, when you are looking at the activities. That you want to select or to undertake, question yourself.
Which quadrant are you operating from when you're making those choices? If we could increase the amount of quadrant 2 activities that we are undertaking, arguably in COVID talks about this, we could actually reduce some of the things that are happening here. We spent a little bit more time planning.
Would there be less crises that crop up. If we spent a little bit more time work building our client relationships, would there be less client driven activities? So as far as possible, try and be discerning about the tasks and the activities that you are choosing or selecting to undertake, particularly in a work context and try and focus as much as possible on the quadrant 2 activities.
These are the ones that can take us, our role and our businesses forward. So once we've been able to be a little bit more discerning about some of the activities, we'll be able to allocate so there's always gonna be some left. Which ones are you gonna choose?
You may still find that there's still a whole bunch of activities, post it's, the list, whatever that might look like. Which ones, how on earth am I gonna choose which of the activities that I need to do? Because what I'd like to get you to a point is start to give yourselves permission to actually start to, I want to use the word ditch some activities or dump some activities, but just say park some activities.
So the technique I'm gonna show you now, it's very often actually used to help us reinforce positive goals and, and, and, and, and, make ourselves align them, align ourselves to them a bit better. But you can actually also use it. To titch the dross, if you like to look at it to think, do you know what, do I really need to do this?
And it's 4 very simple questions. And I would ask you, next time you find yourselves pondering over a task, pondering and over an activity, or if you find yourself carrying forward the same thing week after week after week, please ask yourself these four questions. First of all, what will happen if you do it?
Kind of obvious, there'll be an outcome. You know what's gonna happen when you do it. OK.
What will happen if you don't do it? What then? And start to explore that.
There could be a few options. This might happen, that might happen, but just think about it, write it down if it helps. OK.
You've thought about that. What won't happen if you do it? What won't happen if you do it?
I won't have to. It's the obvious one, I won't have to do it, I won't have to put the effort into it, but try and expand as far as you can, if I don't have to put the effort into it. You know what, maybe I'll just give myself a little less stress, it's not hanging over me, so what won't happen if you do it?
And then the really interesting one and the one that makes you perhaps think a little bit deeper is what won't happen if you don't do it. That's 4 sets of questions. Please do this.
If you find the same tasks being carried forward week after week after week, this should help you to challenge your perspectives on it. This might help you to really challenge your priorities on it and give yourselves permission to relegate it from the to do list. To the don't do list.
I'm not telling you to necessarily forget to do stuff, get rid of it completely. There's often a sense of, oh, my goodness, if I don't do it, let's put it, literally, put it onto a don't do list. Park it, keep it somewhere.
It'll keep your subconscious mind happy that at least you've, you've kind of remembered it, but give yourselves permission not to undertake a particular activity. OK, I promised some workspace, workplace specific tips and techniques, and, and, and this is important. I, I really want to spend a little bit of time going through some of the specifics that can happen in the workplace.
Reason I feel so strongly about this, the biggest cause of workplace stress is workload. According to the CIPD workload remains the most common cause of stress at work. Now, I can't promise to reduce your workload, clearly it's beyond my circle of influence and possibly yours, however.
There are some things to consider, some techniques you can try, and some strategies that you can adopt for yourself, and I just wanted to spend a little bit of time going through. What they could be for you. So.
We've already talked about. Exchanging the word rocks for objectives, when we come to talk about the workplace. So rather than having organisational rocks, you may have some objectives that have been assigned to you or there might be some projects that have been assigned to you.
They are your quadrant one and your quadrant 2 activities, if you like. These are the ones that, you know, these are the important ones that you need to to be, to be working on. And with that in mind, remember and respect your own personal boundaries.
Do what it is that you need to do. Not what other people want you to do. And be clear about.
Your expectations and what's expected of you, and what you expect from those particular tasks and activities, protect that. Remember my mantra You get what you tolerate. As long as you carry on working in a particular way.
Then the the same method will apply. So learn to start pushing back a little, particularly when other people start to make demands on you. Now, I'm not saying I want you to refuse to do things.
I'm not saying that you should, start pushing back completely and throwing your pen down and say, no, no, I'm not going to do anything else. But there are ways in which you can respond. And start to, respectfully request, and ask people to respect what it is that you need to do.
Some examples of this could be, if somebody asks something of you, explain what your current situation, your current priorities are. Try and ask if it deadlines could be extended. As I say, don't necessarily refuse to do things, but respectfully push the boundaries back a little bit.
What you will find in the workplace, and I'm sure many of you are familiar with this, and I know I have been over the years. If there are certain time criminals that are at play in the workplace. And in my mind, there are 3 types of time criminals.
First of all, we get the time bandits. These are the ones who are trying to steal your time for themselves. These are the people who are.
Perhaps time poor themselves, they they are time deprived. They, they feel that they have, in inverted commas, run out of time. So they want to steal your time to do something for them, and they will ask you to do things for them.
This is what I'm talking about in terms of pushing back. Be clear about what you need to do. Do what you need to do before you do.
Something for other people, so watch the people, the time bandits that are trying to steal your time. The next ones are a little bit more manipulative. They're the time saboteurs.
They're not necessarily trying to steal your time, but these are the ones that are trying to make their lives a little bit easier. So they're trying to twist what you are doing, so that the outcome favours them as well. But guess what?
That means a little bit more effort for you. So they're trying to, to twist your time in some way, shape, or form. Again.
Push back gently, respectfully. And clearly present what your, your own personal time boundaries are. The last ones, ah, they might seem tremendously friendly people.
The time wasters, the people who interrupt you with the non-urgent stuff. And it might seem great fun. It might seem the chatter, the things that are going on, the office gossip, books I've read, films I've seen.
It's the fun stuff, but it's the time-wasting stuff. And we do need to watch out for this. I'm not saying don't, but there are times that we just need to keep an eye on how much time that we're wasting.
And speaking of, Time wasters, there are also time wasting activities. And the things that, again, they're not necessarily the quadrant 11 or 2 activities are definitely falling into the quadrants 3 and 4, taking time out, spending time on social media when we should be work. Just watch the time wasting activities.
You will also find as well that there be a temptation when we're busy. To do lots of things on the to do list, arguably a quadrant 3 and 4 activities, because you can get rid of them really, really quickly. Arguably it's again, hit the important stuff first, we don't want to be doing the time wasting activities.
There's some quick t tips and tricks, but the most important thing on this slide is this. If you have tried everything, please, please speak up, say something. There's ways in which you can do that, and certainly when we're pushing back a little bit, you know, particularly when it's to a line manager or to a boss, important thing is not to go with a whinge or a moan or just say, you know what, I don't know what to do.
It's important to say, here's what I've tried, this is what I have tried, and I am still in this position. You may want specific pointers on which areas you should prioritise, which in their mind are more important than others because clearly if you're struggling, you can't do everything. It might be.
That there's, you know, a shift in time frames that could be exercised in some way, shape, or form. You're not necessarily approaching them asking to do less work, but reducing the workload may be an option, it's certainly something that might, might need to be thought about. Please, please, workload can be one of the biggest causes of stress in the workplace.
You can try, you can try, you can push back, you can adopt all the techniques, but ultimately, if it is still a problem, please, please speak up about it. And speaking of mental health, it's life not just about actions and deadlines. And you know, our, our minds are like muscles.
We're hearing more and more about this. And light muscles, they too need a bit of time out. You know, if you were training to run a marathon, if you were training to do a triathlon or a 10K or a physical activity, you wouldn't train every single day.
You'd have rest days or rest periods, if you like, and the brain is exactly the same. And in addition to, you know, the usual self-care practises, I don't know, things like making sure you get, have good sleep routines, take regular exercise, try not to overdo the stimulants like, caffeine or, or try and numb ourselves at the end of a busy day with alcohol, as well as the, the usual self-care. Really encourage you to think about some mindfulness practises and recreational activities that you can undertake to replenish yourself.
Mindfulness practise is, it's, it's, it's a key contributor to us leading more fulfilled lives. And if we're looking at our whole lives in terms of our personal goals, trying to balance that with our work lives, mindfulness is a key contributor about that. But let's be practical.
It's not going to be completely realistic to take time aside and write a journal in the workplace. You might not be fortunate enough to find somewhere to sit and meditate, and there may not be the opportunity to sit and chat with friends. But there are things that you can do in terms of mindful practises.
Please, please, no matter how busy. You are, do take a break for lunch. However long you're allocated, please take breaks, during the day, even when you are busy.
Just to have a an opportunity to take a step back. If possible, go outside, look into the distance, look at the sky, if possible. .
If you might have to take some reading material into work to switch off and to give your brain a chance to just stop, pause and process, I don't know, you might have a portable hobby, colouring, sewing, knitting, whatever that may be. If all of that's not possible and you are still feeling maybe at your workplace, at your workstation, wherever you find yourself working, and you're feeling that overload and you're feeling that stress. Try not to just dive in and think, look at my to do list.
I'd really encourage you to just walk away for a few minutes. Practise some mindful breathing, try and find a quiet place and then come back. And try and look at where your priorities are.
So mindfulness really does play a key role. OK, so we're still at the start of this session. Some of this will sit immediately, some of this won't.
We've all been working with particular habits, and some of what you've heard tonight will feel new. And we've probably been running and working with old programmes and ways in which we work. Our old habits, the old phrase, old habits die hard.
Habits sit with us at a really deep subconscious level. And this has been proven by all kinds of, positive psycho psychological research. So they sit at a subconscious level.
And interestingly, new habits, these new practises, these new ways of working take anywhere between 21 to 67 days for that new habit to really feel embedded. So some of the techniques that we're talking about here will feel new, they will feel different, but they're just new habits. You just need to try them for a little while, so they start to feel that they're really embedded.
And all that's needed from you is the absolute belief that it's gonna work. A bit of practise, carry on doing it, even when you're a little bit tempted to go back to your old ways of working. And willpower.
They're the ways that we create really good strong new habits for ourselves. So just to recap, we've tried to encourage you during the course of this webinar to change the way you're thinking and to really develop some good new personal organisation skills. We've helped you think about ways you can create really clear goals with actions that have been chunked into various tasks and activities that will really give you that sense of purpose, your're rocks in life.
We've helped you to think about ways in which you can prioritise that, whether that's your personal tasks or whether that's something in the mind place. And finally, we've looked at ways in which you can practise mindfulness and think about your mindset and ways in which you can feel resilient. So with that in mind and thinking about those new habits.
What's gonna change for you? And I sometimes find it easy to think about that in ways of traffic lights. So, think for yourselves.
From now, having listened to all of this, what do you need to start doing? What's the new and never tried techniques that you know what? I think I'm just gonna try them.
What are the things that perhaps you can carry on doing, but perhaps you can incorporate some of the new stuff with that as well, but there are some things you're doing that'll be fine. Keep doing it, carry on, just incorporate the new things. What are the things you can stop doing?
The things you don't need to do, what are the quadrant 3 and 4 activities. Give yourself permission, stop sweating the small stuff, get on with the important things. Before I close for questions, just a few quick reminders, certainly about the supporting reading material, and the multiple choice questions that are gonna be made available to you.
You'll, you'll find them, underneath the, the, the video when the webinar's been uploaded in about 48 hours or so. But I'd really, really encourage you to go through that again. It'll back up what we've covered during this webinar.
The life will exercise I'd really endorse you go through, and certainly the multiple choice questions will give you some examples that will help to really embed your learning. All that remains for me is to just say thank you, thank you for joining us on this webinar, and I really appreciate you joining us. Hope you found aspects of it useful and helpful in terms of developing your organisation skills.
And I'll hand over now to Andy, and, he can feed back with any questions or, or comments that have possibly come through during the course of the session. Andy, over to you. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Liz, for that very, interesting and thought provoking, webinar. A couple of questions have come through. You talked a lot about the 6 rocks.
Is there like a, a, a minimum or maximum recommended and particularly if you're a newcomer to this, is it better to start off maybe with 3 or 4 and, and build up as you get experience? I would see the coaching me is coming out now, I would try and challenge and, and fill it with 6. What I, if I'm working with a client on a 1 to 1 basis, you can split some of the headings we've given as examples, and you'll see those we produced on the sheet.
Family, for example, you could, you could chunk that down, you could have life partner as one, family, you know, children as another, and family members as another. You, you can chunk those instead of being 1 into 3. I would encourage you to think of 6 if possible.
Any more than 6, I'm not nervous about, you can by all means have more than 6. You just. Could potentially end up with a sense of overwhelm about what's realistic to achieve, certainly in a 12 month period.
So have more on your life, will, but for you, certainly for your plans in the next 12 months, I would limit it potentially to 6. OK, I hope that helps. Yeah.
And you talked about, if you like, envisioning what 10 out of 10 looks at. Have you any tips for people who are struggling with that, or maybe, you know, it's kind of like the unknown unknown, so maybe don't know what 10 looks like. It's this is this is the great bit, it's what you'd love it to be.
And it's a hugely aspirational piece because remember I said You know, we, we're only wanting actions for the next 12 months. So you could think big, think, you know, what you would like it to be. Of course, sometimes it's different where it involves other people, and I go back to family members here, or if we're talking about friendship groups, we are not in control of certain aspects of their lives, but where our lives overlap, it could be quality time you spend with people, it could be what I'd like to do with those people.
But I can't. You know, control or govern, will my son get a first in his music degree or will my daughter pass her A levels with the grades she needs. But what I can do is think about things that we, that I am.
What's in your circle of influence? And Stephen Coy funnily enough talks about that as well. So, think big, but where you have influence, that might help.
. OK, to be able to visualise it. Brilliant. Just a personal top tip there you mentioned Coy and how difficult that book is to read.
I, I listened to it on an audio book, and that was a much, much easier, easy way of doing it because I agree it's quite a heavy tone. It is a heavy and it doesn't fit into your briefcase very easily. I, it, it's over, it's about 350 pages long.
It's not an easy read. Antony is a very big proponent of audiobooks and you can get a free trial with Audible. So recommend that to anybody.
It's go for it. Yeah, you talked about pushing back if people have got issues in the workplace. For new graduates, that might be particularly difficult.
Obviously they're in a new environment, they're just finding their feet. Do you have any tips for new graduates, particularly in terms of pushing back and coping with issues? Yes, certainly.
And I would, this is why I, I made the point about going with things that you have tried first. When we're, we're talking about pushing back, it's creating a space where those conversations, feel comfortable. Even if it's, to the point that you say, I, I want to talk to you about something.
I'm, I'm gonna find this quite difficult to raise. However, these are the things that I have tried. It's important, particularly going to a line manager or a boss.
Don't just go with your problems. Go with the things that you've tried to do and that you've tried to sort. But there's a great, for those people that find it difficult, great phrase that I found really useful in situations like this, which is easy conversations equals a tough life.
Tough conversations equals an easy life. So I, I, I, I'd, I'd encourage them to not to shy away from it. Please think about the things that you have tried.
And as as you're setting those conversations up, create a safe space for both sides to be open. Authentic, genuine and honest. So by that I mean, don't go in screaming and belligerent, and I can't do this.
It's about being calm and creating a calm and safe environment where an effective conversation can take place. What they call in transaction analysis, an adult to adult conversation. So it's creating that environment, creating that space where those conversations can happen effectively and with as little emotion as possible.
OK, one more question. You talked about taking time out during the working day. Comment here at our practise.
Nobody gets a lunch break. There are no rocks to focus on. It's just a huge list, of clients waiting.
Have you any advice ? Gosh, yes. And in the limited time, that, that's a challenging situation to be in.
And again, it's, it's about getting what's being tolerated. It's difficult to give specific advice without knowing the, the level that that person's operating at. If it's a very junior member, that, that's a difficult environment to be in.
And, you know what, I'd start looking at my life will in that instance and questioning, is that what I really want? If it's somebody with a degree of influence within the organisation. I'd encourage conversations with peers, because that situation cannot be maintained.
And it, it all it takes is, is for, for the momentum to start, that shift in thinking to change, for one person to, to, to, to start saying, I am taking a lunch break because this is not doing me any good. It, it's, it's finding some way of initiating those conversations. If it's difficult to do that with, with partners, with practise partners, then if there's a peer group, that's a supportive peer group, and I'm not talking about trying to start a mutiny or a revolt, that's far from it.
Very positive conversations. What can we do to make ourselves feel better? So much talk about mindfulness and being resourceful and mental health in the workplace.
I would potentially suggest utilising almost . Things that are available on the Internet and saying, look, I found this on the Internet. This is really, really useful.
Perhaps we can bring some of this into our practise, into our, literally into the practise, and start, doing some of these techniques for ourselves. Part of which is, you start on time, you take. A an element of a lunch break and you work decent hours.
But I would certainly endorse this, there's an organisation called Health at Work and look at their website, certainly in terms of good practises around, . Stress in the workplace, overwork, not having the rocks, not taking time out for lunch, but use that as the platform, say, look at this, this is what happens in other organisations, let's bring some of that back in for ourselves. OK, brilliant.
Thank you for that. A nice comment here from Jeff. Many thanks, Liz for a really interesting presentation.
I'm slightly different to many of your listeners as I'm retired, but I think I can benefit from your action points and look forward to implementing your suggestions regards Jeff. So thanks for that. Jeff, and I'd certainly stay, definitely do your life will, Jeff.
It's a perfect time to do it. Absolutely. Just one final thing then from me actually.
Are you familiar with Charles D. Higgs's work on Habit? No, but I've, ah, I, I must look that one up in that case.
I do a lot of work around habits when I look at positive psychology, about how to change habits, helping you to change habits. It's called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhi. So I brilliant.
Anybody. I've written it down. OK.
I love a new book to read. Thank you. And, and, and if you can't read, get it on an audio book.
I think that's everything. Well, literally, I'll give people about another 10 or 15 seconds. But whilst I'm doing that again, just to thank you again, Liz, a very interesting presentation.
A reminder of our sponsors, Simply Health and MWI Animal Health. And again, Liz has already reminded you, but there will be these, supplemental material, reading material that's gonna come on the website when the webinar gets posted. And, and, and again, to reiterate, encourage everybody to look at that.
And there don't appear to be any final questions. So again, thanks very much, Liz. Thank you thank you everybody for attending, and I look forward to seeing you on the next webinar.
Thank you very much. Thanks, Andy. Bye everyone.
Thanks again.