Three Questions I Ask Myself During a Crazy Week

This essay originally appeared in the Monday morning newsletter on 3/9/20.

Last week was craziness. For a variety of reasons, multiple deadlines shifted and landed on the same date. I did my best to prep and plan, but no matter how many early morning/late night hours I put in, I just felt like I was making no progress. I felt off. 

Have you had a week like this? How did you handle it? 

I hope you did better than me. I chose to let the stress seep in, sit in self-pity and abandon my routine. 

I thought allocating any extra time I could to working more would mean more work would be produced.

Spoiler alert, it didn’t happen. By Friday, I was irritable and not acting like myself. I reached for junk food when I normally would not. I had trouble concentrating and contributing in a 10 a.m. meeting because my brain had already been in work mode nonstop since the night before.

Exasperated, I looked to social media for an escape. While scrolling Instagram, I saw a post that triggered memories of two other similar messages seen/heard elsewhere. I recognized that this post was my third message on the topic. (Remember my rule of three? If I hear something three times, I know it is a sign that I need to lean in.)  

The three things all had to do with the misconception that working ourselves harder makes us more productive. Check them out below: 

1. This pie chart about what actually makes you productive.
2. Lauryn’s list of things that boost her productivity.
3. Kelly’s advice about the correlation between exercise and productivity. (at 27:25). 

These messages made me think about a bike’s tire. The tire’s movement is supported by a bunch of different spokes. If a few of the spokes are missing, the tire is not going to move forward as smoothly. Sure, you can still eventually get to the destination, but the output produced by the tire is going to be inefficient and low in quality. 

What are the spokes you need to be productive? A few of mine are a willingness to work really hard, sleep, exercise, healthy food and time spent connecting with others. 

Now, let’s be real. The goal here is not a perfectly balanced tire. Depending on your season of life, your week, even your day, some spokes are going to be more of a priority than others. But I do think a goal of striving for a majority of the spokes to be balanced is attainable. A goal of not going all in one spoke, like I did last week. 

So, how would I have approached last week differently? In hindsight, I would have asked myself three questions:

1. What spokes are realistically attainable? For me last week, hard work is an obvious choice. And then knowing I wasn’t traveling or in a unique set of circumstances, my second choice would have been healthy eating. This could have manifested with me prepping something at home the night before or deciding I was going to order in a healthy dish for lunch and dinner. 
2. What spokes do I need to modify slightly? I would have picked sleep and exercise. Not the priority this week, but also not unimportant. Instead of traveling to and from a full-length exercise class, I could stream a 15- or 30-minute workout from home. Or, I could choose to do a mindful activity instead of working out. On the sleep front, I would acknowledge that I’m going to get less sleep. But I would still make an effort to get to bed early, allowing myself to wake up a bit earlier because I do my best thinking in the morning. 
3. What spokes need to take a backseat this week? Again, we are not striving for a perfect balance. Some weeks the pendulum is going to swing in one direction before boomeranging back. For me last week, time connecting with others took a backseat. It was an easy choice because I know I’m getting an abundance of time with others with a few fun plans and a trip on the horizon. 

Wow, I bet I would have been so much more productive (and enjoyable to be around) if I asked myself these questions at the beginning of last week.

But that’s the magic of  Monday… 🙂 We are presented with a new day, a new week and a new chance to get these spokes balanced and strive for our best.

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