Monday, 10/23/23: Talking about work-related routines I’m loving and recs from my mom

Happy Monday!

It’s a new week, which means it’s time for your next Monday motivation newsletter.

Read on below for some steps to a happier Monday, a short story and a roundup of positive thoughts to get your week started.

Three Steps to a Happier Monday

Each newsletter starts with three prompts to inspire gratitude and simple intention setting. Take a moment and jot down answers to these three questions. To give an example, I share my answers below.  

Step 1: What are three things I appreciated from the weekend? 

Step 2: What is one thing I can be excited about today?

Step 3: What is my intention for this week? 

GRATITUDE: I’m thankful for time at home with my parents, fun Saturday errands with my mom and the sun being out. 

TODAY: I’m still home in Florida for one more day (back to Chicago tomorrow), so I’m most excited to be working from my parents’.

INTENTION: My intention this week is to continue asking myself “what’s going well” at the end of each day. 

Okay, your turn! And if you want to share your three steps, I am all ears. 🙂

Meaningful Musings: Work-Related Routines I’m Loving 

From time-to-time, I love reflecting about what routines or rhythms are working well for me at the moment.  

Routines and rhythms are subjective to so many factors – and really do ebb and flow based on what else is on our plate, our season of life and other factors. That’s why I think it’s fun to capture in real-time what’s working well and where there might be area for improvement.

Right now, there are a few work-related routines I’m really loving. I’ve done each of these routines for varying amounts of times and find they offer differ benefits, but at least for right now,  they are all making a positive difference for me in terms of how I move throughout my workday.

I’m hoping by sharing them this morning they might help you too or inspire a thought that leads to a newer, simpler, more enjoyable way of doing things this Monday. And if there are any routines or rhythms you’re loving right now, I’d love to hear about it!

What’s Working Right Now: Work Routines Edition

1) The first is going into the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays. For a while, I’d been going into the office on Wednesdays and liked the mid-week shakeup. Then in September, my office moved to a 2-day in-office routine and my team designated Wednesday-Thursday as our in-office days. I didn’t have much of a preference, but WOW do I really like this rhythm. I enjoy easing into the week at home. I naturally find myself with more mental bandwidth at the beginning of the week, so it’s great being able to just sit down and work without needing to worry about commuting, etc. Then, Wednesdays and Thursdays are a welcomed change, followed by being excited to work cozily and casually at home on Friday. It’s like my weeks feel fuller somehow? I think having the days feeling different from each other makes the week as a whole feel more meaningful. Loving it!

2) The next is an email management idea I heard from author, professor, podcaster Cal Newport. In this recent episode of his podcast Deep Questions, he shared some thinking behind why “knowledge workers are “tired all the time.” His thinks what’s causing the tiredness is not the obvious answer – it’s not the volume of work, but rather the constant context switching.

You’re answering an email about one project, then another email about a different project, then have a meeting about the first project, then back to an email about something else. The shifting back and forth, coupled with the ad-hoc, on-demand messaging (Teams chats, Slack, emails, etc.), is what’s driving the main source of exhaustion for knowledge workers. Listening to this, I felt like Cal was describing my workday. So, I was interested to hear some of his proposed solutions. My favorite was his suggestion to “single thread your inbox.” Let me explain.

Maybe you have some time in between meetings, or it’s the end of the day, or you’re coming back from a long weekend, and you have a lot of emails to catch up on. Cal’s suggestion for this situation is to open a blank Word document next to your email and use it to capture, organize, and clarify relevant details while you go through your inbox.

Email by email, you make your way through, typing up a quick summary in your document, stream of conscious style (couple of words). You can process and figure out what the email means later, but for now, you are just capturing them in your “digital memory” (the Word doc), so you can get through all the e-mails in your inbox, quickly, without worrying about forgetting things.  

Then, once you’re through your inbox, you make sense of what’s on your plate. You can group like things together, decipher the small tasks from the big task, prioritize, and then start to execute. You’re still answering the same amount of emails, but the EXPERIENCE is much less exhausting.

I’ve been doing this for a few weeks and it’s a gamechanger. When I’ve sorted through my emails before, my approach would be to go through each email 1:1 – process it – and act on it, before moving to the next. I now understand why I would walk away from those 30 minutes of emailing feeling more overwhelmed than when I began – the context shifting was too much. Instead, this approach allows me to gather relevant info in a central location, while leaving space in my brain for when it’s time to execute. As Cal writes, “It’s amazing how much more efficient you become when you’re not clogging up your brain’s working memory with open loops and unresolved obligations.” Beyond efficiency – it’s just so much more enjoyable. You can read more on this idea here. Highly recommend!

3) The third is something I’ve done off and on for a while to mark the end of my workday. Even though I’m liking my hybrid work setup right now, I still struggle with defining a buffer between the end of work and the start of personal time. What I find useful is to have some kind of “ritual” to signal to myself that it’s time to stop working and transition into my evening. Right now, that looks like writing down “three things going well” in my planner.

Our brains are hardwired to focus on what’s going wrong vs. what’s going right. Especially in a work setting, I think it’s natural to focus more on what problems need to be solved vs. what’s working. That’s why I’m really enjoying this proactive prompt of asking myself what’s going well, at the end of the day. Even if it’s been a tough and stressful day, I can still usually find a few things that went well, such as a presentation going smoothly, feeling in sync with team members or a meeting getting canceled (the best). Reminding myself of them at the end of the day is really making a different.

What do you think? Are there are work – or life! – rhythms and routines you’re loving right now?

On My (Mom’s) Monday Radar

Featuring recommendations from my mom this morning! We spent the weekend together, and I love hearing her recs. After all, sometimes we just aren’t ready to jump into our Monday to-do list right away. In case you want some content to procrastinate with, here is a roundup of a few positive things on my mom’s radar:  

• Fall in Florida looks different – and I’m definitely jealous of the Chicago “Fall Wardrobe Update.” It inspired me to find some fall updates that work in warm weather.  My favorites right now are midi skirts like this one paired with a sleeveless turtle neck like this one. 
• It’s Pumpkin season and I’ve been experimenting with Pumpkin protein balls.They are so easy to make (no-bake), taste like cookies, and are really healthy! My two favorite recipes are this one and this one.
• Megan always asks me “what’s the last good book you read?” I had to look this one up as they both sound similar – but both were good! Hello, Stranger was a story about a woman suddenly struggling with face blindness and Hello, Beautiful was a story of 4 sisters navigating life. I think I give Hello, Beautiful a slight nod because of really good character development and the fact it was based in Chicago.

Picture of the Week

That’s all for today! I hope you found something in today’s newsletter that sparked motivation, made you smile or inspired a positive Monday thought. Don’t underestimate the power of starting small… a fulfilling week starts with just one fulfilling day. You’ve got this! 

Let’s make it a great Monday!
Megan