Protect Your Energy: Start With a Brain Dump

Today marks the kick-off of the season of short weeks. We can mentally count the number of workdays between us and the end of 2020. We’re all on some kind of deadline right now. Many of us are on a lot of deadlines.The end of the year countdown combined with family needs and these strange times of 2020 means we’re also facing an energy crisis.

This week we’ll be sharing best practices in protecting your energy while you make the most of the days we have left in 2020, starting with the tried and true brain dump.

All of those ideas, tasks, follow-ups, reminders and appointments knocking around in your head are only causing a mental brown out up there. Get them out of your head and onto paper. Follow these simple steps:

• Make a to-do list. Write everything you “have to do” down, whether it’s personal or professional. Keep it all on one list for now, you’ll sort it later.

• Tend to your “should list”. These are the things you wish you could get to, or feel like you should have already done, but didn’t have the bandwidth or motivation to get to. This list might be inbox clean-up, donation drop-off, writing thank you notes. Give these items equal priority with your to-dos because they’re taking up just as much space and energy anyway.

• Add any plaguing big picture items on your mind. There’s no shortage of “extras” in 2020 and they only deplete us further when we don’t acknowledge them. These might be questions, conversations, strategic planning, budgeting, feedback processing, you name it. Write it down.

• Get ruthless. Cross out anything that isn’t an actual priority. If you have listed things that aren’t time sensitive, start yourself a 2021 list, move those items over and leave them there. You only have so much energy, spend it wisely on things that matter right now.

• Prioritize. Turn the page and start organizing all of the things still on your list according to priority. Priority may not always be “most urgent”, either. Never underestimate the low hanging fruit. Make your list a combination of urgency and agility. Take the pressure off by tackling a few things you can do quickly.

• Put it on your calendar. Once you have your list in priority order, assign those tasks to yourself on a specific day. Keep your bandwidth for each day in mind as you choose when you plan to tackle these things. Don’t add something that’s a heavy lift on a day you’ve got back-to-back calls. Put those easy wins on busy days and save the more intentional work for when you have the brain power. And keep it simple - no more than 5 things from this list a day.

Remember, you only have so much time and energy. You may not get to everything on your brain dump, but you will have tackled the most urgent, most important and most impactful items while also tending to your later list in a way that relieves the pressure of too many mental tabs being open. Be gracious with yourself. A wise and thoughtful mentor once shared a philosophy that's become central to Principal Ops and the work we do with our clients: "We can do anything, but we can't do everything."

Make your list. Free your mind. Protect your energy.