Challenges
Juggling Too Many Balls? Try this!
Kevin Armstrong, one of Evergreen Leadership’s executive coaches, painted this image last week in a client call: “I was running
Kevin Armstrong, one of Evergreen Leadership’s executive coaches, painted this image last week in a client call: “I was running
As my children were growing up, Saturday was “clean the house” day. Everyone participated, no matter their age. For my daughter, Nicole, at age six it meant that toys and clutter had to move off the floor and into their designated storage places so that the vacuum could be run.
In spite of knowing this, the floor would often be strewn with Barbie shoes on Saturday morning. After reminders that escalated to nagging and warnings, there was one thing that was certain to create an immediate surge of frantic activity to put the shoes away. And that was the sound of the vacuum cleaner headed to her room.
Now Nicole was not a naughty or unruly child. She just has at least one thousand things better to do than to pick up Barbie shoes. Until the roar of the vacuum sent a clear message: Run now to save the shoes!
Not unlike most of us. We have many things to do. We aren’t bad or lazy; perhaps distracted and overwhelmed. So the leadership question becomes this: WHAT CAN WE DO TO SPUR FOCUS AND ATTENTION ON THE THINGS THAT ARE MOST IMPORTANT?
Ahhhh… how comfy our comfort zones are. We know these places so well. We can be on autopilot. We don’t have to expend emotional or physical energy. It’s easy. It’s like riding a bike downhill – all the time.
Ultimately, however, our comfort zones can be our undoing. Too much time there are we become stale, unchallenged, and stagnant. And that is a dangerous place to be in a world in which maintaining the status quo becomes obsolete in the blink of an eye.
My Dad used to observe that I could squeeze more into one day that anyone he knew. And he was right. There was a plan, executable down to 15 minute increments. The pace was fast and unrelenting. Work – kids – exercise – community work – school – church – cooking – cleaning – errands. The day was a blur, but boy oh boy, could I get a lot of things done! At least on some days. However, on most days, the long task list overwhelmed me, and by Friday evening it was all I could do to order in pizza and collapse on the couch.
How I wish Greg McKeown’s book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, was available 10 years ago. It provides a great guide on how to move from being buffeted from the trivial many to living in the essential few.
For much of my life, I flung myself blindly into each day. I typically asked myself at the beginning of the day, “What do I need to do today?” Then I had two different friends ask me two compelling questions that stopped me dead in my tracks.
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