by Caroline Leach | Jan 24, 2016 | Leadership, Learning, Social Media, Work/Life
How do you spend your Sunday?
Inspiration abounds in the Sunday Routine series in The New York Times. Each week, a different New Yorker shares their weekend rituals.
And Laura Vanderkam‘s book What the Most Successful People Do on the Weekend made me much more thoughtful about planning and enjoying the precious 60 hours from Friday night to Monday morning.
She helped me understand the important of planning “3 to 5 anchor events” every weekend. These might be fun day trips within a short drive from home, dinners with family and friends, time for yourself and more.
It’s especially important to plan fun, relaxing and meaningful weekends as a means of refreshment after a busy work week.
Here are a few activities in my Sunday grab bag. They aren’t things on every Sunday’s menu, but they’re favorite things that I order as often as possible.
Enjoy exercise. Sundays are perfect for longer-form exercise than during the week. Today, for example, was cardio on the treadmill, followed by a yoga class.
The added bonus during treadmill time? Catching up on favorite shows with TV everywhere on the DIRECTV app. (Full disclosure: for many years I’ve worked at DIRECTV, which is now a proud member of the AT&T family. Opinions expressed in this blog are my own.)
Spend time with family. Whether it’s an excursion to a park or other local landmark, a religious service or a special meal together, Sundays are perfect for family time.
In our house, we often have an early Sunday dinner. My husband loves to cook, thankfully, so we often get to enjoy new recipes he’s trying. Our teens are in the middle of high-school finals and college apps, so there’s plenty of work to be done on weekends too.
Get a jump on the work week. Before the hustle and bustle of Monday begins, it’s great to create a plan for the week. In the relative calm of the weekend, it’s an ideal opportunity to spend focused time on an important project. And it’s a good time to clear the decks of accumulated email and open actions.
Focus on special projects. What side projects do you have going on, separate from your day job? For me, it’s blogging.
Although my blog often explores professional topics in marketing and communications, blogging is filled with intrinsic motivation for me. I enjoy it so much that I get lost in the flow of the experience. Whatever your flow state is, devote some of your weekend to it.
Spend time in nature. Especially in the winter during the shorter, darker days, it’s important to spend time outside on the weekends. Whether it’s exercising, gardening, dining or a myriad of other outdoor activities, the outdoors has a restorative quality to it. Connecting with nature is grounding and soothing.
Of course, those on the east coast of the U.S. will have to do this on a weekend other than this one. The snowstorm there is one instance where no action can be the best course of action.
Catch up on reading. Weekends are a great time to read a wider variety of materials than during the work week. Maybe it’s reading the longer news stories you didn’t have time for during the week. Or maybe it’s the latest business book. Or a novel that has lessons about leadership and life.
Enjoy favorite TV shows. If you work in an entertainment-related business, as I do, this really fun homework for my job. Streaming shows on the DIRECTV app (see: exercise, above) is a great twofer – exercise and entertainment.
Today during treadmill time I streamed Jobs for G.I.s on the AUDIENCE network. It’s a compelling look at the challenges veterans face as they transition from military service to civilian life. It makes me proud of my company’s focus on hiring and supporting veterans.
Learn something new. What do you want to learn this year? Whether it’s personal or professional, weekends give you the time and space for learning, whether it’s in person or online. A new book out this month called Stretch is full of ideas for how you can future-proof yourself and your career.
Have fun and enjoy life just as is it. Perhaps most important is to enjoy the moments and the special people in your life. The past is done, the future isn’t here yet and the present is right before you, waiting to be savored.
by Caroline Leach | Dec 30, 2015 | Change, Learning, Work/Life
Do habits make us who we are?
Habits inform how we live our lives each day. And over time that adds up to who we are.
Habits underpin the goals we set, often at the start of a new year or season.
Whether it’s exercising more, working better or spending time with loved ones, goals are achieved bit by bit, in the smaller tasks we repeat on a regular basis.
And don’t underestimate how small changes add up. Small Move, Big Change by Caroline Arnold shows the power of “micro resolutions.”
As part of my own year-end rituals, I’m starting a new tradition. It’s called a Daily Dozen, for 12 key habits I’m committed to doing each day.
Some of them are well established, like walking 10,000 steps each day. Others are newer, like power posing for 2 minutes every morning.
The daily dozen concept came from Walter Chauncey Camp. Known as “the father of American football,” Camp devised a set of 12 exercises called the daily dozen while he worked for the U.S. military.
Here’s my daily dozen – 12 exercises for body, mind and spirit:
3 morning pages. Thank you, Julia Cameron, for the brilliant idea of writing 3 long-hand pages every morning, about anything, in a stream of consciousness.
The practice of morning pages clears your minds, helps you solve problems and sets the stage for a highly creative day. Completion time: 20 minutes.
1 power pose. Thank you, Amy Cuddy, for the research-based practice of standing in a power pose for 2 minutes. Your body language really does shape who you are and how you think about yourelf.
But why wait for a stressful situation to try power posing? Pre-emptively, I’m doing a power pose every morning. Arms stretched out, excited about what I’ll do each day and what each one will bring. Completion time: 2 minutes.
2 sets of arm weights. While I understand why weight training should be done every other day to rest tested muscles, it’s hard to remember to do something every other day. It’s easier to do something daily, because it doesn’t require a lot of thought.
So I’ll split up my arm weight regimen. One day I’ll do 2 sets of weights, followed by a different 2 sets the next day. That way it’s daily, but different each day. Completion time: 5 minutes.
2 vitamins. This one’s easy. I’ve been taking vitamins for years. It takes seconds, it’s good for me and it gives me a small sense of accomplishment. This fuels the ability to meet other goals.
Have you ever added a task to your list after you completed it, just for the satisfaction of crossing it off as done? This goal is a similar concept. Completion time: 1 minute.
1 reasonable to-do list. Too often my master list of everything that needs to be done serves as my daily to-do list. Instead, I’ll make a daily list, the night before, of my top 5 priorities for the following day.
Taking inspiration from Tony Schwartz, 1 of the 5 will be a top-of-the-day key project to devote my first focused 90 minutes. Completion time (for the list): 10 minutes.
5 fruits and veggies. This comes from Michael Pollan’s mantra to “eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” In my case that’s berries with breakfast, salads for lunch and fruits and veggies for snacks.
This is how I lost weight a few years ago. It is painfully true that the really hard part is not losing weight, but maintaining the new weight. Completion time: negligible.
30 active minutes. Successful weight maintenance is easier with daily exercise. That’s been a habit of mine for quite some time. And I’ve upped the ante with my green-day challenge to reach 10,000 steps every day.
It’s also fun to mix it up and try new forms of exercise. This year I’m looking forward to more stand up paddle boarding and yoga. Completion time: 30 minutes.
3 family member time. Life is full with a spouse and 2 teens in high school plus 1 rescue dog. Sometimes it feels like group texts are our most often used means of communication and connection.
So I sit in the dining room in the evenings, to connect with everyone during homework and dinner time. Besides chatting for a few minutes about everyone’s day, I can do my “homework” from the office while they do theirs. Completion time: variable.
1 blog post. Initially I considered posting daily. But this would not be sustainable with my family and work commitments. What I can do is devote 30 minutes daily to blog-related activities: ideating, reading, researching, writing, posting or publicizing. Completion time: 30 minutes.
30 minutes of reading. Reading helps you relax, focus and learn – whether it’s my daily news ritual or reading to write a blog post. A great idea in Stretch co-authored by Karie Willyerd is to read from 3 different continents, to develop a global perspective. Does The Economist count for multiple continents?
When pressed for time, I can read on my iPad while on the treadmill (see “30 active minutes” above). And reading time counts as blog time (see above) if I’m researching a post. Completion time: 30 minutes.
3 things to be grateful for. Inspired by happiness and habits guru Gretchen Rubin, I end each day by writing down 3 things I’m grateful for. The list goes at the end of my morning pages (see above), hopefully creating a continuous loop of positive thoughts and actions. Completion time: 10 minutes.
7 hours of sleep. This may contribute the most to my well being. Life often feels like a trade-off between being close to caught up on the to-do list and caught up on sleep. But I can accomplish so much more when I’m well rested.
Sleep Cycle to the rescue, here. This app wakes you up at your lightest sleep point during a 30-minute interval that you specify. And it doesn’t subtract restless time, like another tracker I tried, which makes me happier. Completion time: 7 hours.
What’s your daily dozen?
____________
This is my 50th post since launching this blog on New Year’s Day 2015.
While I didn’t hit my goal of 2 posts a week, I’m proud of maintaining this blog during a busy and transformative year.
With 2016’s theme of leaping, I’ll post and publicize twice a week for a total of 100. Game on!
by Caroline Leach | Dec 29, 2015 | Leadership, Learning
What are your learning goals for the new year?
If you need data-driven ideas and inspiration, check out Stretch: How to Future-Proof Yourself for Tomorrow’s Workplace.
Co-authored by Karie Willyerd and Barbara Mistick, this new book is packed full of strategies to ramp up your learning, your career and your life.
At DIRECTV we had the good fortune to have Karie speak on a number of occasions – at our annual leadership meeting, at large department conferences and to our employee resource group for young professionals.
Karie shared insights from another book she co-authored, with Jeanne C. Meister, called Workplace 2020: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today.
She was always a hit – sparking dialogue, stoking debate and seeding positive changes in the workplace and the culture.
It was a pleasant surprise to get a friendly email from Karie this fall, asking how things were going. Doing a quick Google search before I responded to see what Karie had been up to lately, I was thrilled to see she had a new book in the works.
Since I recently pivoted into a new role, the Kindle version of Stretch zoomed to the top of my list for winter holiday reading.
It starts by asking “who do you want to be tomorrow?”
And it outlines the megatrends that will impact the future of your career – globalization, demographics shifts, data explosion, emerging technologies, climate change, redefined jobs and complexity.
How should today’s professional respond?
By stretching your skills and abilities, the authors say. And by taking into account your dreams for yourself and your family in the future.
There are 5 key practices, each with several supporting strategies. Here are the 4 strategies, preceded by the key practice area, that most resonated with me. They’ll help inform my learning journey.
Learn on the fly: cultivate curiosity. This strategy is about constantly asking “why?”
Why ask why? You’ll question assumptions and unconscious rules, which may lead to new insights and ideas.
The authors provide some good questions in a “curiosity stimulator checklist” –
- “What is the most interesting project or idea you are working on now, or wish you were working on?”
- “What is valid about the dissenting viewpoint in this discussion?”
- “What assumptions or models am I using that causes me to agree or disagree in this situation?”
Be open: seek feedback. This is the strategy I most wanted to ignore, so I knew I needed to include it.
The authors aptly described why: “As researchers of vulnerability understand, our self-confidence takes a plunge when we feel we are being criticized.”
Yet plunge into seeking feedback, I must, to grow and improve. And to do so, the authors describe good ways to create a safe environment in asking others for candid feedback:
- “If you could imagine the perfect person doing the perfect job in the role I’m in, what do you think they might be doing differently than I am?”
- “What 2 or 3 pieces of advice do you have for me that you think would have made this project better?”
Build a diverse network: strive for five to thrive. Strong and diverse networks stretch you, the authors say, reminding me of Roselinde Torres‘ TED talk on What Makes a Great Leader?
The strategic question that spoke to me? “Who are the 5 people who can help you be a better person, especially when it comes to your work?”
They could be people in your network who “inspired you, stretched your thinking, left you feeling it’s possible to change, introduced you to new knowledge in different fields and demonstrated being an expert in ways you aren’t.”
My diverse list of 5 is taking shape. During January I’ll be connecting with them to meet for coffee and talk virtually during the year.
Be greedy about experiences: approach targeted work with a development stance. This is where “you care about getting the task done really well and using what you learn to do even better work in the future.”
The development stance, as opposed to a completion or performance stance, could include doing research, talking to people with expertise, observing processes that work well or taking an online course or a MOOC.
The book has a template to identify your major projects and tasks, skills that can be developed in each one and how you’ll approach each project – with a completion, performance or development stance.
As I work through the template and choose areas of focus for development, I’ll share some of my learning experiences in future posts.
How will you stretch in the coming year?
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