Despite what is happening in the world, I have been keeping myself really busy. Honestly, getting stuff done gives me deep satisfaction, and having a lot of great client conversations raises my energy level to the max. So, I personally feel that I work on my mission to bring the Human Touch back into Global Mobility and my team is helping me along.
However, many of you work in corporations and don’t have the luxury that I have where I can choose how I spend my time and with whom I am talking. Many of you still feel the pressure of having a boss or someone to report to and their demands sometimes drive you crazy.
However, being “busy” is not the same as being “effective” so I wanted to share a method that has helped me over the last few years to feel a sense of accomplishment over the holidays. You probably will notice that this year the annual Christmas rush and madness will be different. Not only because we work from home a lot more.
Our common anxiety and fatigue level is a lot higher this year than in the past and working towards the year-end might even seem less stressful this year because your adrenaline has been high the whole year.
I wanted to list a few topics that I am observing in projects and coaching conversations and give you a method on how you can deal with them in a playful way. This is also an activity where you can involve your family because “Family Success is a Team Sport”.
1 – Oil the Perpetual Machine
What I am observing inside corporations and what increasingly frustrates me is the lack of accountability and constant waste of resources and time. It reminds me of Jean Tingeluy’s artwork “Heureka” at my favorite spot in Zurich. Often it seems that many functions and positions are just there to maintain a well-oiled machine, but the value they add to the clients or companies they serve is minimal.
2 – Reduce the Data Squash
We also use a lot of time correcting or searching for data because the original source does not contain the data or the data is flawed. We have to rely on our brains to remember specific scenarios so we can cover all exceptional circumstances. We hire more consultants to help us administer a workflow tool that does not deliver the data we need instead of training the data entry specialist in the Philippines or in India so that the data is entered correctly. We implement three levels of controls instead of helping the first handler of the data to deliver a zero-error quality report.
3 – Mend the Process Porcelain
Do you often chase someone because they forgot to take action on an item they were supposed to deliver so you can continue your process? You might be correcting processes and mending broken process porcelain because the decision-makers do not understand the process and just run around like a headless chicken. Sometimes you might feel like a mother at work trying to collect the toys that the children left lying around all over the floor. You pick them up so that nobody trips, but you are also not really noticed while you do your work quietly in the background. (My image here is that of the mended mask of Kylo Ren, an old Japanese tradition being showcased in a lovely way in Starwars.)
4 – Feed the Digitalization Babies
Many digital processes still are in the baby’s shoes so they often need someone to check them and make sure that they are completed. I have been in arguments with my bank because they don’t offer a draft function so that I can enter payments right when I receive the invoice and execute them later when I have enough funds in the account. My payments regularly get stuck because of cash flow issues. Then I need to build an administration around the digital process. And the funny thing is that here they always blame the customer. They hardly ever say: “This is an interesting idea and if we can help you with that we will consider it.” Still, I encourage you to feed the digitalization babies by giving them input, and food, and teaching them. It could easily be that nobody has ever thought of what you are telling them and that your input helps another genius to improve what is broken.
5 – Piece together the Lego Spaceship
The more digitally you work the more you miss the link between tools and systems (the rubber ring). Often you work with many different tools and providers, and then it is your responsibility to link them all and like LEGO build your spaceship from scratch. You might need to build a street or highway around a tool so that before you can build a linked system or even automate a process. It’s worthwhile bringing more minds to the table to discuss solutions and workarounds.
At the end of the day, we often feel exhausted and still, we feel we have not achieved anything meaningful. The secret to feeling good about your productivity, therefore, is in the system and how you visualize your contribution. One good method is a physical Kanban board. The Kanban board had a revival with “Agile”. I remember that I wrote an assignment back in Tassie in 1995 about Total Quality Management and came across Kanban then.
Another one is a simple shared team task list in a Google Sheet or XLS.
The 25 Priorities Kanban Board
In our team, we have developed a visualization method (The 25 Priorities Kanban Board) to help us prioritize work. I am a big fan of planning and consistency, so this method helps me keep track of my priorities and get stuff done.
You need
- A stack of colorful post-it notes.
- A few big pens.
- A Poster of A1 size (I use my flipchart).
Here is how it goes:
- Five Pink Post-It Notes (Work Projects) – Here, you write down your five most important work projects to complete.
- Five Green Post-It Notes (Home Improvement) – Write down five projects you wish to complete at home.
- Five Yellow Post-It Notes (People) – Write down five people you wish to connect with.
- Five Orange Post-It Notes (Love Tasks) – Write down five requests of your partner or children that you would like to fulfill.
- Five White Post-It Notes (Self-Care) – Here, you write down five wishes that you will grant yourself.
You probably notice that you should focus on different life aspects too, and not just work projects.
You probably heard me tell you before that I don’t consider myself an “Expat”. I have been living in the same home for more than ten years now and feel so settled in Switzerland that I am working on the steps to become a Swiss citizen right now. During the pandemic, I became an “accidental expat” because for a while the borders between Switzerland, Austria, and Germany were closed. Then for a long time, it was just too dangerous to travel and potentially bring the virus to my elder family members. I’m relieved to say that my beloved grandmother Maria died this year at 100 1/2 years of age and that she left us peacefully after a long and satisfying life. My family was very lucky during these times. However, I will not forget that it took a virus to close the borders and we might be exposed to border closing during any national or international issue in the future. You decided to go on this adventure, but you might not always cherish it when you are in the middle of it. You might find many aspects of the global nomad lifestyle satisfying and you could still feel stressed and exhausted right now. You might have overworked yourself, taken too little time for yourself or your loved ones or you might be feeling a bit disoriented around this time of the year. We tend to look back in December and think about what we want to change in the New Year. We are all experiencing varying levels of emotional and mental turmoil. There is no solution to the root causes of that anxiety, but we need to maintain our mental health like we do our physical. The World Health Organization, correctly anticipating that the longer the pandemic lasts, the more it would impact mental health, has spent the last couple of years publishing support and guides for people to follow. I have been following them, and they have proven helpful in centering me and giving me better control of my mental health.
Pause. Breathe. Reflect.
Take some slow breaths, inhaling through your nose, then slowly exhaling through your mouth. Slow breathing is one of the best ways to lower stress because it signals your brain to relax your body. There are various breathing practices such as Yoga and other forms. You start right now by listening to your breathing for a few minutes without trying to control it.
Improve your Healthy Routine
The emphasis here is on both Health and Routine. That means not using alcohol and drugs to deal with fear, anxiety, boredom, and social isolation. Instead, focus on establishing consistent sleeping patterns, maintaining personal hygiene, eating regularly and having healthy food, and improving time management to include exercise, work, and personal time.
Practice Self-Care
We are human and thus not immune to doubt and anxiety. Don’t expect too much of yourself on days that are more difficult than others. Instead, accept that some days, you may be more productive than others. One way to practice self-kindness is to reduce how much you watch, read or listen to news that makes you feel anxious or distressed, especially news from your home country. Limit news to fixed times during the day and listen only to trusted sources.
Offer Support in Your Community
If you can help yourself and have the capacity for it, helping others can be good for you too. Offer support to people in your community who may need it. We have learned to be resilient, we have survived previous crises, and we have managed to turn our lives around in the oddest situations. But now, we are not so sure anymore. When will this pandemic end? And how will we live when we get out of it? Which part of the world still feels safe? Will our children ever be able to catch up on the school lessons they have missed?
Like we need yeast to bake bread, we need energy and love to work and live with people around us. We might think that we can just stay at home and send our avatars to work, but who would we then be?
We need to get dressed in nice clothes, have a commute to work, and have a distance between “work” and “leisure.” Otherwise, we lose our fire and inspiration and lose touch with our inner creator.
Join our RockMeRetreat
I missed having offline workshops and what I love about this retreat is that we can be offline most of the time and connect with our inner creators again. We can work on our relationships with people who are important to us. We can build a community of people who help each other irrespective of their cultural or religious background based on shared values and profound love for people.
I wish all of us to support each other in communities, and I’m convinced that an OFFLINE RETREAT will most certainly create miracles despite the wonders of technology. Because of the travel situation and insecurities around the world, we currently offer the RockMeRetreat in Switzerland at the Ilanz monastery. I have been on a retreat there before, and it’s a humble, yet quiet and comfortable place, and the sisters are extremely warmhearted and welcoming, and the mountain view is just amazing.
If you wish to join us for the RockMeRetreat in November 2023 please sign up for this list so we can inform you further about the retreat.
We might also consider other places for custom-made RockMeRetreats. Please email us if you wish to consider a retreat for your leadership team in 2023. We’d be happy to discuss your needs further.
Back to School – Seven Virtues for Purpose, Performance, and Productivity
Video Interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv1ju5gxMLs
I am dedicating a weekend to sorting out old stuff, decluttering, and preparing the apartment for cleaning. I would like to do this before I start decorating for the holidays because it is giving us a fresher spirit and as I mentioned most of us get really stressed in the last few weeks before the year-end as we wish to focus more on family and friends during the holidays.
What I would also like to do is finish open ends and projects and before starting too many new ideas and projects reduce the “Pendenzenliste” (It’s one of my favorite Swiss German words and can be translated into the list of open tasks). Most of my friends and I keep laughing about the tasks that never seem to get off the Pendenzenliste and keep you feeling guilty even if you are highly productive all the time. I shared with you already that I’m a bit more relaxed when it comes to my home so “Cleaning out the drawers” would definitely be on the Pendenzenliste. But before I dive into cleaning the apartment there are issues in the order of my home office that urgently need attention.
1 – Start with the Old Paper Files and Reduce your Pendenzen
Too much paper can weigh you down and hold you back. Getting rid of paper will make you more productive. You might have noticed that when you don’t feel in your comfort zone you need to have something in writing to hold on to. You can reduce complexity by having a plan or calendar of events on the wall. You might reduce your stage fright by writing down and scripting speeches and conference calls.
What it means to let go is that you need to remember more, but also that you focus on what’s really important. In the name of productivity, I am trying to avoid tasks that do not add value to my business or my clients. In the old days, we used to spend hours sorting and deleting emails or filing documents. Being a business owner now I am trying to reduce such work to a bare minimum as I have found out that if I cannot find something it is usually because I am in FRANTIC mode. In RELAXED mode I find all my documents on the laptop by working with the search function or using our elaborate system (It’s just an excel sheet with links to the respective document).
2 – Simplify and standardize by reducing clutter.
Simplifying can also be done at home. I don’t have an extensive wardrobe. Reading articles on productivity made me standardize my clothes even more so I don’t have to make decisions about what to wear. I also place matching clothes together on the rack. I try to have all clothes “ready to wear” because if I go out in the dark I might not see certain colors or holes or stains. So anything stained, holed, or old has to go into the “Altkleidersack” (old clothes bag). The art is to throw the old clothes into the bin where they belong and will be picked up for charity right after you take them out. Otherwise, clothes and other clutter have a sneaky way to find their way back into your home.
3 – Use color codes, the four-box system, and laminated signs to sort your office.
In our office, I use a very clean and color-coded physical filing system. It helps me find files that I need to see printed. It also helps me to grab the right file when I am on my way to a client. Most of the time I work without paper though. I also structure my wardrobe by color and even try to sort items by color. It gives me a great sense of order and accomplishment.
The four-box system is very simple. You need to have four boxes and give them clear functions:
Box 1: Bin
Box 2: Recycling
Box 3: Donations
Box 4: Treasures.
You need to ensure that you go to throw away the bin right away.
You can put all your treasures in a box and put them in your attic and leave them there until your next cleaning exercise.
4 – Take the first step by sorting for half an hour a day.
One important tip when you start to work on this process is to limit it to half an hour a day. Set the clock and reward yourself afterward for example by buying yourself a bunch of flowers. Letting go of clutter means learning to rely more on your brain. Tell us what you do to sort out your clutter and find order in your life!
Further Reading and Videos:
There are a lot of great videos on Youtube about decluttering and simplifying. I like this one: 13 Life-Changing Decluttering Hacks to make 2021 Your MOST ORGANIZED YEAR EVER
You can also get inspired by Marie Kondo, the Master of Sorting. https://konmari.com/
I lay awake on a Saturday night that I had just enjoyed with my partner and our neighbors and even though it was only Saturday I felt a creeping dissatisfaction about all I wanted to achieve the next working week. I am not sure how you feel, but the fact that I attend most meetings online now creates more anxiety when a topic is really important to me. I feel that in a physical meeting I would be able to show my emotions better and I can be very convincing in such situations and achieve what I would like to achieve. Oftentimes, the point of such a meeting is to bring the other person or persons to an action or a decision.
But then, when I started to think about my week I felt there were so many small and urgent tasks to worry about that I would not be able to adequately prepare for those critical meetings where I would want to be fully present and prepared. And in order not to let anxiety dominate my thinking, I did what I usually do in such situations: I fell asleep. I woke up refreshed, made myself a cup of coffee, and started to work.
Like a machine, I moved from one minor task to the next to set up my mind for success the next week. Then what happened next was that I was able to take my mind off the small tasks before the end of the weekend and I could focus on the “big wins” again.
And yes, it is easy to worry and action helps me the best to get out of the state of worry. What often blocks my flow is not a lack of motivation, it’s rather a feeling of having too much to do and too little time for fun and play. Here, as an entrepreneur, I developed the habit of allowing myself to not be reachable for anybody on certain days and just work in my pajamas if I feel like it. If I work on weekends, I usually schedule time in the morning so I can still go out and spend time with my loved ones in the afternoon. I even leave my phone in its bed for several hours on the weekend to be more present for my partner and friends.
I know what you are thinking now: “But what if a major client is trying to reach you and you are not responding for hours? Or what if there is an emergency? Or what if you wish to google something quickly? Or what if you forget important tasks because you have so much on your plate?”
(And then, when you think of all that, you stop your activity and decide not to follow your idea of starting a business because it suddenly seems “unrealistic” and “building castles in the skies”, and “it won’t be good for my old-age pension if I don’t get a regular salary…”, and “I don’t have enough experience, money, support to start my own business…”)
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt a major change was about to happen in your career or life but you were too frightened to even start? You might not call it “FEAR”, you will probably think it is “REASON”, but believe me, my friend, all those stories you are telling yourself why it won’t work are based on fear. This fearful voice was created a long time ago when you were a child and you were probably born into a culture where taking risks was not encouraged, where everyone believed in planning, predicting, and pushing through.
I think we all have experienced this issue before and I would like to call it the “mountain of tasks” that leads to a block in activity. It’s similar to sports. Once you stop doing sports it is really hard to be motivated again.
I believe that there are two ways to deal with the Monday Anxiety I am describing above. One is that you engage in your purpose. You clearly define why this task helps you to fulfill your purpose in life and on earth.
The other trick is to hack the “mountain of tasks” into smaller bits and pieces, make it doable and start with a small baby step. Therefore, it is important to create a system that helps you keep an overview of your tasks. Most of you probably have developed a system over the years to track tasks and projects.
However, what I am noticing and have talked about in the last two blog posts is that we are starting a lot of work and it remains stuck in Work-in-Progress because of various factors. I would like to encourage you to complete your Work-in-Progress before the year-end and see how that makes you feel.
If you cannot fully complete a project, define a new milestone that you would like to have achieved by the end of the year. List all those milestones on a wall where you can see them, either by using post-it notes or a hand-written task list.
Read more:
https://globalpeopletransitions.com/getting-projects-completed/
https://globalpeopletransitions.com/the-digital-nomad-part-3/
