Cast Off Your Time Drainers

Learn to identify three time drainers to eliminate right now. Why? Because they aren’t helping you achieve the kind of visibility that has leaders perceiving you as the future of their organization. Once these time wasters are cast off, it opens space on your calendar to pay attention to the work that will have you leaping into your future.

ThriveWithNancy Podcast addresses the tricky points you run into daily as a woman executive. Nancy Fredericks shares all the secrets she’s acquired as an experienced thought-leader. She’s passionate about sharing practical, insider solutions with women executives to tap into on your way to achieving all of your career hopes and dreams.

No-one generates a fulfilling, successful career alone. Explore two opportunities for you to boost your career in 2022.... 

Ready to knock over every stumbling block standing in the way of the career you’ve aspired to achieve. You can have Nancy Fredericks in your back pocket through YOUR STRATEGIC EDGE coaching package…it comes with a ton of extra goodies. Check it out at: https://thrivewithnancy.com/executive/

Thrive@Work MasterMind program is a monthly 90-minute virtual community of professional women committed to growing and developing their careers through real-life, in-the-moment learning. Join this group of dynamic women acquiring the secrets rarely shared regarding career success for women--one that is satisfying and fulfilling to you. Check it out at: https://www.thrivewithnancy.com/thrive/ 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to thrive with Nancy, a podcast for executive women intended to untangle any and all career concerns you might bump into along the way to you achieving all that you intend. Let's get going with this podcast, the largest supporter to realizing your hoped for career success is time in this thrive podcast. We'll identify three time drainers. You need to eliminate right now. Why? Because they aren't helping you. They're not helping you achieve the kind of be that has leaders perceiving you as the future of their organization. And once these time wasters are eliminated, it opens space on your calendar for you to be able to pay attention to the work that will have you leaping into your future. Ready to cast off your time. Drainers<affirmative> drainer. Number one, does your to-do list benefit your career? Do you even keep a to-do list to manage your day? Many, do some experts say you'll see a 25% increase in productivity simply by using one. I have sincere doubts about that statistic because more often than not, my clients are using their to-do list to beat themselves up senselessly. I might add, check out your list. Begin assessing it with this overview question in mind, is the item doing work, you know, and I've got doing in quotes, the kind of work that's based on urgency and completion, or are you working on high level thinking activities critical to innovation or your company's future by doing this you'll know at a glance, if your company sees you as a potential leader or not, if most of your attention focus on the urgent, you rarely have time for planning or relationship building or professional development or problem solving or innovation or any other leadership mindset. Never doubt doing a good job does matter, but don't forget that the more meaningful the projects you touch, the more your company gets to judge your high level abilities for leadership drop those low level work that isn't garnering you any positive attention for the future. Yes, they may be nice to do, but they don't need to be done by you. I know I've shocked. Many of you with starting out dissing your sacred to-do list. Let me open this can of worms a bit more. The damaging side of your to-do list recently popped up during a thrive at work mastermind program that I hold monthly. It was a time where we were drilling into work burnout. By the way, it's a podcast topic that I did. If you're interested, we were in the middle of a peer coaching exercise where an executive woman was discussing her overwhelm with a never ending life crushing to-do list. Every day, she was feeling defeated after asking exploratory questions, to understand her issue, the group then went into suggestions that are worthy of to challenging you. How many items are on your to-do list. Our group assessed 10 priorities as too many, and believe three are controllable once complete you then identify another three. And so on until you are done for the day, indeed it's delicate balancing act. I get that too many items. Leave executives overstressed as all the incomplete projects, swirl endlessly in your brain, rather than having you focus on priorities with this new concept. What do you consider the right balance for you? It's to consider freedom from being enslaved to the, to do list that I'm bringing this up at all. Our conversation shows that too many are debilitating as it impairs your productivity, health, and sense of self. Not to mention they often aren't the big leverage projects you should be working on to make a difference. Next is your to-do list serving you, or has it turned into an addiction harming you several, including me work free form, you know, without a to-do list and simply focus on what's the biggest over to move next and next. And next sounds scary. It isn't because what it's doing, it's trusting you to know what needs to be done. I wish I had more time for this section. However, podcasts have time limits, but what I want you to challenge is your use the to do list. Isn't it time to make it work for you rather than against you. So get creative, make it a support system, not a debilitating draining system, drainer. Number two, how's your desk or computer looking messy or organized in the far distant past 1975 to be exact business week predicted that future offices would be paperless with the widespread advent of computers. Huh? How is that going in your office? Not so well. According to the United States environmental protection agency with the average office worker generating approximately two pounds of paper and paper board products every day, and then a blog by road runner shared the worst statistic ever Xerox found that nearly half of all printed documents are thrown away within 24 hours. Half of everything you print out, sorry, I'm a bit off tangent. Yes. All this paper eruption is a time drainer, but you know, what I really wanted to scrutinize is what's happening on your desk specifically. So take a look at your desk. Is it covered with stacks and stacks of paper? Years ago, I was reading a book on time management that asked executives to put a tick mark on every piece of paper on their desk. If they touched until it was completed. Now, I personally can't imagine doing this, but the result in statistics were astounding. Almost everyone had hundreds of marks. Did you hear that? Hundreds of marks? What wasted time touching paper that you never do anything with intuitively? We all know that stacks of paper on our desk. Aren't good. They lead to stress with misplaced documents. It slows down productivity, but more than that, it is detrimental to the impression you make in your organization. As a consultant, I was discussing the potential promotion of an executive. Get this. The decision was no. I thought the executive had leadership qualities, but the pushback by both senior leaders in this discussion was, have you seen their desk in my, if you can't manage your desk, I can't trust you to take care of high level work. Whoa, heart wrenching begin the habit of only placing one project on your desk at a time, please don't hear me as pitching an imaculate desk, particularly for you creatives out there as there is evidence that a bit of a mess stimulates original thought. And if you're creative, a neat desk will not support you at all. So this messy, neat equation is an individual decision. How do you move toward tidying up your space? You might ask. It means you begin producing an activity file system inside your desk to support you. Such a system has your work readily available, just not evident and only you can support draining your time with a disorganized desk. You need to make a decision what your desk needs to look like for the future. You wanna carve out for yourself, perhaps you're working remotely. So this visibility factor doesn't impact you. And let's not for get your computer. I know it's not as obvious as a messy desk, but ask yourself, how long does it take you to find a document? Is this a drain on your time as well? It's up to you to identify and correct these drainers drainer. Number three, are you multitasking? If you said yes, you might wanna get a little more strategic women, often brag about their multitasking abilities, but usually with an undertone of grossing in their tails about all the plates they're juggling. I say, whoa. Yeah, us in the arena of multitasking women own it. Research confirms this. It states that we have better connectivity between the left and right sides of our brains. This allows us to shift smoothly between projects, but stop. Unless you use this genetic gift appropriately to support you, instead of taking you down the rabbit hole of S you lose what I mean by tapping into the skill appropriately. Well, if you're up to your neck in the alligators of complicated, critical thinking projects that require detail decision juggling tasks is harmful. You lose a bunch of time moving from one task to another German research has found that by multitasking, you are not ly impacting the speed and accuracy, whether it's in a man or a woman. So rather than respond to your day, all geared up, ready to throw your instinctive multitasking style into the mix. Stop, think deeper. Don't get stuck in the urgency of the moment. I urge you to take a big picture overview as you determine what and what space of you can multitask in. So say yes, when you're doing something routine such as driving or you're on hold for someone to take the call or exercising. Oh, well you get the picture, right? These are times ideas. Often the answer you've been searching for to the, not a issues emerge from the background of your mind as they have notably for so many scientists and creatives through the ages. How about those empty moments you have while waiting for a meeting to start or your boss to get off that long winded phone call or anytime there's nothing to do. In my far distant past, I used these moments to pen notes, to employees who had performed above and beyond their job descriptions.<affirmative> taking advantage of these occasions meant I didn't have to work late or give up completing that task entirely. So I was celebrating and using these minutes to my benefit, always there are more precious multitasking opportunities in your world. Aren't they worth identifying and using say no. When any task that entails multi-part thought processes with a single focus is not a time to be multi-tasking you damage your career, not to mention your leadership credibility. You know, these times when you are trying to move from one task to another, where you should be focused, you become anxious or mentally scattered by taking on way too much. Remember poise under pressure is a notable characteristic of leadership. Give yourself the gift of time so that you can a life and a career of fulfillment and satisfaction. What drainer are you going to eliminate? Will you tackle transforming your to-do list into a support system for you? Or what level of organization are you bringing to your desk or computer, or are you gonna take on analyzing your most multitasking opportunities, generating transformative positive results, always, always rest in the choices you make. My desire for you is that you experience every day filled with joy, fulfillment and purpose. And that time drainers are no more a part of your life. It ends with this podcast, and you're the only one who can truly bring this into fruition. By the way, if you're looking for more, I'd love for you to check out the, your strategic edge program. You can partner with me an executive who has aided thousands of executive women in unlocking secrets for expanding their career. I can do this for you too together. We explore diverse ways to bring possibility into being for you so that you can realize your career aspirations and stop being fresh, straight check out www thrive with nancy.com/executive/ I'd be so delighted to support you. Remember no one ever makes it to the top alone.