Learning from victories

November 11, 2022

If you do an LMI programme, you’ll see every single one has a tab (or a file if you have a digital version) labelled ‘Accomplishments’. Over the 13 years that I’ve been working with these programmes, this has consistently been the least-used part of the whole system.

Setting goals, planning days weeks and months, using communication tools, identifying areas for improvement and practicing coaching conversations have all been routinely embraced, but not this little section at the back of the manual.

It seems that reflecting on our successes doesn’t come naturally to most of us. Like anything that’s good for you, it’s something to be practiced. And doing this is certainly good for you, I think for two major reasons:

  • It’s great to enjoy, gain satisfaction and be motivated for the future by what we have achieved
  • Those accomplishments are great for informing us about what we should be doing more of.

A little more on that second reason.

When we routinely and systematically keep an accomplishments log, whether individually or as part of a team, it provides loads of great information that can help us plan for the future if we take the time to reflect.

What did I/we do (if anything) in order for that to come about? How can we do more of that? What similar actions might lead to similar positive results? The end result points us back to the origins of those outcomes.

We are taught from childhood, and rightly so, to learn from our mistakes. Maybe it’s just as important to learn from our victories as well.

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Posted by nick howes

Procrastination breakthrough

November 3, 2022

Have you got something really important to do that’s top of your list and requires your best effort and absolute focus?

Do you also find that a tonne of other things keep getting in the way and jumping the queue for your attention?

And do you, like me, recognise that this is at least partly because of your own tendency to procrastinate when it comes to getting started on things that are a bit more challenging than responding to the next email, or picking up some other incidental task?

This was exactly where I was yesterday. I had some writing to do for our monthly newsletter and absolutely had to get it done.

Knowing what to do – I’m coaching others on this stuff every day – and doing it are not the same thing!

I was working at home, so I finished up for the morning and had lunch with my wife. Over lunch I told her that I had been procrastinating on doing this work, and straight after lunch I would be tackling it. So now I’m accountable.

After lunch I sat at my computer and closed down every possible distraction – Outlook, WhatsApp, Teams. I put my phone to airplane mode. I chose an instrumental playlist that I find good to work to – there’s lots of evidence to suggest deep focus is easier when there’s some noise rather than absolute silence which tends to mean you become aware of every sound.

I opened the clock on my PC and selected ‘Focus Sessions’. There are options in 15-minute increments. I find 30 minutes works best for me.

I started the music and started the clock, keeping the countdown visible on my second screen while I got into the work.

The first 7 or 8 minutes were quite tough. Getting into it is the hardest part, which is why regular distractions are so damaging. We can find ourselves constantly throughout the day fighting to get into things rather than breaking through that initial barrier until the work becomes easier.

Yesterday afternoon was, because of the preparation, not one of these occasions. I got properly into it!

Suddenly the 30-minute timer was beeping. It didn’t seem possible that it had already been half an hour, but I was progressing well with the work by then. Sometimes it’s good to pause and have a quick break before getting on again, but sometimes when you’re in the flow, stick with it. I started another 30-minute timer straight away, and then another. 90 minutes of what felt like my maximum concentration and I’d done what had been hanging around in my mind and on my list for a few days, and quite enjoyed it.

Preparation. Focus. Discipline. Process.

Ah, one other key thing. I had already decided what I was going to do, something I was looking forward to, once I had finished. That helps a lot.

Everyone struggles with this kind of thing to varying degrees and it never hurts to review what you’re doing and work out your strategy for when you need to tackle something important.

Just one focus session like this every day can make an incredible difference.

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Posted by nick howes

How’s your week been?

October 28, 2022

It’s Friday, 4pm and my working week is almost over. One quick meeting at 4.30pm with some LMI colleagues from India, Lebanon and South Africa about a leadership development webinar we’re all speaking at in a couple of weeks, then we’re done.

Dinner will be early as my son is working from 6, and I’m working at home today so there isn’t any travel time after work finishes to enable that transition from work to family time, and on into the evening.

What strikes me is how easy it is to move from one thing to the next, from work to not-work, from one meeting to the next, from one day to the next, without pausing to think. In so doing, I wonder if we are massively missing out.

If something’s been fantastic, we can miss out on enjoying it, celebrating it and recognising why so perhaps we can repeat it.

If something’s been terrible, we miss out on reflection, processing, learning, and practicing a bit of emotional intelligence to think about what’s taken place, process our feelings, have some empathy for others, and decide what, if anything, we need to do next.

My week’s been pretty good, with a work highlight being a reconnection with a past client. I received a call out of the blue having not had contact since 2016 and we’ve now booked in some new work for December. I also recognise that my head’s been pretty full of all the news around the policitcal comings-and-goings at home, the protests in Iran, the war in Ukraine, the climate and how it’s far too warm for the end of October! Way too much time on Twitter has taken it’s toll and I need to step away from all that this weekend.

So how’s this week been for you? What’s been great? What’s been hard? Who have you met? What new opportunities have opened up? What were your progress and victories? Is there anything you need to plan to do different next week? And how are you going to make the most of the weekend?

Leave a Comment » | empathy, Family, General, Journal, relationships, Results | Permalink
Posted by nick howes

Simple, but not easy!

October 18, 2022

I was talking with a client who is going through the LMI Effective Personal Productivity programme and expressed embarrassment at the fact they are still hindered by what are, in essence, very simple challenges. The reality is that these ‘simple’ challenges are not easy to deal with and it takes time, practice and grace towards ourselves and others.

Here’s a short video on the matter:

Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofl56J2TF_8

What we know from experience is that knowing what to do and doing it are two very different things, which is why it takes a process, over time, with practice, feedback and accountability, to make lasting, long-term changes.

Leave a Comment » | #Mission168, Change, Delegation, empathy, Goal Setting, LMI, Personal Productivity, Time Management | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by nick howes

Rediscovering #Mission168

October 11, 2022

It’s time to rediscover and reactivate the blog, and specifically the Mission168 hashtag which is embedded in my banner image.

#Mission168 is about making the most of every single week, each gathered cluster of 168 hours. Since I last wrote, I’ve come across Oliver Burkeman’s excellent book, “Four Thousand Weeks” which I have listened to on audiobook at least twice. I very much share his thoughts about productivity and fulfilment coming not from constantly seeking to do as much as we possibly can, but from ’embracing finitude’ and accepting we can’t do everything.

I absolutely love Burkeman’s phrase, “the joy of missing out” – i.e. I have consciously chosen to do what I am now doing and gladly embrace the fact that I am not doing everything else that I could possibly be doing instead!

All this has been brought to the front of mind by a few recent conversations with clients centred around the power of the weekly plan. In LMI we use a very simple form called ‘Time Picture’ or ‘My Ideal Week.’

It’s outrageously simple, prompting the user to complete a plan that outlines what they would like to include in their ideal week. Here’s the thing I love about this excercise. Nearly everyone I speak to feels busy and overstretched. Almost all have things they’d like to be doing – specific, important things around health, family, community, wellbeing and work – that they currently don’t have time for and yet, when you start to map these activities onto the 168 hour slots in the weekly plan, including plenty of time for sleep, eating, travel etc, they almost always fit, with plenty to spare.

If you’d like to have a go at completing your own Time Picture, get in touch and I’ll send you a copy.

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Posted by nick howes

A quarantine surprise

September 1, 2021

I have just returned from a month in Norway visiting my wife’s family, having not been able to meet them at all for two years. As you can imagine, for my wife especially, it was incredible to be with them again after so long.

What is harder to imagine is that when we – us and our three teenage children – discussed the whole trip, every single one of us had a surprising highlight: the four days we spent right at the beginning of August in a non-descript quarantine hotel within a stones’ throw of Oslo Gardemoen Airport.

Our food was brought to us three times a day in brown paper bags and hung on our hotel room doors. We had our small and by-no-means-impressive rooms to live in and a concrete car park with a small banked grass verge for a bit of outside time. We could also head off-site once a day for a walk.

It was the most severe simplification of life I have ever experienced, even taking the lockdown life we’d become used to over the last year to a whole other level. It could have been a nightmare. Why it wasn’t is tremendously interesting and something I’m keen to learn from.

We enjoyed large quantities of time together. We watched some movies, talked lots, read some books. We played very simple games (UNO anyone?)! Most of life’s distractions were removed. It felt like genuine rest.

There are some massive lessons to take with us back into ‘normal life’. What we do with these, I’m not quite sure yet, but to do nothing would, I’m certain, be missing a big opportunity.

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Posted by nick howes

Systematic clarity

July 27, 2021

We have been trying to make progress with sorting out our garden this summer.

It’s not going very well.

The big problem is that we aren’t really sure what we want to do. We have an idea, then another one. Then we go back to the original one. I’ve started a bit of DIY patio restoration, then decided we should get someone in to do it. It goes on like this.

We have actually got some things done and it does look better than it did a couple of months back but we haven’t progressed anywhere near as much as we could have done and there’s been a lot of wasted effort.

In truth, it’s not that important to us and it’s certainly not urgent (and wasting a bit of time in the garden can be good for you)!

When we find the same thing happening though in areas of life, including work, that are very important, this becomes a problem. Question is, what’s the solution?

We can try hard in every individual situation to exercise our best planning and problem-solving skills or we can find / create / customise a system that helps guide us through the process of ALWAYS creating clarity on ALL the things that matter most.

What am I doing with my life?

What am I doing today?

What’s the purpose of our organisation?

What’s the purpose of doing this specific task?

With clear direction we can create a clear plan. With a clear plan we can take positive action. Without clarity, we can never achieve what we want and are capable of.

As Brené Brown puts it,

Clarity is kindness.

It can take a lot of effort to establish your system and more so to turn it into a habit, but it’s absolutely worth it.

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My kind of leader

July 9, 2021

Sports commentators say a lot that is instantly forgotten and then, occassionally, utter words that become ingrained in our minds for ever. It may not endure in the same vein as “There’s some people on the pitch, they think it’s all over…” but one comment at the end of the England v Denmark semi-final this week caught my attention more than any other.

The standard of the leaders in the past couple of years in this country has been poor but look at that man there… he’s everything a leader should be: respectful, humble, tells the truth, genuine. He’s fantastic, Gareth Southgate.

Gary Neville

Whatever your thoughts on many other leaders, there seems to be consensus on this matter. Most agree with Gary Neville that the current manager of the England men’s football team is a great guy and an excellent leader.

He’s not ‘showy’, he’s not egotistical, he seems to genuinely care. He speaks out clearly and thoughfully on important issues. He makes it about his team, not him.

In an interview after this historic win that takes England to their first major final since 1966, astonishingly, Southgate gives special mention to members of the original squad who were then excluded from the final group of 26 that were selected for the tournament. That is remarkable inclusivity and awareness in such a heady moment.

Lots more will be said and written about him, especially if he leads the team to victory in the final, and rightly so. Who wouldn’t want to work with this kind of leader? Clearly his current team do.

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Posted by nick howes

Should I stay or should I go?

June 28, 2021

This seems to be the big question for many right now and the impact of how we answer it will be huge in the coming months.

I had two appointments postponed last week, both because the other party had a one-hour meeting slot booked and then discovered they should attend in person, thus doubling (or more) the amount of time that meeting would consume. Cue the reorg of everything else that day to accommodate.

It seems so clumsy and inefficient.

Ah, but in the previous few weeks I’ve had my first in-person meetings in what feels like years, and loved them! I enjoyed the journey, the traffic, the parking, even the signing in at reception. It may have taken nearly half a day instead of 60 minutes but I returned refreshed and energised. So much so, I booked some more, including the first LMI UK team non-Zoom get-together since 2019!

I could make this a long post but it really doesn’t need to be. There is one simple message: THINK!

It would be easy to say yes to everything and go back to how things were. Equally, we could decide to keep everything virtual and miss out on the magic that happens when people are together in the same room. That ‘magic’ that is so much more than just ‘achieving the meeting objective’. Think relationship-building, fun, connection, wellbeing, ideas, inspiration and more.

My plan is to still do an awful lot of meetings remotely, feeling delighted about the efficiency and simplicity of it all. I’m going to choose which appointments to attend in person, treating them as special occasions and valuing every minute in the real-live company of other human beings.

We have a unique opportunity to shape the future in really positive, productive ways if we’re mindful of the decisions we make.

Oh, and whatever you decide each time, best make sure everyone else knows too!

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Posted by nick howes

Meetings that feel successful.

June 24, 2021

Video link: https://youtu.be/P1QrLD038H8

A quick follow up to the last post about the joy of short meetings! Just because a meeting is short, doesn’t mean it’s been successful. For it to feel successful to all participants, everyone needs to have been heard and feel that they made the contribution they had to make and been part of the agreed direction and future actions that are decided at the meetings.

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