Two ‘big thoughts’ have been pre-occupying me recently, and I thought I’d share them with you in case helpful.
The easy one (!) first: how do you respond to the question ‘How can I be more strategic?’
It’s a question a lot of us face, as it seems all the self-development books and organisational performance systems hold up being strategic as the aim of all who would like to progress in their careers. But many of us are thinking: ‘what does that actually mean?’ Someone asked me the question recently, and I said to them ‘It’s just about thinking ahead.’ Sometimes a long way ahead. But that is what it’s about really, in a nutshell. Those who think in the short-term and are constantly dealing with putting out fires are not going to be strategic in their decisions, whereas those who simply think about things in terms of that longer timeframe will naturally be more ‘strategic’. It’s not that difficult.
Second thought: how on earth do we prioritise when there are so many things coming at us all the time? How can we avoid being driven by our inbox and by others’ needs instead of our own priorities? How can we fit everything in?
I saw a video recently which was simply brilliant. The lecturer shows his students a jar full of golf balls and asks whether it’s full. They say ‘yes’. Then he adds in some small pebbles and asks the question again. And so it goes on as he fills the jar with more small bits and finally some sand. The point is, if you start with the big things, everything else fits around them somehow. But if you start with putting the sand in the jar first, you’ll never get all the golf balls in.
Applying this to my life and work priorities, I now have on my whiteboard my main priorities for the next quarter, month and week, working backwards (strategic 
). I refresh myself of them every day, and use slots in my diary to focus on them as the priorities they are. Emails and other things get fitted in around them and I will do a ‘blast’ of emails when it works for me, having turned off all my alerts. I’m no longer distracted by every mail and text and WhatsApp I receive – which research tells me will make me 28% more efficient than if I allow myself to switch between tasks all the time. It’s working well so far, and it gives that elusive feeling of some kind of control – which I don’t see as a driver, but more of an added benefit.
