Monday, April 29, 2013

Dump-Delegate-Do It Differently

Executive coach and consultant Jim Dethmer offers this very interesting exercise:
1. Identify the top 25 activities you engaged in during the past month.
2. Next to each one put an arrow: pointing up means the activity increased your energy level, sideways means it's neutral, pointing down means it decreased your energy level.
3. For those noted as neutral or down-arrow activities, consider one of the following options:
     a. dump it
     b. delegate it
     c. do it differently
A personal example of this for me (though I didn't know I was doing this exercise at the time) is house-cleaning, very much a down-arrow activity. It has to be done (can't dump it). I don't want to pay a cleaning person (won't delegate it). Now I do it differently. I set a timer for one hour and clean as much as I can as fast as I can. I am generally invigorated by how much cleaning I squeezed into that hour, and I'm overjoyed that I can quit in one hour.
I think this is a pretty cool exercise, and I'll be pondering other activities in my life in light of this.
Have a super week!
Leta

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