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Mapping Your Week on Monday

Guest post by: Enrico Varella

Article Overview: Monday does not need to be coloured the traditional black or blue. We have so easily bruised it with our off-coloured perceptions. This day has been tainted with the premise of contusions where staff tenderly look forward only to Fridays – TGIF.

Mapping Your Week on Monday

Monday does not need to be coloured the traditional black or blue. We have so easily bruised it with our off-coloured perceptions. This day has been tainted with the premise of contusions where staff tenderly look forward only to Fridays – TGIF.

How would you like to look at Monday and the rest of the week with relish? Be careful what you wish for. The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy can turn perceptions into reality. If you believe that this week would be long and arduous a climb for you, then it just might. We have the natural ability to imagine whichever scenarios may turn out. Having worked a few times in the Middle East, I viewed Monday as mid-week instead of the start of something unpleasant. Different calendars do help in shifting our stubborn mindset. Sleeping without a clock is vastly different from sleeping with your alarm set. Your natural circadian rhythm determines how much you need, whereas a clock disrupts it because you 'thought' that was all the sleep you needed.

Do you plan your week? Do you have a big picture of how you will spend your valuable time with people, activities and tasks? Or, do you leave it to chance and intuition?

Get a fresh page of your journal and jot down what you would like to accomplish this week. List down the main tasks from the mundane to the must-do to the marvelous. The best part of having a list is to ‘tick it off’ after you have completed a task. It is like playing teacher, marking students’ scripts. It is like scratching out your Bucket List, except that it happens much sooner.

Consider the early part of the week as preparing for the weekend’s adventures and challenges. Steven Covey touted in his famous book ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ to ‘Begin with the end in mind.’ This weekend, I taught a half-day workshop, and officiated an event as part of my national volunteer duties for our sports council.

Yesterday, I ran in a half-marathon and today was spent running errands and enjoying moments of reflection the race. I reviewed what I have gathered and experienced during my race, as well as the solid data I uploaded (from my watch) onto the Garmin Connect website. I evaluated my efforts and determined the relevance of my tactics that led to a satisfying finish. Even if the race route as botched due to ignorance and my carelessness, I still considered it a very good training day. It was memorable because I ran alongside my friends and acquaintances, with very good runners and champions. Thanks to my racing buddy who believed that I could set the pace for him – I did, at least, for a while as the data showed.

As clichéd as it may sound: ‘Not everyday is a Sunday.’ This is because today and this moment matter as much as any other day. Enjoy your week. Ensure that you mix variety with routine, solo work with interactions, and business with fun.

Leadership Lesson: Plan how you would use your week; lead with your time.

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Article Tags: leadership lessons, planning, steven covey



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Question of the Week: What's the first thing you do every mo - Question of the Week: What's the first thing you do every morning to get ready for the day?


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