Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Category: Loving Monday

  • Loving Monday: From Milestone to Mundane

    loving_mondayReturning to one’s daily routine after a momentous weekend can be anti-climactic… to put it lightly.

    We celebrated a university graduation this weekend. A major milestone in the life of our eldest. A major milestone for my wife and I having an eldest who is celebrating such an achievement!

    Some events are huge, momentous, once-in-a-lifetime and/or dramatic. Most of work is routine, daily, repetitive and/or cyclical.

    The experience of the milestone is usually markedly different than the experience of the mundane.

    Getting back to minutiae after experiencing the momentous can be incredibly difficult.

    Even if we are returning to a relatively good job, it can feel like a big let down.

    It’s quite normal to have the let-down or come-down experience of descending from the mountain top. The valley floor is simply not the mountain top.

    The question, though, is are we bringing others down with us, or are we sabotaging our own re-entry into the routines of work by continually comparing the mundane to the milestone?

    It’s simply not a fair comparison. The mundane will always lose.

    Returning to the routines of work is not a bad thing because it is a disappointing thing. Routines are simply not as sexy or meaningful or intense as our milestone events.

    Let’s cut ourselves some slack here. It is possible to acknowledge the authentic let-down of re-entry without succumbing to the false and extreme conclusion that a bad thing has happened to us having to get back to work.

    A simple tool for making the adjustment back to work is to write a thank-you note to someone from the milestone event. A simple thank you note gives you an opportunity to articulate your gratitude and what you found meaningful from the event.

    Once written, sealing, addressing and posting the letter is a physical way to close the door on a momentous experience. Now you are in a better position to shift your attention to work without making endless and defeating comparisons.

    The mundane and routine can be a good thing again. As work should be… good, that is.

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

  • Loving Monday: Fifteen Minutes for Perspective

    loving_mondayFifteen minutes.

    Give yourself the gift of fifteen minutes.

    Before the demands of the day start pulling your strings like a puppet on caffeine, take fifteen minutes to get some perspective on the week.

    What are the main events, milestones or meetings taking place this week? Who do you need to check in with on their work product or progress? What’s the one thing you choose to complete by the end of the day today?

    Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes of quiet. Fifteen minutes alone. Fifteen minutes to take a step back and get a panorama view of the week’s landscape before you begin navigating the intricacies of the trail underfoot.

    It’s a gift you cannot afford not to give yourself.

    Fifteen minutes for perspective.

    (Have you seen our Daily Focus Pads? A simple morning reflection tool to make sure you have one thing you know will get done by the end of the day. Click here.)

  • Loving Monday: Attitude Rehearsals

    loving_mondayYou want the week to begin well. You get up and prepare with good intentions. “I choose a positive, constructive attitude as I launch this fresh, new Monday morning.”

    But reality is not kind this week. Joe called in “sick”… again. Sarah won’t help a co-worker meet an important deadline. An important client wants to renegotiate your fee. Management unexpectedly slashed your budget mid-year.

    And what began as a positive, constructive approach to the week is rapidly devolving into an dark and ugly—however understandable—reaction to the disheartening choices of others.

    Here’s the deal, though. Attitude is not the same as emotions. We may feel discouraged, frustrated, or angry. Understandable and appropriate in the given examples.

    Attitude, though, is a choice. Attitude is a stance. Attitude is the stance I choose to take regardless of what I am feeling.

    Like any difficult choice, we need to practice and practice and practice embodying the attitude we choose.

    We don’t merely flip a switch in the midst of experiencing a serious setback (more…)

  • Loving Monday: Going to Work Naked

    loving_mondayIt’s an interesting thought. Attractive to some. Repulsive to others.

    Getting dressed in the morning can be such a hassle. Every day. The exact same routine. Time that could be spent at work (or in bed) is wasted on getting dressed.

    I’m not talking merely of the chore of tracking down the missing sock, choosing which shoes to wear or which tie matches best.

    I’m talking about what “look” you’re trying to create. What sort of part you are looking to play in today’s unfolding drama at the office.

    Some of us are trying to look more professional than we feel. Maybe look older, maybe younger, smarter, more successful, more confident, etc. etc. Some of us are trying to fit in. Show that we belong and are of the status and caliber of everyone else.

    That’s a lot of work each morning! Putting on an entire persona is no small task.

    What if we went to work naked?

    Go ahead and cover up your body, so we aren’t distracted. But don’t spend any time covering up who you are. Dispense with the showmanship, the masquerade, the pretending.

    You will do a much better job coming across as you intend simply being yourself than you ever stand a chance of doing trying to be some imagined ideal of a leader, professional, or expert.

    Think of all the time and emotional energy you will save not meticulously crafting this image each morning!

    Being comfortably and unconsciously yourself frees your mind up to focus on the issues, people and problems that will confront you as soon at you get to work. As a result you will do a much better job of being present for and practically dealing with anything that comes your way.

    You are the best thing you have to offer the team at work. Don’t cover it up!

    Experience the freedom of going to work naked today!

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

  • Loving Monday: Bright Open Spaces

    loving_mondayThe wind-swept skies jump-start my morning with their radiance. Amazing how powerfully beautiful they shine in their crystal clear bright blueness.

    My imagination wanders to images of those blistering winds sweeping through my office. Piles of clutter, stacks of minutiae, lists, books, files and forms go flying away.

    Instead of the chaotic and overwhelming blur of stuff obscuring my vision and oppressing my spirit, there is only the sleek clean lines of my desk. There is open space in which to maneuver, to pace and think, maybe even to dance.

    What if…

    Why not?

    And so I grab three boxes. One I label, “Clutter.” One, “Delegate.” And the last one I label, “Tackle.”

    And being the wind god that I am, I don’t waste time pondering over the labels, but with broad strokes of my forearm I sweep across the ravaged surfaces of my domain and watch as the piles delightfully disappear into the “Clutter” box.

    Once in a while I notice an important item go flying from being lost on my desk to possibly being lost in the “Clutter” box, and I pause.

    It is practically impossible to hold onto, the wind is pounding so hard. The gale forces of this wind god’s focused fury insist that these important items be released nonetheless. And thus the “Delegate” box gets a small portion of this office’s hoard.

    Most rarely of all, as the storm continues, is the item so important that it can neither continue being lost nor be passed on to another. And any matter so exceptional and crucial can only be placed in the “Tackle” box. There is nothing to be done with these items except to do them. Right now. Before doing anything else. Tackle them.

    Now it’s time to step into your bright and refreshingly clean workspace…

    …and dance.

    – Karl Edwards

  • Loving Tuesday: Where Did Monday Go?!

    loving_mondayWhere did Monday go?

    It was here a minute ago.

    Or so I thought. Next thing I know my calendar is telling me it’s Tuesday. What happened?

    Do you ever have weeks like that? You have the best of intentions. The plans are in place. You are going to hit the ground running. You are going in focused, intent, and prepared.

    And then reality hits.

    A scheduled delivery is missing. An important deadline gets moved up. An important client wants an impromptu meeting asap. Two team members call in sick.

    By the time you look up, the day is over and your beautiful plans are in shatters.

    It would not be uncommon to be thrown for a loop. Our focus turned to confusion. Our intent undermined by discouragement. Our preparations tossed into the air like a deck of playing cards.

    Or we can adjust.

    Key, though, is not letting the unexpected sabotage us completely.

    I recommend beginning by giving yourself permission to go outside and scream your heart out or pound your fist into the landscaping. Pretending you’re not frustrated when you clearly are is patently unproductive.

    Express your frustration (safely, please). Get it out. But then… shake it off.

    While probably not possible to merely start over as if it were Monday when it is now Tuesday, we can adjust.

    Determine to adjust.

    Take a fresh look at your focus, your intent and your plans. How can they benefit from what happened yesterday?

    It’s Tuesday now. Gotta love it. Time to go for it.

    What’s your alternative?

  • Loving Monday: Threat or Promise?

    loving_mondayHurtling westbound on the Santa Monica Freeway my daughter and I had an unexpected view fill our horizon this morning. Storm clouds and a rainbow.

    Living in sunny Southern California, rain storms are always half blessing half nuisance events that you usually can count on your fingers.

    To look out over the ocean and see both storm clouds and a rainbow was an unusual treat.

    Threat and promise at the same moment. Would the storm make its way inland and vent its pent up fury on us? Or was the rainbow a harbinger of what would become the sun’s ultimate triumph?

    Perception is a powerful tool. Whether we see the threat or promise in any given circumstance depends largely on the eyes we have chosen to wear that day.

    What sort of eyes did you put on this morning?

    Monday is the perfect opportunity to be as intentional about what eyes we will look through as we are about what clothes we will wear.

    Threat or promise? Danger or opportunity? Fear or hope? Not all circumstances, of course, fall so neatly at one end of the spectrum or the other. Most circumstances are ambiguous, or neutral, or a raw mix of complexities.

    We run into trouble when we unthinkingly assume that we interpret correctly, when, in fact, we are merely looking through either rose-colored or gloom-shrouded glasses.

    The danger runs both directions. We can be needlessly cautious, seeing danger around every corner, and, as a result, miss out on key opportunities. We can also be naively hopeful, and wait patiently for an opportunity that will never materialize, in spite of what we’ve been promised.

    This Monday, take an intentional and conscious look at what glasses you’ve put on. Through what interpretive lens will you be experiencing the day? What adjustments might be wise to make? What other “glasses” can you try on?

    On your side,

    – Karl

  • Loving Monday: Verdict on a Rainy Day

    loving_mondayI hate the rain.

    Grey skies and rain-drenched highways evoke a spectrum of responses as we roll out of bed to begin another week of work.

    For some, including me, dreariness and traffic jams fill the imagination before we even get out the door.

    For others, thankfulness for the nourishing and cleansing water covering our desert metropolis fills our hearts, and we smile.

    It’s a matter of perspective. Same circumstance. Radically different experiences of it.

    Particularly powerful, though, is to realize that you get to choose what perspective you adopt each morning.

    Given that it’s Monday morning, and we’re trying to get our weeks off to a good start, I’d venture that anything we can do to read refreshment and gratitude into the precipitation would help set the brighter, more constructive tone we want for the busy week ahead.

    How aware are you of the perspective with which you interpret circumstances? Do you even realize that you are making a choice when you interpret circumstance as positive, negative or somewhere in between?

    Try an experiment with me. Next time something out of the ordinary happens: like a change in weather, a deadline change, an irritable client, an absent co-worker. Try noting your initial reaction. Then write down three other possible interpretations of the same set of circumstances.

    Now take another look at your original reaction. The choice is yours, and you are, in fact, making a choice. Will you stay with your original interpretation of the circumstance or will you choose to adjust it?

    The choice is yours. You have more power in how you experience of what happens around you than you think.

    I‘m still not particularly fond of rain, but I choose to be grateful for its gift of life and appreciate the clean skies that will result. My week is off to a much better start.

    What about yours?

  • Loving Monday: Focus and Push

    loving_mondayA phrase I find myself returning to more often than not is, “Focus and push.”

    There is a place for multi-tasking and working along a number of fronts. In fact, most leadership roles require as much. Systems thinking is an essential skill. The finances need monitoring, the schedules need to be maintained, the team must function with high levels of trust, energy and efficiency, and so the list goes on.

    Just as important, though, is recognizing when the time is right to focus and push. When what is called for is a concentrated, single-minded, all-out effort on one single matter.

    This week is one of those moments for me. Many important, valuable matters need to either be set aside entirely or merely brushed over in order to give my full attention to one solitary matter.

    Focus is the capacity to hone in on what is crucial and keep one’s attention there in spite of the many competing priorities and distractions.

    Pushing is the intentional organizing of one’s activities around a concentrated effort to make something happen. We are not going with the flow. We are creating the flow.

    How do you discern when you need to focus and push? At which end of the spectrum do you fall: do you tend to miss these moments or do you tend to focus and push at the expense of attending to the broader, multi-faceted dynamics taking place around you?

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

  • Loving Monday: Lukewarm Coffee

    loving_mondayLukewarm coffee.

    If you’re a coffee lover like me, those two words can’t possible fit in the same sentence. For a beverage to be lukewarm, by definition, means that it cannot be coffee.

    Fresh, strong, and piping hot equal coffee. Nothing else.

    Sadly, as the morning progresses, my coffee slowly turns into non-coffee. Hot becomes lukewarm. Delicious becomes distasteful. Right becomes wrong.

    The work week can feel the same. We begin the week in an energetic sprint. We end the week with a weary limp.

    Lukewarm work isn’t any better than lukewarm coffee.

    How then do we keep our “coffee” hot?

    Drink it while it’s hot. Focus, stayed engaged and see things through. Play at 110%. It’s energizing to play at the top of your game. Don’t let chores accumulate. Confront problems as they arise. Impress yourself.

    Get a warm up. Take a break. Get up and walk around. Surf the web. Chat with an associate. Do something for yourself that recharges your juices.

    Pour it out and start over. What can I say? Sometimes there’s nothing else to do but pour out the cup of lukewarm blahness and begin again. Such a drastic reset could take the form of going home early and make a plan for how to begin differently tomorrow. Try sweeping everything off the top of your desk and allowing only items related to your current task. Or go for a long walk during which you do an attitude check and reset.

    There is nothing more foul than lukewarm coffee. To keep sipping is the worst alternative of all.

    Here’s to enjoying hot coffee!

    – Karl