The realities of creating a guilt-free work week — Week 2
Reflections from my 12-week Investigation Day experiment
OK, it’s 4:30 pm on Investigation Friday #2. Time to keep my promise and capture my reflections on the day before I sign off for the weekend.
Here’s a quick reminder in case you haven’t read previous posts in this series…I’m running an experiment to see if I can create space for some of the really important things that, last year, always fell to the bottom of my list. You can read the background here.
My plan is to spend the next 12 weeks experimenting with using my Fridays as “Investigation Days” — devoting time to the things that I know make me a better coach and a happier person — in the hope that I will feel less guilty about not getting to the really important stuff. I‘ll be sharing my weekly reflections each week using a really simple format:
- Do I feel less guilty?
- What observations or insights have I drawn from today?
- How will next week’s Investigation Day be different? Why?
So, here we go…
Week 2
Do I feel less guilty?
Yes…and no. Today I managed to keep building momentum on three projects that are really important to me — and I cleared a couple of mental roadblocks that had really been impeding my progress. That definitely feels like a win! Especially as the clarity came as a direct result of the time I spent reflecting this morning.
At the same time, I experienced a different type of guilt today. You might recall that last week I felt that my agenda for the day was too aggressive and hampered my progress. So this week I created a plan that had more breaks and unscheduled time in the hope that it would make the scheduled time more productive. Great in theory but in practice, I found that, overall, I was more distracted for longer periods (hello Instagram!)— which made me feel guilty for “wasting” the luxury of my Investigation Day. It seems that giving myself the opportunity to run this experiment has meant that I have imposed an (even) higher standard of productivity for myself.
What observations have I drawn from today?
Having just kicked myself for getting sucked into distractions, I did make more progress on some of the projects that require creative thinking — which makes me think that the breaks weren’t so bad after all. I am left wondering whether the appearance of my fully scheduled calendar gives me a false sense of productivity and that I am actually much better off in short, sharp bursts — even though it doesn’t feel that way.
Today I noticed that it was hard to not dive into client work. Some of the creative work I was doing has relevance for an upcoming client deliverable — and I had to keep fighting the urge to toggle between the two. I am happy to report that I didn’t do any client work — but it wasn’t easy. I found that scheduling the client task for early next week reduced the urge to switch and do it immediately.
This week I had my ‘conversations to inspire’ scheduled for the morning. Both interactions delivered incredibly helpful new ideas as well as opportunities to contribute to others in unforeseen ways. They were fabulous and, without exception, well worth the time. That said, I am wondering about the most effective time to schedule my conversations. As I mentioned last week, mornings do tend to be my best time for thinking and it took a while for me to build momentum in the deep work this afternoon.
While I had a few more breaks today, I didn’t actually ‘get out from behind the desk’ as intended. I had planned a long walk with a couple of podcasts loaded and ready — but this morning’s heat and this afternoon’s storm made for convenient excuses. I did miss the opportunity to break the day up in that way — lesson learned!
How will next week’s Investigation Day be different?
Based on my observations so far, next week I plan to:
- Change my gym workout from 6 am to lunchtime to get me out from behind the desk in a way that isn’t weather dependant
- Forward plan some ‘conversations to inspire’ in the afternoon (next week’s are already set for the morning)
- Deliver the tasks on the project plans (that I created today) for my creative projects and see how that impacts my various forms of guilt
- Move my phone into a different room so that I am less tempted by social media if/when I get distracted.
If you have any recommendations for podcasts or you’d be open to having a ‘conversation to inspire’ please let me know!
Time for vino! Cheers.
