Planning your summer vacation?
It’s Memorial Day Weekend and the unofficial start of summer. What are your plans? Have you decided where you are going to spend those days or weeks off? Maybe you’ve elected to take every Friday off between now and Labor Day so you can get long weekends in and do a variety of things. Or you and the family are going to drive across the country and visit Yosemite. Regardless of what you are planning, you are planning.
Over the next few weeks as you also get your yard ready for the weekly family barbeques, you will find time to research where you are going to go, what you will do, and exactly how you are going to spend that time off. You may even save a bit more money so you can enjoy some of the amenities of that 5-star resort. Focusing on that prize, that week on the beach, or hiking in the mountains, that’s what you can see in your very near future. You can’t wait – can you?
At the same time, you are putting in a few extra hours at work. Your desk is getting cleaner, and you are prioritizing what needs to be done before you can leave the office for that time off. The last thing you will want to see when you get back is a stack of file folders on your desk waiting for you.
You are walking through the office on a mission. There is no stopping for idle chit-chat about how bad the Tigers are playing, or who the Lions took in the draft last month. Before you go to bed at night you have created a list of things you are going to tackle the next day. In the evening you can focus again on that resort in Tucson that your spouse wants to instead of worrying about a task at work.
Question: Why can’t every week throughout the year be like this?
Your challenge for the summer: Take a few notes
Fast forward a few months:
As Labor Day approaches, you will feel relaxed, renewed, and ready … but will you continue the productivity pace?
That is completely up to you.
What productivity hacks did you learn so you can get things done quicker at the office? If you took every Friday off throughout the summer, how did you get all that work done in the 4-days you were at the office? We live in a global economy that goes 24/7 and 365 days a year - it didn’t stop when you did.
I am serious when I suggest to take notes. Before you go to bed at night, or when you wake up every morning, write down what you may have learned or done a bit differently. We prove that we can do this during those glorious 12-weeks of summer (if we are lucky to get that many in Michigan). We get stuff done.
It’s about understanding your priorities and your responsibilities. This doesn’t make you a workaholic – we know that we feel more rested during the summer than throughout the year. Is it just the 5 days you spent in Sedona that gave you this feeling? Or maybe it’s the feeling of a solid work-life balance. Concentration helps you become more productive, efficient, and if you are career-minded – more valuable to your employer.
In the end you will find that balancing priorities and avoiding or eliminating time-wasting activities is what you accomplished. You didn’t binge watch The Sopranos, instead, you read up a bit more on a new way of using Excel. If you can mentor and delegate your tasks, I am sure that you do this more in the summer than the rest of the year. Ask yourself why.
Maybe it’s not possible to work this pace and focus this much for 48-52 weeks a year. But we know we can do it for weeks at a time. How can you put these new found habits in place the rest of the year? How can you get into this zone more often throughout the year?
Why is it important?
What would it mean to to you, your family, your career - your entire work-life balance - if you could be just 5% or 10% more productive? Would you have a better job? More money? Be closer to that 2nd home you have always wanted to buy?
This is not a new concept. I am borrowing from my mentor Zig Ziglar again. This is one of my favorite videos ever … it is only 5-minutes of your time, and it’s eye-opening, please enjoy watching “The Day Before Vacation”
For my long time readers, I have written a similar blog around this time every year. It is an important message.
Enjoy your summer but please try to learn something from it. Ask yourself how you got it all in and still feel so darn good?
If you are having difficulty planning and executing, give the Kole Performance Group a call. Not only can we help you enjoy that vacation .. we will work hard today to improve your tomorrow.
Listen to: What can you learn by planning your summer vacations?