3.19: MAP Challenge #5

Episode 5 of the Mindful Action Pyramid Planning Challenge focuses on the practical implementation of the previously discussed planning stages. It emphasizes the importance of habits and routines in achieving goals. 

The episode highlights the use of calendars, time management techniques like the Pomodoro Method, and email management strategies to optimize productivity. 

It also underscores the significance of mindfulness as a foundational practice for overall well-being and effective time management.

A free, research-backed mindfulness app on your phone is Healthy Minds: https://hminnovations.org/meditation-app

You can access Josh's substack @ podcast here:
https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/

Episode Details

Transcript

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the mindful Academy. I am Jennifer. And I am your academic coach. And today we are on the last day of the mindful action pyramid planning challenge, yay. This is the tactics level, the practice level of your mindful action pyramid. So you have done values and purpose, you have done success, you have thought about the big outcomes that are going to help you move towards the feeling of success, the big things that are going to help you realize that potential that you want to realize. And then in our last segment, you took those big things and you thought about how to create purposeful goals around them by making a pact with yourself. And this last segment of the pyramid is really going to support that pact that you make with yourself. Because this is where we talk about the practice of being the person who can achieve the things that you want to achieve. So whether you're talking about achieving a better work life balance, or achieving a marathon or achieving a big academic accomplishment, each of these things is going to require habits, practices. 

And as you can maybe tell I am not a huge fan of one and done planning. I have noticed for myself, that my sort of default habit of just long to do lists laundry lists of things to do, helps me from losing things helps me from letting things fall through the cracks. But having a huge long to do list of discrete items to check off is not planning. It isn't being intentional and mindful about how to spend my time. So I keep a running to do list, I generally keep it in Google Tasks, open next to my calendar on my desktop computer, so that if I am looking at a bunch of whitespace in my calendar, I am also looking at a list of tasks I can do. But before I get to whitespace in my calendar, I plan mindfully and I check in with that plan. Because I've created habits that helped me do that. So that I don't find myself on Friday, or at the end of the quarter or at the end of the semester, saying oh, I had planned to do all of these things. And yet my time got gobbled up with email. Because there appears to be a universal truth that regardless of your job, and regardless of your level of authority or autonomy, your days can be gobbled up by email. And from what I can tell in my life and in other people's lives, email is at least to some degree, other people's ideas, other people's inputs, other people's problems, landing on your desk, and demanding your attention. 

And so if you're relying on your email inbox, and or a long list of action items, in order to get through a semester, or a career, feeling accomplished, you may find that frustrating and I hope this is a really good alternative for you. Because here we're going to talk about practices. Yoga is a practice meditation is a practice playing the French horn is a practice, running as a practice, we do all sorts of Judo is a practice, we do all sorts of things that we talk about in terms of, I keep doing it, I keep improving it. And I'm committed to doing it because I want to be the kind of person who does that thing. Right. So if you are a runner you are committed to running. You might not be committed to running a specific speed or distance, but you are committed to the act of running, right? So if you want to be a mindful professional, if you want to be a successful academic, what are the practices you need to put in place that are going to help you be that person? And I will suggest that the practice of beginning each and every day by checking your email and seeing what is on fire is not the practice you should adopt. And if that is your practice, you're going to reconsider that oh right now. 

So this is page six of The mindful action pyramid, it's the bottom wedge of the pyramid. And this is where I'm inviting you to think about time management strategies, personal care routines, and regular work sprints or regular work sessions. So if you do not use a calendar of some sort, whether it is written or digital, you should, because it is likely that your role includes commitments to other people, whether that's to your family, to your students, to your department, to your boss, like we all have appointments to keep. And as early as you can find a calendar system that works for you. And if you are rolling your eyes, when I say this, good for you, you have a calendar system, not everybody does. And I know some some people who are doing work in the world and looking pretty successful, who rely on just remembering things, or who rely on their spouse or their executive assistant to remind them about things. 

Here is where perhaps we I'll give a nod to something that is not my level of not my area of expertise, but talk a little bit about neuro divergence, and the desire, like thinking about ADHD, which is the type of neuro divergence with which I have the most experience. If you have some form of ADHD, you can lose track of time, you might be time blind, you might not see calendars the way some other people see calendars. This may, it may feel hard to use a calendar. But you also recognize that when you don't use a calendar, things do fall through the cracks, you miss things and then maybe you come to my virtual office hours and say, I feel like I'm always chasing my tail, I feel like I'm a little bit of a mess. So implementing a time tracking system where you know where you need to be, is important. And it doesn't have to hurt, it is a habit, it is a practice, to touch base with that system on a regular basis, right? Because your life is probably moving fast enough that keeping it all in tracking it all in your head is not going to be successful. And if you're not disappointing other people by forgetting commitments, coming late, etc, etc. You're disappointing yourself. Okay, that's my relatively limited experience with that.

 So if you're not using a calendar, think about what might work for you. And, you know, collect ideas from other people, you can come talk to me about what might work to create a system for you where you can follow the system and then trust again, that you're doing the things that are going to get you where you need to go so that you are not recreating your world and recreating your plan every week, every day. So in your calendar system, you put all the classes you teach, just have them in there and put buffers around them. Buffer buffer buffer, right is that a half an hour you need before and after is an hour you need before and after. Buffer buffer buffer standing committees childcare, pick up, lunch, time to eat. Right? Put things that you know are part of your practice the practice of being you in your calendar, writing them down typing them in this is making a commitment to yourself. And then you may notice Okay, how much white space is left in a 35 hour workweek or a 40 hour workweek. What do I need to put in there based on the goals, the big objectives that I have spent this time articulating? So if I have said I'm going to write 1000 words a week, how many writing sessions do I need to schedule for myself? To do you want to use time blocking where you go into your calendar block off two hours and say this is deep work? Do you want this is deep work that is writing. This is deep work that is reviewing this is deep work that is curriculum planning. Whatever it is, do you want to not be specific about what the deep work is, but just block off time that is unassailable. by others, but reserved for your deep work, whatever that needs to be this week. If you are teaching classes and you know when assignments are due because you created the syllabus or you have access to the syllabus, do you know when all of those assignments are going to hit your desk? Is it all at the end of the semester or their midterms? Kind? Of course, do you teach? Are you a lucky duck teaching a writing intensive course? Right? How do you account for things that you know the future is going to deliver so that they do not catch you by surprise? If there are school holidays, if there are university holidays, if there are days that everybody is off, if you're going on vacation, all of that in in one spot. So that when you on a Friday or on a Monday or on a Sunday, check in with your plan, check in with your mindful action plan and say, Okay, what have I said I'm going to do this week. Do I have time for my commitments have I created time for my commitments?

 So work sprints, if you use the Pomodoro method, which again, is one of these things that I figured everybody knows about. But that's because I come from writing disciplines and Pomodoro is really good for writing. And I discovered the other day, my husband didn't know what the Pomodoro method is craziness. So the Pomodoro Pomodoro. Method is gets its name from a kitchen timer that looks like a tomato that you can buy at your local kitchen supply store. And you can use your smartphone, something on your desktop, something that beeps at you, an egg timer that looks like a chicken, I don't care, 25 minutes, 25 minutes is an amount of time that most adults can sustain focus. Alright, so I'm going to work for 25 minutes. And then I get five minutes of rest stand up, move my body around, maybe check my email, although that's a risky, risky, risky proposition. Because once you open that kettle of fish, oh, my goodness, it goes everywhere, right? So 25 minutes of work five minutes of rest. And after you do two or three pomodoros, you're 25 plus five, you get a 15 minute break or half an hour break. Right? It is a way to structure these big habit activities, where you're not chaining yourself to your desk. Okay, so, figure out where do you have room for the commitments you're making to yourself? If you need to keep up with reading, if you need to keep up with reading, if you are, you know, any marathon you're training for, you have to put in the mileage when you're going to do your long runs these kinds of things, whether that long run is actual or metaphorical. Where does the time go for that? I think of this bottom layer of the pyramid as creating the habit foundation. So we talked about the oval that the pyramid rests on this is the values and purpose foundation and then we begin building the pyramid with our habits. Right? If I care about my research, what are the research habits that I'm going to schedule in for myself, and make regular and then I'm tracking those things as I hit on as I hit the goals I've set for myself. So I've created these packed goals that I do every day, or every whatever period it is, and I track them. And I know if I keep doing that I will hit my final objective right to pomodoros on that project every day is an example of how to do this, where you create the packet goal. And then you track the activity here in your calendar in the bottom layer of the pyramid. Depending on how in depth your plan is, right, sometimes going through this mindful action plan a couple different times. So doing it at the beginning of one semester and then doing it again at the beginning of the next semester. And sort of see okay, how much detail do I need in this? Can I take my big outcome? Break it down into two or three small goals? Take the goal I'm going to work on this semester and map it out over 14 weeks. Do you need that level of detail? I do. Or do you take those big outcomes You want to do those two or three of them. And then you take each one of those, you break that down into two or three goals. And then you pick the goals that you think you can work on now. And you create that big long to do list. From that goal, what are all of the little actions that need to be taken there? And you work from that? That's another way to do this tactical level. But that's also a practice, right? Do I have my list of to do items for this project? And am I on a regular basis checking in with that, because what happens if you don't have this as a habit, you create the plan, you create the to do list, and then two weeks from now you're like, Okay, I need a plan, because you've forgotten this plan already, because you have not created the habit of checking in with it. So we are, so we're creating work habits here on the foundational level, and I tend to think of work habits as something that I anchor in a calendar or a planner of some kind. 

Okay, another work habit to create in this foundational level, is email hygiene. So most people who I talk to about time management, which is what a lot of people come to me for, they say I need help with time management. And they do but we start with Priority management, right with those big rocks with those big outcomes, what is important to achieve, when you've identified what is important to achieve, then we figure out how to spend your time. And so when we're talking about how they spend their time, I hear almost universally, I start my day by reading my email. Now sometimes you might be in an administrative job, where knowing what's coming in is actually the most important part of your job. Most people don't have that job. And even if knowing what's coming in is essential to your job, it still might not be what you need to do before you've even gotten to the office because you check it on your smartphone. Right? Or when you get to the office, is it the first thing you do? Or do you give yourself a half an hour or an hour to do other things? So email hygiene is one habit that you can anchor in the bottom of the pyramid, you can say okay, what if I give myself to pomodoros of email every day, right, if that vault if that is your volume of email, if you need an hour to go through email, schedule it in, if you don't want to give yourself an hour, great, give yourself a half an hour, 25 minutes plus five, that's what email gets. What happens if you really limit how much energy email takes from you? How many things come into your inbox require a response from you, how many of them are meant for you? How many of them are FYI that you need to know about? Right, we get so much information via email. And there are days when it might feel fun to peruse it. But that habit is a habit of sort of opening up letting the drawbridge down on the moat of your creativity and your focus and your ideas. And just letting everybody else's focus and ideas and problems come rushing across the drawbridge swords drawn to assail your creative rest. We need time away from those kinds of inputs in order to be creative. So figuring out what your email hygiene routine is super important. And don't let it run your life. 

A group of women business owners I'm a part of we commit to an hour every Monday of checking in like what's on the calendar, what needs to be on the calendar. According to the priorities I have set for myself this quarter out have I scheduled or achieved each activities around each of those things. So it's similar to the pyramid that I use with my clients. But it is a time to check in and say okay, what have I said I need to do this week is it on the calendar, what else is coming in what has been scheduled for me who has requested my time and organizing all of that so that over the course of the week you do what's important for you first, or you make sure that that time is carved out. You give your best work your best brain time and the work that does not require your best brain time. doesn't get your best brain time. But being intentional about that on a weekly basis, and it sounds, I mean, maybe I find it generally doesn't take me a full hour, it takes me about a half an hour to do all of that checking in. And so even if it takes 15 minutes, 20 minutes, the intentional what's going to be on the docket this week for me what is important, because your ability to do what's called prospecting, right, looking into the future, scanning the horizon and seeing what's going on, and shift from that long range view, to the close up focus of what is the task today, that agility of not only being lost in the weeds, or not only being a big picture thinker, but being able to move back and forth between Long Range prospecting and today's priorities. That's really important. That's creative mental agility, right. 

And while I'm talking about creative mental agility, I will tell you a little bit about the one habit that I think is a magic key that can make the whole map system work for you. And that is establishing a mindfulness practice. And I will talk about this again and again. And again. Because this is your opportunity to see and learn how you work. See what happens when you run on default, and then consciously choose to not run on default. But to run on intention. My recommendation for this, the easiest way to get your toes in the water and find something that works for you. And it's pretty customizable, is an app available available on your phone called Healthy Minds. I am not sponsored by them. They don't know me from a hole in the ground. I think they're amazing. They're, it's the Healthy Minds Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and they have an app that is free. That takes you through a robust mindfulness curriculum in little bite sized chunks. So you learn neuroscience, and you learn mindfulness, and you practice all sorts of things that will help you say, Oh, that's right, I am setting an intention about my career that serves me, and that serves other people who are important to me. So that is one of the habits that I make space for in the foundation of my pyramid. I tried to do it first thing, after coffee, some people do it before coffee, I would probably fall back asleep. So I have coffee, I solve a crossword puzzle. And then I go sit. And I watch my thoughts. And I don't get attached to them. And then when I come to my desk, and I look at my day, and I look at my week, the tightness in my chest of oh, can I get it all done? Oh, am I sufficient to these tasks? Oh, do I deserve to be here, like all of the negative inner talk that we all have, is so much quieter. So that is a key habit. A key practice in the foundation of your pyramid that will connect you to your values at the base will connect you to your feel your desired feeling of success at the tippy top and sort of tie everything together around your mindful intentions. So that's the pyramid in five easy steps. And it isn't necessarily easy, right? It is a habit. It is a practice. It is a way of looking at your career. And I would love to hear what you think of it. This is the kind of work I do with my clients. This is the kind of work that I do with units and departments sometimes. This is so valuable, because we're not just checking things off the list. We're moving forward with intention. So thank you for being here with me. If you have questions or comments, get in touch. If you've done this, take a picture of it and tag me on Instagram. I would love to hear what you notice as you go through this process. And I would love to hear from you. Thank you so so much. And come back to the podcast for other tidbits about having a mindful intention for your academic career. Take care