I feel as if I’m living the Satir Change model. I’ve had “Monday” every day this week.
My computer keeps rebooting itself (sigh). My website hosting provider had a snafu, so my website needed some changes. Then, this morning, I screwed things up with my (other) site. (It’s all fixed now.) My car died on Tuesday. It’s now fixed, too.
I know, I’m quite fortunate—these are first-world problems. Not life-threatening. Not even career-threatening because I can (and have) recovered from them. Yet, these problems interrupted all my plans for the week.
My original plans are trash—and they weren’t even long-term plans.
I have had to practice my adaptable thinking and actions to succeed.
Here’s what I’ve done:
- Used the strategy from my original plans to replan.
- Stopped trying to “catch up.” Aside from the fact that that is impossible, I’m so far behind, it’s not even useful thinking.
- Asked what makes the most sense for me, right now.
Here’s how that’s worked for me.
Focus on the Strategy
Strategy is about answering this question:
Who do I want to offer value to, and in which ways?
As always, your context will help you answer this question.
Personally, you can use this question to decide where to add value: in your family, community, or in “larger” ways. The influence circles above might help you decide.
At work, this question helps people, teams, and organizations choose what makes sense next.
Since I integrate my personal and my work, my original plans were to complete a bunch of writing this week. Since those plans are trash, now I need to think about my strategy. What did I want to achieve and why? What value do I now want to offer? That question helps me decide which nonfiction, fiction, or workshop development makes sense for me next.
At the organization level, this question helps companies decide which customers they want, how to serve those customers, and when.
When we answer this question, we can choose what to do and not to do. Because we cannot do everything and we cannot catch up.
“Catching Up” Is a Trap
Sometimes, we can catch up and fulfill our original plans. Remember the last time you went to the grocery store and realized—just before the checkout—that you forgot something? You can “catch up” then, because the cost of backtracking is so small.
But much more often, the cost of backtracking to old work is way too high. As a writer, I get to choose: what one thing do I finish now? While I would love to separate my brain into being able to write two or three (or more!) pieces at a time, I cannot. (That’s one of the reasons I’m working on writing faster, so I can finish all the ideas in my head.)
The behinder you get, the less able you are to catch up. Worse, the older the work, the more questionable its value.
With a lot of old work, the more you try to catch up, the behinder you get on everything. Now, I’m behind because other events happened. But instead of trying to do everything, I am choosing which one thing to finish and when.
That allows me to choose something that makes sense, now.
What One Thing Will Make Sense Now?
Since multitasking does not work and I want to achieve my original plans, I choose one thing at a time. While I would love to finish the public speaking book right now, I owe myself and you, my readers, this question of the week. Especially since I’ve been uneven in this site’s writing due to that month-long cold.
Once I publish, I can then shift to the next most important piece of work on my list. (That happens to be a blog post on my other blog. Then comes the book. Then comes the fiction.)
Notice that I am sequencing my work. Not trying to do it “all” at one time.
When we try to do it “all” at the same time, our plans become brittle. Not adaptable or resilient. And when things happen, such as various computer failures everywhere in our lives, like this week has been for me? We can’t finish anything.
If you, too, have had a week of Mondays, take your equivalent of a deep breath. Then, go up to the strategy level for decisions. Choose one thing to do, the one thing that offers you the most value. Finish that and choose the next thing. That’s how I succeed.
That’s adaptable thinking. Your adaptable thinking will lead to more adaptability and resilience everywhere. I bet that gives you more success.