How are you doing with the Effectiveness Habits and building your lists?
Back-to-school time is a good time to refocus on them. And it’s a good time for me to introduce three new habits.
The original seven Effectiveness Habits are:
| 1 | Get it Out of Your Head | Write down every current and potential task so your mind won’t have to remember everything. |
| 2 | Feel Good. Then Act. | When you pause to feel better, your actions and the results you want come with much more ease. |
| 3 | MOD It | Transform your Habit #1 mass of tasks, ideas, and potential tasks into Meaningful Outcomes and Doables. |
| 4 | Act Naturally | Neither pushing nor avoiding, scan your list of doables to choose the very best thing to do. |
| 5 | Know Why | Know the big picture and know why that big picture is compelling so you can put daily work into a meaningful context. |
| 6 | Refresh | Refresh your system of lists daily and weekly so it stays reliable and so you continue to feel in charge. |
| 7 | Cultivate Access to You | Dedicate regular time to discovering and accessing your deeper, who-you-really-are self for ease. |
Continue to use these in good health!
Now let’s look at the three new habits. When I teach the Effectiveness Habits to individuals and companies, people raise the same set of issues:
- I want to be helpful but I can’t get my own work done.
- I seem to spend all my time in meetings, responding to other people’s emergencies, and waiting for people to finish what I asked them for.
- How do I maintain my own effectiveness when other people derail me?
We address these common issues with three new habits. Listed below, I’ll publish more detail about each in subsequent posts.
| 8 | Be Explicitly Win-Win | Overtly state your intent to go for win-win. Learn what is a win for the other(s) and share what is a win for you. |
| 9 | Delegate and Negotiate Clearly | Consistently seek clarity about who is doing what by when. Renegotiate when things go off the rails. |
| 10 | Make Meetings Meaningful | Focus meeting conversations for effectiveness. Design meetings so the right topics are covered by the right people at the right time. |
I’m looking forward to sharing more about these!
In your corner,
Mike