Hi Reader,
A leader I'm working with emailed our team a list of everything she's juggling right now. It was long! It was also much more useful than a vague sense of "I'm very busy," because you can do something with a list. We ran out of time on our call to get into prioritization, so I recorded her a quick video with some of my go-to questions.
This issue is inspired by that video, for all of us managing more than we can possibly get done. Let’s get to your Monthly Management Memo - as always, with something bold, something new, something borrowed, and something to pursue.
🔥 Something Bold - Predict Your Regrets Before the Week Starts
Before next week begins, look at your calendar and task list and ask yourself: at the end of the week, which of these would I say wasn't worth the time? If you can name them now, you have options for each one. Could you skip it? Delegate it? Do it halfway? Push it to another week? Sometimes the answer is no, because you can't get out of everything. Usually there's one or two with some wiggle room.
🆕 Something New - Pick Where Your Migraine Goes
Here's a question I like to ask the leaders I coach. Imagine the universe tells you you'll get a migraine next week that takes you out for half a day, but you get to pick when it happens. Where would you put it? If your answer is "Thursday afternoon, that could probably happen without me" or "Tuesday, so I'd have an excuse to miss that meeting," that tells you a lot about what can move.
🤝🏼 Something Borrowed - The 80/20 Rule for Your Calendar
The Pareto principle says roughly 20% of our effort produces 80% of our results. The math is not exact, clearly, but it gives you two useful questions for your list. Which small slice of my time has a huge effect on what matters most to my work? Protect that. Which big chunk of my time is producing only a little? That's where to look first when something has to give.
🏃🏾♀️ Something to Pursue - Make the Full List, Then Solve Every Line
If your plate is full, start by getting all of it out on paper. Then next to each item, jot down two things:
- Time/Lift: how much is it taking? Low, medium, or high works, or a rough number of hours per week.
- Impact: how much difference does your time on it make? One hour might be the best hour you spent all week. Three days on one project might be completely worth it if it's the most important thing right now.
High time, low impact? Start there when you need to cut something. Low time and high impact? Keep doing that!
Then comes the part I push myself on. For every single item, I finish this sentence: "If I couldn't do this, we would…" If I couldn't manage these three people, they could report to someone else. If I couldn't do the fundraising, we could hire someone, or lower the goal and shrink the team. I'd never pick a lot of these answers! Forcing an answer for every line gives me permission to get creative, though, and I usually find a handful worth acting on: do it later, do less of it, or let someone else own it.
In jobs like ours, there's never going to be a fully done list, and these questions help me decide what gets my time anyway.
Jess
P.S. I'm putting together a session on a handful of ways I'm actually using AI in my work — my calendar, my inbox, my spreadsheets, automations that weren't possible before (or needed expensive software), along with the ways I've decided I will definitely not be using AI. If you'd be interested, let me know, and I'll send you a sign-up link once it's ready. I'm planning for 10/22 at 12 pm PT, and I'll be sure to record it if you can't make it.
Last Month's Most-Clicked Management Memo Link: The tool to help plan difficult conversations you need to have.
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