1. what truly matters right now, and did my calendar reflect it this week?
2. what gave me energy? What drained me of my energy?
3. what am I pretending is still important?
4. what decision did I avoid this week?
5. what created the biggest result?
THREE MOVES (10 min)
- one removal:
- one delegation that sticks (hand over the decision rights, not just the task):
- one simplification:
PAPER CUTS (5 min)
list 5 drained-energy moments from this week. three become next week's moves.
a recurring meeting nobody needs. a channel that never delivers signal. a client who costs 3x attention for 1x revenue. a hand-off that never quite works.
I deeply appreciated the distinction between shame-driven lists and ones born of self-love.
I'd like to build on that. Another dimension can be the self-dialogue with the part that activates shame. It's trying to fulfill a positive purpose for us, therefore we can engage it and possibly parse the positive intent from the negative emotional energy it generates in us. The self-love list may carry a similar problem of activating inertia for the opposite reason: now it might be the shaming part that feels neglected and fights for psychic attention.
We could have a self-led dialogue with BOTH parts. The IFS literature suggests that once they feel heard, parts calm down quite quickly and we actually end up benefiting from their presence.
my weekly review questions:
1. what truly matters right now, and did my calendar reflect it this week?
2. what gave me energy? What drained me of my energy?
3. what am I pretending is still important?
4. what decision did I avoid this week?
5. what created the biggest result?
THREE MOVES (10 min)
- one removal:
- one delegation that sticks (hand over the decision rights, not just the task):
- one simplification:
PAPER CUTS (5 min)
list 5 drained-energy moments from this week. three become next week's moves.
a recurring meeting nobody needs. a channel that never delivers signal. a client who costs 3x attention for 1x revenue. a hand-off that never quite works.
#2 is a question I ask myself as well. So useful. I also love the avoided decision question. And the paper cuts idea. Awesome.
thank u!
I deeply appreciated the distinction between shame-driven lists and ones born of self-love.
I'd like to build on that. Another dimension can be the self-dialogue with the part that activates shame. It's trying to fulfill a positive purpose for us, therefore we can engage it and possibly parse the positive intent from the negative emotional energy it generates in us. The self-love list may carry a similar problem of activating inertia for the opposite reason: now it might be the shaming part that feels neglected and fights for psychic attention.
We could have a self-led dialogue with BOTH parts. The IFS literature suggests that once they feel heard, parts calm down quite quickly and we actually end up benefiting from their presence.
A list is a good way to control ourselves, to give ourselves structure. Its what we've been told responsible people do.
We've gotten so good at it that we don't even bother to check in with ourselves anymore; we've already decided what "should" be done.
Sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is look at these shoulds and decide which we want to keep for ourselves and which we want to let go of.