Work Pacing

Reset Your Pace

Consider where you are right now on the path of your career (or careers). You have probably spent hours thinking about the approaches to productivity you take, as well as the goals you plan, work toward, and achieve. Most likely, every day you begin by following the same habits and routines (i.e., your pace) that have become comfortable for you over the past few years. To reset the pace, you need to look at three areas:

1. What do you do to manage the time you have? To hold your pace, you must study your workflow habits and find ways to work smarter and more effectively with the time you have. You must think about when you work, how you work, and what you need to be as efficient as possible.

2. How do you use tools and technology to help you get things done? You need to understand the tools of productivity that are available to you. By learning something about productivity technology, the processes you follow, and the organizational tools you can use, you may find you’re saving time, getting more done faster, and working at a more easily sustainable pace than you have in the past.

3. When do you relax and rejuvenate, to reset the pace? Resting and resetting doesn’t just happen. And scheduling a vacation or sleeping in one morning a weekend may not be enough rest and relaxation for you to completely reengage in what you’re doing.

To survive and thrive, you need to be productive with consistency, professionalism, and excellence. The old time management tricks no longer give you the help you need. Rewriting your to-do list takes up precious minutes each morning. Getting less sleep each night isn’t healthy. And, certainly, watching the clock won’t help you get things done. There is a famous saying that “practice makes perfect.” Parents, teachers, and coaches said it about many of our activities; I, on my part, tried to learn to play the guitar, practiced basketball, and took art classes. Though I never quite reached a level of perfection in any of those efforts, I did achieve a feeling of comfort with them. I could go through the motions, even though I knew I wasn’t going to make a career out of any of these endeavors.

What I know: Practice doesn’t always make perfect, but repeating something over and over again will eventually make it seem normal and feel comfortable.