NickVenturella.com 2-27-18 - Bring Your Best Each Day

Bring Your Best Each Day

February 27, 2018

I'm already having one of those weeks where new items seem to appear on the week's "to do" list hourly, or so it seems.It's easy to get overwhelmed when this starts to occur. Then you start to get anxious, possibly irritable and just generally frazzled and unsure exactly where to start.Here's my advice:At that moment of feeling like you may not make it through another minute, stop what you're doing. Take at least 15 minutes to clear your head. Go for a short walk. Just step outside and get some fresh air for a moment, but do something to change the environment you're in.When you come back to your list of tasks. Identify the top 3 things that are crucial to get done that day. No, you're not ignoring the rest, they will be there when you're done with the top 3 priorities, but by compartmentalizing a few pressing priorities and only working on those, it feels more manageable to actually accomplish those 3 tasks.Once you're done with those 3 tasks prioritize the next 3, and so on. You may get more than 3 done in a day, you may not, but at least you're making meaningful progress with reduced anxiety. Slow and steady wins the race.A now trusted/respected colleague, and former boss/mentor of mine (shout out Scott F. at EC) used to say (I'm paraphrasing a bit): "Bring your best to work everyday, no matter what your best is that day."The idea is that your best on certain days won't be the same as your best on other days, but if you're always giving the most of what you have to give, you're going to continue to make progress forward for yourself and others who depend on you.Here's to bringing your best this week!