Colleagues,
 
This is the final article in our series on healthily leading from home. You can also watch the video for each day's content at my YouTube channel here.
 
Today we will talk about three work practices that can help renew you:

• Create 1-2 priority goals per day.
• Engage in uninterrupted focused work at least once per day.
• Develop other people’s skills.

Creating 1-2 priority goals focuses your work. These are separate from your to-do list but take priority over it. I like to identify the 1-2 things that I really need to do to call the day a win. Focusing on priorities helps you:

• Focus on the most important things.
• Achieve something meaningful each day.
• Increase satisfaction. 

Engaging in uninterrupted focus work goes hand-in-hand with setting priority goals. Here are the benefits:

• Helps you achieve flow state, a positive state of mind that results from doing meaningful work without interruption. Flow state aids relaxation, satisfaction, and mood.
• Increases your productivity.
• Moves your organization forward. Focus work almost always involves strategic work which helps you lead your organization as opposed to simply managing it.

Developing other people’s skills is a renewal activity because:

• It demands your full presence and focus (see flow state).
• It enhances your relationship with the other person.
• It increases the sense that you are making a positive difference.

Also note that developing others has long term benefits. It increases overall organizational capacity, decreases problems, increases retention and job satisfaction, and, if focused specifically on leadership capacity, increases your ability to be strategic as other leaders can focus more on urgent tasks.
 
Remember there are three overarching themes for the week:

• Make intentional decisions
• Limit distractions and transitions
• Engage fully (and healthily)

This series focused on helping you develop healthy habits as you work at leading from home.
Just as you face challenges with isolation, so do I. The most challenging aspect of my current focus is not receiving feedback. Please, if you have adopted any of the practices in this series, take a moment to let me know by clicking on the blue email button.

What practice did you adopt?

​Do good and be well,

Frederick

Colleagues,
This is the fourth article in our series on healthily leading from home. You can find the previous articles below. You can also subscribe and have them delivered to your inbox daily: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition.
 
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Communications clutter may be one of the most insidious and damaging aspects of work, both in the professional and home environments.

Uncluttered communications look like this:

• You are unavailable when you are doing work that requires focus and reflection.
• You are unavailable when you are present with another person.
• You resist temptations to check communications when you are engaged in either of the above.
• When unavailable, all of your communication alerts are off (hidden and silenced).

 
If you routinely practice these habits, great! If you don’t, keep reading.
 
Remember there are three overarching themes for the week:

• Make intentional decisions
• Limit distractions and transitions
• Engage fully (and healthily)

 
Communications clutter undermines every one of those themes!
 
If you agree that the three themes are important, then why would you maintain poor communications hygiene? There are three possible explanations:

• You haven’t thought about it.
• You don’t know how to declutter.
• Choosing to be unavailable is not a luxury you can afford.

 
Let’s look at each of these.
 
Haven’t thought about it. Now you have!
 
Don’t know how to declutter.

• Prior to beginning work or a meeting that requires your full focus, disable all notifications (except reminders such as calendar events).
• Alert others that you will be unavailable.
• Condition others to avoid distracting you as much as possible. Teach them why distractions hurt your leadership. Communicate your schedule so they know when you will be available.
• Establish a procedure for how others should approach you when you are working. This is especially important if you have children and are working from home.
  • For example, teach kids to “knock, enter, wait.” The knock notifies and prevents the startle reflex, stepping in and waiting allows you to finish your thought and create a smoother transition. In a shared space the equivalent of knocking is to stand at the edge of your office space (in your peripheral vision).
  • Note that an added benefit of such a procedure is that it cues you to make a clean break from your work and be fully present with the other person.
• Establish procedures for true emergency communications:
  • Designate a few specific people who have the power to intrude.
  • Teach them what constitutes an emergency.
  • Enable communication from only them (e.g., enable the two calls in a row feature on your phone for those individuals).

 
Note: I’m laughing hilariously as I write this as the lawn person has come and is mowing right beneath my window! Add that to the list of intruding distractions!
 
Being unavailable is an unavoidable luxury. That is certainly possible, but perhaps you have created a false story around the importance of being available 90-100% of the time. Remember that one of our key themes is to be intentional, so please reflect on the following.
 
Maybe the real problem lies within us, and the narrative we have constructed around our own leadership. Let’s briefly unpack a couple of the stories we may have constructed for ourselves. Under each story, I’ll offer some alternative thoughts and perspectives. You don’t need to agree with me, just reflect so that you can do so intentionally.
 
Narratives:

• I need to be available 24/7 for emergencies
  • What constitutes an emergency?
  • Who decides it is an emergency?
  • Who is allowed to interrupt you with an emergency?
  • What would happen if you were sick or unavailable?
  • Why does it have to be you?
  • What processes can you put in place to make sure that you are only interrupted by true emergencies?
• My availability demonstrates my priorities
  • Does this mean that responding to communication is the top priority?
  • What is the effect on quality if availability is more important than work?
  • How do you engage in strategic work if you are always available?
  • What does 24/7 availability say about the value of your time?
• My response time shows I am conscientious and dedicated
  • If you only responded every two hours, would that mean you were less dedicated and less capable?
  • How do you measure your own success?
  • How do others measure your success?
  • Are you evaluating other the same way, on their communication timeliness as opposed to organizational outcomes?
• I need to know what’s going on
  • Why?
  • If you have capable people, why do you need to continually monitor their progress?
  • What impact on their productivity does your monitoring have?
  • What impact on their willingness to take risks or resolve their own internal conflicts?
  • Are you micro-managing?
  • If you don’t have capable people, what are you going to do about it?

Again, you don’t need to embrace all or any of these points, but I hope you will reflect on them and be intentional about what you accept and reject.
 
I’m really interested to know how people respond to this theme. If you had a strong response (positive or negative) please comment below.

Do good and be well,

​Frederick

Colleagues,
This is the third article in our series on healthily leading from home. You can find the previous articles at my blog.
 
Today we will look at some healthy practices to enact while leading from home:

• Accepting limitations
• Being fully present
• Strengthening connections

 
All three of these practices help you to become both a better leader and a healthier one.
 
Accepting limitations means accepting that we can’t do everything. There are too many tasks, needs, and people that need attention. This is at once terrifying, because it implies failure, and liberating as it gives us permission to choose. Understanding that everything won’t get done means that you choose what gets done today and what doesn’t. Accepting limitations also makes it easier to shut down at the end of the day.
 
Acceptance makes it easier to focus on priority tasks, to let go of our aspirations to be perfect, and encourages us to delegate. In the video, I’ll discuss five ways to deal with things that aren’t your priority items.
 
Being fully present is the single most powerful thing you can do to both improve your leadership and enhance your state of mind. Being fully present means that you are physically, mentally, and emotionally present to the person or task in front of you.
 
Steps to being fully present:

• Create a clean break. When you need to be present for something or someone, get to a logical stopping point on the previous task.
• Eliminate distractions. For someone who is physically present, turn your chair away from your monitor or even walk away from your desk (and all the potential distractions). Put your phone down, turn paper copies of your work upside down, put your computer to sleep, etc…
• Engage fully with the person. Listen, ask questions. Ask the second question – the one that gets below the surface. Attend to what brought the person to you and what they need. Do they need you to solve a problem, or to just listen?

 
Being fully present helps you:

• Help people feel valued.
• Uncover problems early by listening more carefully.
• Make wiser decisions because you’ll have better information.
• Relax by being less distracted.

 
Strengthening connections is imperative in a time of physical separation and isolation. Try these:

• Be vulnerable and ask for help. Right now so many of us are still trying to figure out these constantly changing times, so we are all vulnerable!
• Allow time for really seeing how people are doing at the front end of those video meetings. This goes beyond “how is everyone” to asking specific questions about what is challenging people. Many of us have loved ones who are particularly at risk. Feeling alone with those concerns takes a toll.
• Engage with a community beyond your own organization. Learn from others and provide support. Expanding your community not only provides you with more support, but it also grants more access to ideas and breaks down isolation.

 
Best practices:

• Be intentional about what, or on whom you focus.
• Prioritize relationships.
• Support others by being fully present.

  
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick

• Remember that you can view a video that expands on this content at my YouTube channel here. If you subscribe to the channel you will automatically get alerts for each new video.
• You can register for the April 2, 2:00 meeting here.
• As always, you can email me at fbuskey@gmail.com​

Note: Estimated read time for this article is 6-8 minutes
 
Colleagues,
 
I want to give a shout out to Dr. Jacque Jacobs. In addition to being a long-time friend and mentor, she has been helping me refine and edit the content in this series. Thank you, Jacque!
 
Yesterday we talked about routines. If you missed that you can read it on my blog here and watch the video here. Today, we will focus on spaces. Your routines create behavioral structures, and your spaces create physical structures for healthily leading from home.
 
Remember that we have three overarching themes:

1. Make intentional decisions
2. Limit distractions and transitions
3. Engage fully (and healthily)

 
In general, your “home office” will fall into one of three categories:

• A dedicated individual space is a true office in your home that can be sealed off from the rest of the home, like a converted bedroom or basement room. This is an ideal situation for maximizing your productivity.
• A dedicated shared space is a specific area that is yours, but which exists within a space that others use and cannot be easily sealed off, such as a desk in the family room. This presents challenges, especially in terms of distractions, but is workable.
• A non-dedicated space basically means that you work wherever you happen to be sitting (or standing). This is an unworkable situation that can negatively impact your health and ability to lead. This is not an acceptable option for any serious leader. Before you bristle, read on!

In this article, the term “home office” refers to your situation regardless of category.
 
Your home office should do several things for you:

1. Signaling to you (and others) that you are working
2. Limiting distractions and interruptions
3. Enhancing productivity and workflow
4. Helping you feel professional

 
Let’s look at each of these more closely.
 
Signaling Having a dedicated space (individual or shared) creates a physical signal that you are “at work.” Sitting down (or stepping up to your standing desk!) cues your mind to engage in your work. It serves as a notice to others that you are working, and that they need to observe any interruption protocols you have established (more on that in the video).
 
How-to:

1. Dedicated Individual Space: Shut the door!
2. Dedicated Shared Space: Establish a set procedure for informing others in the house that you are “going to work.” Turn off sources of noise and distraction (talk shows) Move to your workspace and settle in. You could use a specific type of music as a way to mask background noise and provide an additional cue to others. Put a note/door hanger to alert others who might enter.
3. Non-dedicated space: Create a dedicated space. If you can find a corner to set up a small desk or table, do it. If there is absolutely no room, choose a seat at your kitchen or dining room table. Use that same seat consistently. Consider using a seat that is not your normal seat for meals to emphasize the table as a workspace.

 
Limiting Physical signaling through being in an “office” space is a first step to limiting distractions and interruptions, especially those in your household environment. Complete a household check by eliminating noise and information distractions from sources outside of your space. Inform others that you are “going to work.” Complete a space check by eliminating sources of distraction within your dedicated space. There are two primary sources of distraction in your home office environment, personal clutter and communications.
 
Personal clutter may include actual objects (e.g., a stack of household bills, basket of laundry or pile of dirty dishes) or digital ones such as your news and social media feeds, personal browser pages (Amazon, airfare, more news, facebook, etc…). Try the following:

• De-clutter physical items by removing them from your space.
• Close out of all personal applications and browser windows. They really have no place in your workspace and undermine your productivity.
  • If you have tabs in a browser that “cannot” be closed, you can group those tabs separately from your professional ones and minimize that collection of tabs.
  • If you have a Mac, you can use the multiple desktops feature to keep personal stuff on a separate personal desktop (that’s what I do).

 
I was originally going to examine communications in detail right here but have decided to do a communications deep-dive on Friday instead. Until then, here are some communications things to think about:

1. Communications can intrude into your work via alerts.
2. Communications can extrude you from your work when you check to see what’s new.
3. Both of these issues interrupt your concentration and prevent you from getting into a flow state.
4. Ideally, you should turn off all notifications when you are doing priority work.
5. If that sounds insane, ask yourself why you need to be available while you are doing your most important work of the day. Hold onto those thoughts until Friday!

 
Enhancing The physical layout of your space can make work easier or more difficult. Try and arrange furniture appropriately. be reflective about inefficiencies or challenges and consider changes to your equipment. For example, six months ago I bought an adjustable desktop so I could alternate between sitting and standing while at my computer. It was awesome and improved my health and my productivity. Last week I replaced that desktop with an adjustable table. Wow! I have so much more space! The result is that I can stay in my office when I need to write stuff out on paper or take notes. I can keep more material within easy arm’s reach. This saves me from having to move away from my work which aids flow and productivity.
 
Professionalizing Imagine sitting on your couch in your PJs amidst a pile of laundry, paint swatches for your living room, and equipment for your favorite hobby. Now imagine sitting in an office chair at your computer in your business attire amidst your professional books, diploma(s) and teacher/leader memorabilia. The second scenario is a lot easier if you have a dedicated individual space, but have you moved some of the important trappings of your leadership into your home office? Even in a dedicated shared space, you can “stage” the space like a movie set. Hang your diploma(s) on the wall above your computer. Stack your three favorite leadership books on side of your desk. Choose one meaningful piece of “favorite teacher” memorabilia and set it on your desktop or even mount it on the edge of the monitor. The point is that you want to provide subtle emotional cues that reinforce your professionalism and will aid in your focus.
 
Best practices:

• Create as much physical separation as possible
• Ruthlessly eliminate distractions
• Be intentional about communications
• Professionalize your workspace

 
Logistics:

• Remember that you can view a video that expands on this content at my YouTube channel here. If you subscribe to the channel you will automatically get alerts for each new video.
• You can opt in to a 160-character daily text message that recaps the critical points of each day’s content by texting “lead” (without quotes) to 8559091152.
• You can register for the April 2, 2:00 meeting here.
• As always, you can email me at fbuskey@gmail.com

 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick

Colleagues,

Today we begin our 4-part series on caring for yourself.
 
Assumptions: You are (a) working from home, (b) you don’t usually work from home, and (c) that you are putting the needs of others in front of your own needs.
 
Over the next four days we’ll look at establishing healthy routines, creating healthy spaces, engaging in renewal, and increasing healthy leadership practices. On Thursday afternoon we’ll conclude with a 2:00 virtual meeting.
 
We will also examine three overarching themes:

1. Make intentional decisions
2. Limit distractions and transitions
3. Engage fully (and healthily)

 
We have had to react to a new way of leading and working, but now it is time to be intentional. Intentional choices will result in better leadership.
 
Every break in concentration requires refocusing. This is as true for scanning an email notification or news headline as it is for taking a phone call or interacting with someone in your environment. Each time you refocus you lose time and your ability to concentrate is degraded. A series of breaks creates a cascading effect that undermines your ability to engage thoughtfully and intentionally. After you finish with this article you can jump here to read a research summary about the cost of disruptions.
 
Closely related to distraction is the concept of being fully present for each task and each interaction. Being fully present offers performance and mental health benefits but is challenging in the digital age and might be even more so when leading from home.
 
Routines are the practices we engage in on a daily basis. Think about routines as being a set of dominoes. If you start your first routine correctly, the rest of them should follow as long as you’ve set them up well. When you execute your first routine, it becomes easier to do the second, and then the third, and so on.
 
Why are we starting with routines?

• Your normal routines are likely obsolete
• Without routines, we become more reactive and less intentional
• Working from home carries increased distractions, and routines can help

 
Like a sailboat with no rudder, we go wherever the wind takes us without solid routines. In short, it is very difficult to act strategically without having routines.
 
There are four critical parts of the day for routines:

1. Transition to work
2. Morning productivity
3. Afternoon productivity
4. Transition from work

 
This sequence assumes a standard day focused on being most productive in the morning. Rearrange elements to suit your schedule and times of peak performance. If you are still functioning in crisis mode, these practices are still relevant but will be harder to execute.
 
Transition to Work
This is the single most important set of routines due to the domino effect.  If you stumble on the first step, it can make the rest of the day rocky. Here are some suggestions for routines to include in your transition from waking to working:

1. Turn off news sources, it will free your mind for more productive tasks. Set limits with others in your home to get current news at specific times (e.g. noon, evening).
2. Structure your routines so that they naturally take you from wakefulness to work. This might look like:
   1. Serving others in your home (partners and children).
   2. Taking care of physical needs.
   3. Mental care and preparation (praying, meditating, reflecting, reading). I’ll talk a lot more about this in the video!
3. Enter your space ready to work.

 
Morning Productivity
Have a set order for getting started. Some of the steps you may take:

1. Check your calendar
2. Plan your day
   1. Identify ONE thing that must get done
   2. Block your day in to general themes or specific time slots
3. Check communications and respond only to the highest priorities
   1. Your email is not your to-do list. Be intentional about what email (and other communications) you respond to and which ones you can address later.
   2. This might be your biggest challenge area – be intentional.
4. 4.Focus on your priority task (assuming this requires your peak performance)
5. 5.Engage in important communications or other tasks

 
Afternoon Productivity
One of the inescapable facts of leading from home is that there are more distractions. Being militant about sealing off blocks of work time is critical. If you need to do non-work things during the day, try and do them in a set block. Importantly, build a trigger at the end of the block that pushes you into your afternoon work. Accept that the afternoon block may be “squishier”, but you can anticipate certain types of work.

1. Try and contain meetings to set time periods.
2. Attend to more tedious items, especially things that can be accomplished in small chunks of time.

 
Transition from Work
This is critical for your mental health. Your work may require you to do things in the evening, and if that is the case, build in an evening work block with its own routines. It is imperative to create clean breaks between professional and private time and to adhere to them to the greatest degree possible.

1. Plan your work for the following day
2. Review the current day and reflect on your performance
3. Shut down your communications

 
Best practices for routines:

• Be explicit with yourself and others about your routines.
• Be consistent with the sequence.
• Be intentional. If you need to break a routine, know why you are breaking it.
• Build in triggers that signal a transition or remind you to get back on task.
• Limit interruptions and transitions!

 
Logistics:

• Remember that you can view a video that expands on this content at my YouTube channel here. If you subscribe to the channel you will automatically get alerts for each new video.
• You can opt in to a 160-character daily text message that recaps the critical points of each day’s content by texting “lead” (without quotes) to 8559091152.
• You can register for the April 2, 2:00 meeting here.
• As always, you can email me at fbuskey@gmail.com

 
Do good and be well,
 
Frederick