Leading from Home Part 5: Renewal

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