Spoons!

Colleagues,
 
MVP: There is only so much we can do.
 
Last week I had a conversation with the wonderful Jeannette Butterworth, the Senior Consultant at WNC Nonprofit Pathways, an organization dedicated to building leadership capacity of non-profit leaders throughout Western North Carolina.
 
Jeannette shared with me a technique for organizing her day around priorities instead of time.
 
Jeannette portions her day using spoons. Each spoon represents a chink of energy, time, and attention. She allots herself five spoons a day, meaning that she can only handle five significant tasks a day. 
 
Two meetings scheduled? That’s two spoons.
 
Working on a proposal? That’s another spoon.
 
In beginning her day, if she has more than five spoons’ worth of work, she knows it isn’t all going to get done.
 
Two other things to think about:

• Some days we don’t have five spoons to give. We may only have two or three.
• When you exceed your spoons, you will experience stress, fatigue, and diminished returns.

 
Here’s the power behind the technique: It forces us to manage our priorities, not our time!
 
Today’s intention: Think about the things today that will use your spoons. Do you have enough to get you through?
 
Cheers!

Frederick