🎯 Being Intentional At Work
A Rough and Ready System for Getting Your Work Life in Alignment
We seem to succeed in life when our life is in alignment with our goals.
When we act out what we know to be the right thing to achieve a better life.
Same with work.
If what we want to achieve in work is reflected in our activities, the tasks we do, then work will be good.
The thing is, there are distractions and escalations that steer us off course during the working day.
Then the work we’re doing is no longer in sync with what we want to achieve.
If we look at work as an important part of our life, then the important parts of work probably have the same impact as they would in life.
In other words, in life and work, we would all probably want to:
have good health
feel emotionally fulfilled
have strong relationships
feel valued
To achieve this we set up a system. Some people call them habits.
To not achieve these, we do the same. Set up a system of destruction. Bad habits.
I’ll leave you to work out what sort of tasks you need to do at work to feel valued, fulfilled, in good health, and connect well.
This Newsletter is about making that happen.
It is about taking responsibility to get to the top of your game at work.
A Good System
Here, we’re only interested in setting up a positive system. A constructive one.
The question is, how do we ensure that our work goals are matched by our work actions?
Here are three ideas that I use:
Set Up an Accountability Team
No doubt your boss seeks to keep you accountable. And you’d be wise to follow their directions.
But it would be an exceptional boss that provides the fulfilment you need for all aspects of your working life - health, emotion, relationships and feeling worthy.
How about an accountability team?
And team that knows the actions you’re working on to achieve your goal and is keen to hear how you’re going against them.
It doesn’t have to be a formal thing.
Say, a goal is to be ‘a healthier you’ and you hope to walk each lunchtime. That’s a straightforward task.
An accountability team could be a walking group that commits to walking round the park each lunchtime or even mid-afternoon.
Keeping each other committed.
Accountability teams are used to check in on your actions. The things you are doing to keep your goals on track.
Set up an Alarm System
….. or anything that reminds you to do a task that fits your goal.
For instance, I have four important alarms that go off during the day.
They each remind me of a personality trait that I want to embrace.
6.15 am This alarm is labelled ‘Malcom the Magnificent’ and reminds me that I am a beast of a person and that my health and general well-being is now up for all to witness …..
A bit over the top? Never mind, that sets up my day with energy.
9.00 am ‘Malcom the Operative’ I am now ready. I’m on-task. Ready to execute the workflow in front of me.
5.30 pm ‘Malcom the Married’ - A front-of-mind reminder that I have a family and my mode of engagement needs to change as I arrive home.
8.11 pm ‘Malcom the Correspondent’ I’m loving this alarm label. It’s my permission to write. I don’t need permission, but I love getting that personal endorsement. It’s like an official stamp.
These reminders cross over work and life - and that’s OK.
(I also use another set of reminders throughout the workday to do a particular action. It relates to my work goal of building great relationships.
I set an alarm three times during the day to express appreciation for someone at work. Give them a call, walk to their desk, send them a note - just to say what a great job they did.)
Check Myself Each Week
I’ve always been a fan of weekly (and monthly and yearly) reviews.
If I have four goals - then I need to come up with four things I’ve done that work to reach those goals.
✅ The Healthy Me - how many times did I go for a walk this week? A: 5 times.
✅ The Fulfilled Me - what did I finish at work this week? Let’s look at my diary. A: Two mini-projects.
✅ The Connected Me - how many new people did I engage with this week? A: One a day.
✅ The Valuable Me - what improvements did I add this week? A: I made a change to the checking process by removing three steps without loss of integrity
I do the checking mentally. I could write it in my journal as well, and sometimes I do.
Any more tips on how to keep your work life in alignment?
