How would you like an awesome gift to start your week?
How would you like to arrive at the office every Monday morning and find a gift waiting for you? The “Ticket to the Weekend” is a powerful ritual and habit that we at The Impact Foundry recommend for everybody, every Friday afternoon. This discipline results in a great gift that is completely tailored by you, for you, and is waiting for you as you begin your week on Monday morning. This gift is your plan for the week and, even more specifically, your plan to make Monday productive. The idea is to win Monday by designing it on Friday. Set yourself to win the week by making sure Monday gets off to a great start. We need to fully enjoy our weekends and then pick up where we left off with the momentum of the week before. It does not happen by accident.
Here are a few things that can absolutely kick our career butts: (Make a mental note on any of the following that might apply to you.)
- Things that fall through the cracks
- Poor planning
- Being unprepared
- Procrastination
- Low energy (mental funk)
A Ticket to the Weekend and a subsequent daily drill down on what you are going to do next will put the kibosh on those five things mentioned above. I have learned over the years that this is not rocket science. It takes grit and discipline.
Here are the steps to implementing your “Ticket to the Weekend Initiative”:
- Decide you are going to own your time and are going to control what you can control.
- Start with blank sheet of paper or open a blank electronic document. Some people write an e-mail to themselves. (I like Moleskine® journals for this.)
- Write down a list of things you need to make sure you do to get your week off to a great start. These are the things you need to do first! This is your Monday List.
- Remember the Ghostbuster’s Question: Who Ya Gonna Call? Get them on the list. Who do you need to talk to, check in with, get information to, ask a question to, or follow up with?
- Grade each item on your list. Give each task a letter grade of A = Very Important, B = Important, C= Less Important.
- Rank all the A’s: A1, A2, A3, A4, etc. Then on to the B’s: B1, B2, B3, B4, etc. Then the C’s (Although you might end up waiting on the C’s). This will give you an order, based on importance, for doing your tasks.
- “Eat that Frog.” Brian Tracey wrote a book with this name a few years ago. The point is that when you have a “frog to eat” (something you don’t want to do, but is nonetheless important), down that frog first thing in the day! If you have two frogs to eat, eat the biggest one first. If you don’t do the cruddy stuff, you will carry it to the next day, then the next day, and the next, until you find yourself caught in a nasty hellish vortex.
- Get in early on Monday. Grip it and rip it! (Figuratively speaking—don’t rip the list you made!) No sense letting your intentionality go to waste.
- Do what you said you were going to do! Get stuff done! Yeah, you!
- Keep the momentum! Repeat making your list, prioritizing it into A’s, B’s and C’s on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. When you get to Friday afternoon, do another Ticket to the Weekend before you head out the door. (Make this a Friday HABIT!)
Remember this takes grit and discipline. If you find yourself “not liking the process,” it’s often a sign that it’s working, and that you are experiencing a good kind of pain. It’s the “no pain, no gain” thing from the highly successful Soloflex ads (Google it!) Make sure it’s the results you will get through this process that you are focusing on!
Some other cool benefits to making this a habit:
- Feel better about going into the weekend
- Protect your weekends
- Get a fast start to the day and to the week on Monday
- Be in a better mood
- Be better prepared to deal with distractions
- Get a grip on the feeling of being overwhelmed
- Do the most important things next
- Look better to your leader
- Be more promotable
Others ideas that work:
- Create a “Do Not Do” list
- Do a 10 minute tidy on Friday afternoon
- Find a coworker to be an accountability partner
- Make it part of your organization’s culture
Make your Ticket to the Weekend not only help you Carpe Diem (Seize the Day!), but seize the entire week! Are you ready to punch your ticket?
Carpe Sabbati !
(Seize The Week)
Send it off in a letter (or e-mail) to yourself – Steely Dan
The Impact Foundry brings proven experience to businesses who desire meaningful growth. Our solutions are tailored to fit your business needs—always relevant, always fresh, always forged to suit your business’ strengths and challenges. The motto “Serviam” on our logo is Latin for “I will serve”. That’s how we do business. We serve our clients with integrity and a desire to shape, mold, and build strong leaders who impact their organizations. To discuss how we might be able to support your team, contact us at info@theimpactfoundry.com or 630-923-8604
