Welcome to Monday Motivation. Last week, I wrote about making a plan for the term ahead and working that plan. It is part of working strategically, which as you have gathered by now is something I regularly write about as I encourage you to be more strategic in everything you do.
This term is a busy term, just like the others, but it takes on a different flavour, because there are lots of endings and planning for beginnings. For each of those endings or beginnings are things that need to be done. The things that are necessary and must be done as a bare minimum.

However, there are also those things that creep into the mix that don’t necessarily need to get to get done, but they would enhance the event, improve the process or provide more detail. I call these the ‘nice to haves’. The things that must be done without exception are the ‘need to haves’. Can you see the difference?
Here is the connection to being strategic. We all have skills and abilities, and we all have the same time in our week. 168 hours in a week. We all have things we like to do and things we must do, some of those we don’t like to do. I bet that this term there are a quite a number of those things you don’t like to do. Here’s the rub, the ‘nice to haves’ are often the things we like to do and the ‘need to haves’ are more likely the things we don’t like to do, but if we keep saying ‘yes’ to the ‘nice to haves’ we leave less time, sometimes not enough time, to the complete the important things which are the ‘need to haves’ and so we end up doing a poor job of them, getting ourselves stressed, tired and grumpy and really letting ourselves and our teams down.
I have a favourite phrase, and it is, ‘just because you can, doesn’t mean you should’. You might know you can do something, and say ‘yes’ or put your hand up to volunteer, but just because you have the skills and abilities to do it, or perhaps the time and energy now, are you certain that you will still have the time and energy to do it when the event comes around or the due date arrives, and more importantly, that it is not going to impact your time and attention to complete the ‘need to haves’ that are the vital part of your role?
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Please take some time this week to look at what is on your task list and sort out what are the things that must be done, the ‘need to haves’. These are your core responsibilities, even if you really don’t like to do them. Identify the ‘nice to haves’ and ask yourself if those ‘nice to haves’ really need to be done at all. If they do, explore if there is another way to get them done, perhaps by sharing the load or scaling them back. Now you can see the difference between the ‘need to haves’ and the ‘nice to haves’ you can be more discerning about what you will add to your list and what won’t make the cut. Well done, now you are being more strategic.
Have a good week.
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