I’ve been working on my Do Something Different Monday (DSDM) activity and it’s time to report! In case you missed my Monday post, DSDM is NEW. Each Monday I pick an activity that’s been a real bear to wrangle and then work on it for the week. I give a quick check in on Thursdays—today—on progress (or maybe lack thereof). This week’s DSDM activity is making record keeping more efficient.
Before I round things off, I must say that was a bit skeptical that four days might be too short a time to even wrap my brain around a challenge, much more see any change. The common theory is that it takes 21 days to form a habit. So what did I hope to accomplish in four days?
Well, four days is usually enough time to provide me with some indication as to the amount of energy, resources and willingness I have or will need to follow through with the change/challenge. Think of it as a needs assessment period. For instance, if this were an exercise for three days a week regimen (say M-W-F), by day three, muscle pain would be enough to have me pushing deeper for conviction or rethinking if exercising was worth the hassle. I might choose to go easy on Wednesday because I would be in pain or even delay (indefinitely) until I feel ‘up to it’. Such is the early death of many a fitness routine! So I wagered that I was not wasting my time with such short time frame.
Overall impressions?
The four days allowed me the opportunity to assess my thinking on this issue and make note of where and how to improve. It was important that I focused on the one and only new task this week. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to convince myself that record keeping was just as much a priority as all the other ‘urgent’ tasks.
In fact, what finally hit home was that I had made the unnecessary division between resolving an ‘urgent’ task and filing/documenting it.
Do I really need that “to file” folder? Should I really be setting aside separate time to document what I did? At this point, I would say only in emergency situations. To use a new rule that was drilled into me during a recent training, “If it’s not documented, it didn’t happen!” Closing the loop on the urgent task aka record keeping means completing that task. There should be no separation.
Monday
I posted my note in a very conspicuous location on my desk. I actually jumped into my regular routine before catching myself. The note was a needed tool! Obviously I had to keep reminding myself to focus on the challenge. I kept getting distracted by ‘more important’ duties and was tempted to procrastinate more than a few times. I did catch an error in real time and dealt with it. When a project came across my desk that needed to be completed right away, I saw how quickly I was willing to de-prioritize this challenge—one of the breakdowns in my system.
Tuesday
It was a slower day. I made sure to schedule the record-keeping time. Distraction was an issue but I was much better at pulling myself back into my tasks. After spending a significant amount of time on this challenge, I started seeing that this was a priority task. In the same breath, I was still fighting the feelings that I should have been doing something more ‘productive’.
Wednesday and Thursday
I got hit with the cold hard (hence the late night posting of this article)! Love my kid, but sometimes those lovely kisses and cuddles hold ‘germy’ stowaways! By the time she started complaining of a sore throat, I knew what was coming. Wednesday was a struggle with regular duties and today I am working from home AND fighting a bad cold. Incidentally, I feel like I am losing precious record keeping time, a fact that I find promising. I look forward to focusing on this challenge tomorrow and the coming weeks!
Four days provided me with meaningful insight. How did your DSDM week go?
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