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The First Step: Creating Intentional Ground Rules

Uncategorized Jul 01, 2020

I was just having a conversation with my wife about...well, something I can't remember. But I DO know that at some point in the conversation, she said, "Well, if you could, you would work all the time." And she's right. I love what I do; that's a blessing that COULD become a curse if I let it. 

One of our "theme words" at Veeya is intentionality. It's a power word - it makes you feel good just to say it. "I'm going at my day with intentionality." Mmm...yep, I feel in control. I'm going to go block some time on the calendar right now. However, before I begin my endless time blocking, I first need to set some intentional ground rules so that work does not consume me.

I will "do work" from 8am - 5pm

Now that doesn't sound like a bold statement, but it really is. It scopes how much of my life I will be spending on writing blogs, managing teams, communicating to staff, and doing projects. It's the foundation ground rule that keeps work from consuming my life. If someone asks, "can you have that done by XYZ date?" I can now look at my calendar (gracefully time blocked until XYZ date) and say to myself a number of things:

1. "It looks like everything is booked...because I only work from 8am - 5pm, I will need to remove some other tasks to make room for this."

2. "It looks like everything is booked...because I only work from 8am - 5pm, I will need to say no."

3. "It looks like I have time to do this during my 8am - 5pm, is it the right priority for me?"

This list of questions could go on and on. However, the "intentional ground rule" of working 8am - 5pm doesn't change; the rest of "work" pivots around that.

I'm not saying this should be my ground rule (or yours); however, without such things, you'll find that you and I are left a victim of circumstances rather than one in control of them. Set your course...or someone else will set it for you.

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