Week 1 of our Clayton’s Gift Day (CGD) trial is now under our belt. And it feels good…
I’ve split my day in half for now – mainly because we need to get some Clayton’s time cross over between Alistair and I given the number of business projects we work on together. This week I had my CGD time all to myself though which got me off to a flying start.
I’ve had two big mental shifts this week.
Firstly, I CAN do this (and if you read my earlier blogs you’ll see that I’ve had more than my fair share of doubts about myself). But as hard as it was, on my first CGD I put on my out of office message, set my phone to DND, my mobile on silent, shut down my emails and teams messaging (it is amazing how many sources of interruption we have in our world!!) and focused purely on the task at hand – creating a more efficient way of working for me and the team. It was such a powerful and fruitful 4 hours that it gave me the momentum and motivation that I need to continue to be disciplined in the coming months.’
And secondly, by having a dedicated day in every week to be working on the business, it made my mind (and my time) more free, more focused, more productive on the other 4 days. Previously I’d tried to fit working on the business around all my other work. I’d have tasks on my daily to-do list hopeful that I would find some time even though my diary was fully booked with clients … and then I’d feel bad that I didn’t get it done and put pressure on myself about when will you do this?? I now have ‘permission’ to ignore all of those tasks until my dedicated times. And my brain is all the lighter for it.
I have no doubt that there will be more challenges to come, but right now I am relieved, encouraged (and a tiny bit proud) that I’ve been able to make the first week count.