When life gets overwhelming, shifting gears for a strategic season may be the answer you’re looking for.
Spring may be just around the corner, but we’re not talking about that kind of season…
Something reminded me over the weekend of the strategy of adjusting priorities for the season we’re in. No, not the holiday season, or Winter, or anything like that. The strategy is for those metaphorical seasons we go through from time to time.
I guess they’re a little like Spring, Summer, Winter, and Fall. Three months or so is a good amount of time to enter into what I’ve been calling ‘strategic seasons.’
So, here’s how I launched my recent strategic season…
Part of my morning routine has always included an hour or two of semi-random, “inspirational” reading. Yeah, I know, a couple of hours sounds like a lot. It’s worked for me… so much that I’ve created a logjam of inspiration.
And, if I’m being honest with myself…
More than I could possibly use for quite some time!
Yet, FOMO, that good old friend of ours, had led me to keep reading, collecting, and compiling inspiration. You know about FOMO, right… the fear of missing out?
But hey, I’ve gotta keep doing this, what if I miss a really good idea?”
– me
Soooo, for the past few months, I’ve let this old morning habit go into hibernation while I entered a strategic season of reading less while freeing up time to implement and act on other goals instead.
Beauty is often in the simplicity, right?
The strategy for this season has been to stop this part of my morning routine in favor of more productivity. To enable this, the tactic is also simple. I unsubscribed to every newsletter, email list, and what have you that I could think of.
You’ll believe how serious I was when I tell you that I even unsubscribed from Seth Godin’s daily post. If you’ve been around LifeUntucked ® for very long, you’ll know that for me, that alone was huge!
Beyond that, here are some more that hit the cutting room floor as a result… Michael Roderick, Far Side, Entrepreneur, Forbes.com, Inc, Jeff Walker’s Sunday video, and Michael Hyatt (actually, I learned this ‘seasons’ idea from him several years ago).
When I set out to execute my plan, I thought that was the complete list—I was wrong!
As things turned out, those eight subscriptions qualified only as the proverbial, “Good Start!”
When all was said and done, I had unsubscribed from close to forty others. Yikes!! I had no idea. I thought I was already pretty lean when it came to this kind of thing.
And you know what? Three or four months have passed, and I haven’t felt the need to resubscribe to a single one of them. I’m sure I will eventually renew a few of them. Seth, of course, is the most likely.
But you know what I found at the end of my strategic season?
- Six or seven hours of reclaimed freedom each week from that nasty, tenacious fear of missing out.
- Inspiration has found me in other ways.
- And an old habit modified for the better.
If you were to enter a strategic season, what would you consider doing?
And keep in mind, the cool thing is you get to make the rules. Your strategic seasons can be as long or as short as you see fit.
Why not give it a try?
Be untucked.
p.s. Know someone who might benefit from this post? Why not share it with them? Thanks…
Copyright © 2022 Jeff Meister – All Rights Reserved
Thank you for making me think again. You have just opened up a whole can of worms, and thoughts. But not thoughts about worms, ha.
This will indeed take some time to think thru. ( there goes my self imposed schedule).
Sorry to mess up your schedule, John… I’m glad to hear it made you think, though! Now you’ve got me thinking about worms and it’s too cold to go fishing!!