3 tips to deal with a short week

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Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach, coming to you this evening, Monday night, Labor Day. A little late. And I will be honest, we're late today because I almost forgot to go live. I have a goal of going live every single day of September. And sorry for the crunching in the background, Luna has a treat in her mouth. Anyway, I was out living life and completely forgot to schedule this in my day. So here we are. I wanted to come to you with a quick, quick little message because we are facing a short week. We have four days this week. If you're, you know, traditionally employed or you're following the traditional employment calendar. Short weeks are amazing, and they can also kind of throw you through a loop de loop. And so I wanted to give you my three tips that I do every single time I have a short week to handle to help me get my brain around it and to not feel. Feel like I'm majorly behind or this week is taking forever or, you know, like this. It's just too much work crammed into too little time. So number one, I want to talk about your tasks, okay? So you have to prioritize your work this week, okay? If you're going into the office, if you're getting back into your business tomorrow, I want you to do a proper brain dump of absolutely everything that you have on your plate to do, okay? Every damn thing. Okay? This is not going to be your final to do list. Do not panic, okay? So I want you to take that list and I want you to pull three things each day. And if those things are too big, then you're allowed to just pull one thing each day, and that is your priority for that day. Now, if you do that thing, if you accomplish it and say it's like 2 o' clock in the afternoon and you still have work hours available to you, go and pick a second, okay? That's your bonus. That's your. Your reward. You get to do more. We don't want to overwhelm ourselves, but we really want to assess. And if it helps you to rank things like everything on that to do list, from most important hats to happen right away to, and this can probably wait until next week or later in this week, do that, okay? Because when we have. And this is my ADHD brain, I have a hard time with prioritizing stuff unless I'M really looking at it from a proper distance. Okay, so that's number one. You have to prioritize your work this week or else you're going to go nuts. Number two is not a traditional tip. I want you to stop for inspiration. I know it sounds super coachy and woo woo, but I literally want you to stop and look for something to inspire you each day. Okay? The reason I want you to do this is you probably have some kind of practice that you really easily plug into during a normal week. Now, when our weeks are thrown off, we, we tend to be in kind of crisis mode because it's different, right? It's not like crisis mode. It's just like, wow, this is really different. I have to focus on what day it is and what are my activities today. And you miss out on the normal sources for creativity that you normally have throughout your day. So I don't care if this is you scrolling Pinterest and looking for something to inspire you. I don't care if this is a daily devotional that you read. I don't care if you look up inspirational quotes and have that be your quote for the day. But make the day about something bigger than you. Okay? And you can honestly do this all the time. I highly recommend it. I recommend doing this bit like kind of while you're drinking your coffee in the morning, you know, I mean, and you can make it as silly as you want. You could go and look at spongebob cakes on Pinterest and you could just spend your day just kind of giggling about all the spongebob cake fails that are on Pinterest and on people's Instagrams. Like, that's okay, as long as it's something that, that brings you a bit of joy, you know, and, and gives you some, some, some pep in your step. Okay? Finally, number three. One of the reasons why a shortened week actually screws with us is because we, we naturally like to portion out periods of time into first half, second half, first third, you know, first, fifth, whatever. We are so used to doing this with our weeks. You know, there's a reason why we call Wednesday hump day. Okay? It's the middle of the week. Like, that is the, the mile marker that we are all waiting for. We're halfway through. Okay? So we're like climbing the mountain. Climbing the mountain. And then we get to, to send the other side after Wednesday, what I want you to do is I want you to look at your week and really figure out what those mile markers are. So if you're working a 9 to 5 Monday through Friday, your mile marker, your midweek is actually going to be first thing in the morning on Thursday. Okay. So that is your little hump day that you get to have in there. Okay. It helps your brain set checkpoints and adjust the mental calendar so that it can process the time differently. Let me see. Lee, we often try to cram five days of work into the short week. Yes, we do. And actually, I think many of us are able to do it. I think we are if we prioritize correctly. I actually, I'm not a big proponent of the five day week. Don't think we need that much time. I think. I think tasks and things that we do actually expand the amount of time we have to do them. Okay. But I'm a master procrastinator, so that's just what I think. Those are your three tips. So remember, you're going to prioritize. You're going to do a complete, detailed dump of everything that you could possibly have to do, and you're going to pull those. Those nuggets out. Dina, great insight about the short week. Thank you so much. You're going to pull those priorities out. You're only working on top priority things this week. Okay. You're gonna stop for inspiration. Okay. Little things that carry you through. And you're gonna adjust your mental clock or mental calendar. Yes. You're just. Your mental calendar. I'm sorry it's late. This isn't my bedtime. I'm normally asleep by now anyway and just want to remind you. So here I am. I. I showed up. This is day five of me going live every damn day of September. September. Oftentimes we get hung up when we set up these goals. We get hung up on like, oh, well, I forgot today. Now it's late. And now I have to, like, think of something to say. And it should be as long as I normally talk. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Showing up and doing what you said you're going to do, even if it's shorter than normal, even if you are ready for bed, even if you're tired, that is what matters. The showing up matters. It doesn't have to be perfect. Okay? And I want to remind you this week that you're showing up and doesn't have to be perfect. Done is better than perfect, actually. If it's. If it's. If you're waiting for perfect, it's never going to happen. It's a myth. Show up and do the thing that you said you're going to do that priority list that I told you to make. Commit this week to getting those things done and just pick one thing a day. You'll be shocked at how much you will accomplish this week. And I want to hear back from you by Friday. I really do. Anyway, Dina and Lean, whoever else has been tuning in, thank you for joining me on this late Monday Night Live. I will be talking to you all tomorrow again with a topic that I haven't decided on yet. So if you have any questions or things you want me to talk about, please put them in my DMs. I'd love to see them. And Amanda, hi. You're up late. Showing up matters. That's what I tell others myself, too. Yes. If you don't know Amanda, she runs an amazing journaling group for entrepreneurs and for some other people. She has some coaching also. She's amazing. But one of the ways you can show up for yourself is by journaling. So if you want to get into that, reach out to Amanda, please, and then Lee. So agree about the showing up. I did my first live stream on LinkedIn tonight. Oh, my God, Lee, congratulations. I'm sure. I'm sure it was glorious in all the ways that it needed to be. And I cannot wait to see your journey as you continue on. Anyway, and, yeah, I still get nervous. Just so you know, I've been going live on LinkedIn and a bunch of other places for two years now, and there are still moments right before where I'm like, am I really gonna do this? Like, what if I don't think of anything to say? It happens, but congratulations. Super proud of you. Anyway, everyone, thank you for joining. We're 10 minutes in. I think that's pretty good for, you know, throwing this together last minute after forgetting. Anyway, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. I will see you tomorrow. Have a wonderful sleep, everyone, and we will talk soon.