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How to make it look easy with a keystone habit

Sarah · Mar 25, 2018 · Leave a Comment

My first “real” job post college graduation was in retail management. If there’s any place that desperately needs keystone habits and clearly defined systems and routines, it’s a retail establishment with primarily low-wage and high turnover employees.

I was an assistant store manager for a now-defunct mid-level retailer. (Anyone remember Mervyn’s? If not, think of Kohl’s, just not done as well. Thus, why they’re out of business.)

In my year and a half there, I worked in three stores, and the single biggest thing I learned was the importance of having a keystone habit.

Store #2 was my first official placement and was a store known for having many challenges. Geographically, it was the farthest away from the rest of the stores in the district. All of the other stores were within a two hour radius, and this store was four hours away in a relatively small town. This meant the store historically had lower turnover and drew management from local folks who rose up in the ranks.

When I arrived, I was one of three brand-new assistant managers. One was a freshly promoted local gal who had started out as a part-time sales associate. Another had just completed the trainee program with me.

The employees in this store were some of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. Yet for some reason, the store always struggled and just never gelled. You know when something feels like it’s so.much.harder than it should be? That was this store to an extreme.

Our lead store manager was big on rah-rah initiatives and rallying the troops. We cheered, we struggled, we cajoled, we struggled, we came up with elaborate incentive programs, we struggled. There were truck unloading initiatives and customer response time initiatives and special snacks and presentations when district leadership had planned visits. We gave employees leeway to figure out how to creatively solve their problems and ended up with multiple half-baked executions that took a whole lot of focus and energy.

It was miserable.

I knew it was harder than it needed to be, but didn’t have the experience or insight to understand why until I left there and landed in Store #3.

Store #3 was the polar opposite Store #2. It ran like a well oiled machine.

What was different?

Steen had a singular obsession, a keystone habit, that reigned above everything else:

Recovery.

In retail terms, recovery is straightening, organizing and generally getting the store ready for customers. This includes hanging items on the proper fixtures, facing the correct way, and evenly spaced.

Recover can be divided into “rapid recovery” and “detailed recovery.”

Rapid recovery is a very quick first pass through to get things good enough. When doing rapid recovery, ensuring alike products are on the same rack and facing the right direction is the goal. When doing detailed recovery, the goal is to make the racks look perfect, in size order, including finger-spacing hangers so the product is perfectly, evenly spaced on the rack.

The reality in a low-budget store is that man-hours are scarce. For many hours of the day, there may be only one person responsible for an entire department, and that includes manning the cash register along with keeping the entire area neat and put together.

How to make it look easy with a keystone habit | strategysarah.com

Steen’s single-minded focus on recovery was simple:

If you weren’t actively with a customer, you were recovering.

Recovery had a flow: Rapid recover the first three fixtures back from the aisle, then a very quick sweep of remaining rows to ensure there was nothing on the floor, hangers sticking wildly out of placer or other glaring errors.

Once basic recovery was done, a team member could go back through their department with a focus on detailed recovery. And even if the team was busy enough that they didn’t get to detailed recovery, the store was still generally put together and in order.

This system was genius.

Everyone in the store was clear exactly what their priorities were at all times.

When someone had a minute of downtime, they didn’t need to find a manager and ask what to work on. They already knew. There weren’t elaborate planning meetings for “what are we going to focus on this month?” It was recovery, recovery, recovery.

Charles Duhigg, in The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business says “keystone habits [don’t] depend on getting every single thing right, but instead rel[y] on identifying a few key priorities and fashioning them into powerful levers.”

Recovery was the keystone habit that enabled everything else in the store to function properly.

Trucks could be unloaded and new product moved to the floor with ease because there was general order everywhere and truck teams didn’t need to straighten as they went. Breaks and time off could be covered easily without elaborate handover plans made.

A whole lot less communication was needed, because everyone followed the same habit to achieve the goal of a well-run store.

The obsession with recovery was a single-minded focus ingrained as habit. This habit freed up literal time and brain space to be proactive and get ahead rather than constantly coming from behind.

If you don’t already have a single-minded focus, what is one habit you can put in place as a keystone to unlock your potential?

How knowing the big goal makes decisions easy

Sarah · Feb 12, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Do you have any big lifetime bucket list items? I’ve got a few. One of these bucket list goals is to go to all 50 states by the time I am 50. I set this goal in college, after a friend had a goal of all 50 states by the time she was 30 (and she met the goal!). Growing up in a family that didn’t travel a lot, 50 states by 30 felt overly ambitious, but 50 by 50 seemed quite doable. Note: My only qualification on what counts as a state visit is that airport layovers don’t count.

A few years ago, I took a trip to South Carolina for a conference with my mom. One new state, check! As we planned the trip, it turned out that airline ticket prices meant that it would be cheaper to stay an extra day, even including added hotel and meal costs.

With an entire day free, the only question was what to do with that time.

#3 is key.

Fortunately, I had a mental framework to filter the decision through:

Three goal-based considerations to make decisions easier

1. Consider all the options, both obvious and less obvious.

In this case, the two big options were to either taking a road trip to visit a few more states in pursuit of my bucket list goal, or see if we could meet up with a colleague for a few hours.

At the time, I was freelancing virtually and one of the women I worked with lived only a few hours from the conference, and it was geographically possible to meet up for a few hours.

Alternately, we could have stayed in Greenville longer and did some more local sightseeing, or taken a day to lounge at the hotel and sleep. Considering my kids were 3 and 1 at the time, sleep was tempting!

Related: Is the goal clear? 

2. How does each option fit the big goal?

If one is an obvious choice, go for it! In this case, while sleep was tempting, the opportunity to do something I couldn’t do at home won out. The consideration between traveling and meeting my colleague was a tough one. Traveling was the obvious bucket-list goal choice, but what about professional and relationship goals? Those are much fuzzier to quantify, but also incredibly important to me. The road trip was the easier option, but was it the right one? The next question made the call.

3. What extenuating factors may influence your decision?

In this case, my introverted self had just spent three days meeting a whole lot of new people and I was tapped out. While I would have loved to meet my friend in person, the road trip was a better fit for my mental capacity at that specific point in time.

I made the decision to go for the road trip and see a few extra states in pursuit of my big goal. In addition to the state we were staying in, we hit three extra states in one day. States are so much closer together on the east coast!

In this instance, priorities meant that I picked traveling over seeing more people, and seeing quantity over quality and depth in any one area. If you faced the exact same scenario, asking the same three questions above may end up with a different answer based on your priorities and extenuating circumstances.

There is no right or wrong answer. By considering these questions, you can move forward with intentionality knowing that you are making conscious choices. When you make conscious choices with goals in mind, you exponentially increase your chance of reaching those goals!

Related: On goal setting and habit formation

For the curious: I’ve got 13 years left to get to 10 more states.

2018: Goals + Word of the Year

Sarah · Jan 2, 2018 · Leave a Comment

Happy New Year! I’m more excited about starting 2018 than I have been at the beginning of the last several years.

Goodbye, 2017

While I ended the year on a good note, 2017 was a rough one. The year held some unexpected tough situations over which I had little or no control. For 2017, my word of the year was RENEW. I went into the year hoping/planning for RENEW to be more about rest and rejuvenation. The reality ended up being a lot more about making a conscious choice to shift my MINDSET.

Hello, 2018

Looking ahead to 2018, my husband Charles and I came up with a joint word of the year that we each feel really good about personally, as a family, professionally and generally across all areas of life. As we were discussing what our word should be, the immediate consensus was that it should be something around putting ourselves out there, trying new things and growing.

We both have a tendency to play it safe, but looking back, our greatest areas of growth came from the times we took risks. We want to take more risks, not by abandoning logic, but considering when it makes sense to take a calculated jump or a leap of faith.

As we considered words and phrases, we brainstormed a lot of words like dream, growth, skills, grit, challenges, adventure, resilience, get comfortable being uncomfortable, sharing, and presence.

Explore #2018 #oneword

We (finally) landed on EXPLORE.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

I recently ran across this quote that was theme of a freshmen orientation while I was in college. It’s now so much more meaningful (and true!) now than it was at 18, which was a full half my life ago now. Where does the time go?!

EXPLORE

At a macro level, we’re using the theme of EXPLORE as the lens to view everything that comes across our paths in 2018. We’ll ask, “Does this (whatever this is) help me EXPLORE or not?” If yes, go for it! If not, ditch it.

I love that EXPLORE can take on many nuanced meanings depending on the lens or area of life it’s being applied to.

EXPLORE… getting out of ruts.
EXPLORE… more analog and less digital.
EXPLORE… more presence.
EXPLORE… lower stress and more emotional space.
EXPLORE… more adventure, more tinkering.
EXPLORE… putting myself out there more.
EXPLORE… relationships and experiences above things (except when those things enable relationships and experiences)

Not to mention, the boys love exploring more than anything. The eyes of a four year old and a six year old remind us that exploring doesn’t need to be a massive undertaking. Exploring can be as simple as stopping to pick up and examine the frozen leaf on the sidewalk or discovering that that ledge makes a great table.

What does EXPLORE mean in terms of actual goals?

We are taking a quarterly (or 12 Week Year) approach to allow for flexibility since we all know how quickly life can change. All quarterly goals still ladder up to the theme of EXPLORE!

For Q1, those goals are:

Self-Development

  • Read 12 books, including at least 6 non-fiction. This goal is actually reading less than prior years with an intent to be more mindful of what I’m reading and to consider if reading is the best way I can EXPLORE at a given point in time.
  • Read daily from Harvard Classics in 365 Days. As the title implies, this is a daily reading from classic literature that’s billed to provide “a liberal education in a year.”
  • Daily Instagram posts. As an introvert and INTJ, it’s entirely too easy to have a 90% finished graveyard of content that’s not quite published. Posting daily to Instagram is a way to both focus on EXPLORE daily as well as put myself out there and share more.

Travel

Hopefully that’s a self-explanatory EXPLORE theme. 🙂 Travel goals for Q1 include:

  • A trip to Arizona this month for a friend’s book launch and annual non-profit board meeting.
  • One family weekend trip. We’re thinking Bend, but may change our minds.
  • At least three day trips out in the Land Rover. Trip #1 was January 1, so we’re well on track there!
  • Get passports! Mine is up for renewal, and the boys don’t have them.

Parenting
Goodness, how do you distill parenting into a goal?! Parenting was one of the areas that rocked our world in 2017, as we had some major unexpected behavior challenges with one of our kids that turned a large portion of my fall upside down. We’re in a much better space now, but this is one area we’re holding loosely in terms of specific goals. A few focus areas:

  • Saying yes more often
  • More reading aloud
  • Less television
  • Earlier bedtimes
  • A whole lot of prayer for our kids (and for our parenting wisdom!)

Relationships

  • Prioritize twice weekly at-home date nights, as well as one date-night-out per month.
  • Continue our a standing monthly group date with our neighbors. We started this last year with two of our neighbors, and it’s fantastic! We have an amazing babysitter who watches all the kids at one house. Since the kids are all at once house, we often do dinner and game night at one of the other houses, which makes it a cheap evening and still a lot of fun.
  • Have people over more often. We have great intentions here, but the reality of our schedules (plus two introverts!) means that it doesn’t happen nearly as often as we’d like. We haven’t set a specific frequency goal, but hope to figure out what makes sense at this stage of life.

Financial

Financially, EXPLORE means that we’re shifting our focus from frugality and debt reduction/elimination to increasing our net worth. I’m very risk averse financially, but can also see where I’ve spent so much time being frugal that it’s at the detriment of living life.

By focusing on increasing our net worth, we will put emphasis both on paying down debt (we’ve got auto loans + a mortgage) and investing in growth opportunities.

Q1’s specific goals are:

  • Do a January spending freeze on all non-essential items.
  • Review our overall budget and roughly map out big projects, purchases, savings and investments for the rest of the year.

Health

The lens of EXPLORE gives me a reason to focus on my health and weight loss: I know that I’ll be able to physically do a lot more exploring and adventures if I’m healthier.

  • Q1 health goal: to lose 3lbs per month. I’ll achieve this goal by doing one week per month on a no-sugar, low-carb diet and limiting sugar and carb intake the other weeks of the month. Sugar is my enemy!

Career & Business

From a career standpoint, EXPLORE is mostly about being comfortable in my own skin and putting myself out there. My personality type has the blessing and curse of always seeing what’s still left to be done or could be improved upon. This has led to me holding back at various points over the years, both intentionally and unintentionally. That has no place in the year of EXPLORE!

Q1’s career & business goals are mostly around figuring out exactly how and where I want to be spending my time and then planning accordingly. I’m currently feeling a bit stretched thin across my day job, blogging, volunteer roles and working with my husband on some business ideas he has. In order to be successful at any of it, I need to make some tough choices to focus and streamline.

Explore.Dream.Discover. | strategysarah.com

For all goals, done is better than perfect. I am excited to take an approach that’s all about exploration rather than driven by perfectionism. How are your goals looking this year? 

Why you shouldn’t set 2018 goals (yet) and what you should do instead

Sarah · Dec 4, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Published: early December 2017. We’re now well into 2018, so I hope you have 2018 goals set and in progress! 

In the last few years, it feels like the urgency of planning for the following year is starting earlier and earlier. This year, I started seeing a whole lot of “planning and goal setting for 2018” messaging as early as Thanksgiving. The marketing around goal planning seems to have ramped up almost as loud as holiday marketing in some circles.

Do I dare share I’m not planning for 2018 yet?

I’m not planning for 2018 yet. 

Quite intentionally. Maybe you shouldn’t either.

Let’s take a walk down memory lane. Just over 11 months ago to be exact. January 1 dawned bright and shiny (even if it wasn’t sunny) and we woke up feeling energized and ready to conquer the world.

How do those 2017 goals look now? Where have you been successful? Where do you need another nudge to cross the finish line strong?

If we’re going to plan in November and December, then really we should just make the planning year from November to November or from December to December, rather than from January to January.

The last thing I need during a busy holiday season is to layer one more major exercise into the mix. Especially when that has a high likelihood of coming at the expense of finishing strong in the goals I set for this year.

I’m really good at looking at the big picture and making plans. Making plans is fun. I have backup plans for my backup plans. Executing plans is much more challenging than making new, shiny plans. Most of us struggle with this.

Often, what we need more than lessons on how to plan are reminders and tools to actually execute.

I love this! Such a refreshing idea.

December is, or should be, about finishing 2017 strong. There is plenty of time in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, or (gasp) in January to plan for 2018.

I don’t have the brain capacity to intentionally focus on the holiday season, finish my 2017 goals strong and make a meaningful plan for 2018 at the same time.

Maybe you do, and that’s amazing. But if you’re like me and you don’t, that’s okay too.

Here’s the thing. I probably could carve out several hours now to plan for my 2018. I’m not going to. Here’s why:

Focusing on 2018 goals now feels a little like getting to mile 25 of a marathon and deciding that your energy should go to planning the next marathon you’re going to run, rather than giving every last thing you have to the marathon you’re currently running.

I want to finish this year’s marathon strong.

You won’t fall flat on your face if you don’t buy the latest big, fancy goal setting course and execute it all in December.

Where to focus in December

Review your 2017 goals

  • What have you already accomplished? Celebrate this!
  • What has fallen off the priority list? Decide now to drop it from the list and not spend any more mental energy here.
  • What needs one last surge to cross the finish line by December 31? Focus all of your energy here.

Celebrate the holidays!

This likely looks very different for each of us, and that’s great. 

Rather than holiday goals, I’ve got a Christmas Bucket List. With little kids, it’s been much more effective to make a list of things we want to do, with very few must-do’s and low expectations. There are a few key events that we’ve planned in, and the rest we’ll do (or not do) as time, energy and moods allow.

—

Regardless of when you plan for 2018, or any future milestone, don’t stop short of the current finish line. Don’t give up on the here and now in favor of the future. Planning is important, but so is being present in the present. You can do this!

5 ways to finish strong

Sarah · Oct 9, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Our boys ran their first race recently – a one mile fun run.

They started out strong, and kept up the pace surprisingly well. Not so surprisingly, they both hit a point where they were tired and slowed down. The four year old may have even sat down on the grass at the side of the trail at one point.

Each time they slowed down, something motivated them to get up and keep going. And when they decided to go again, there was no hesitation. We were running again at an all out sprint.

This cycle continued a few more times until we neared the finish line.

One boy was so excited to see the end that he sprinted through the finish line.

The other, a fair distance behind by this point, slowed down and stopped about 10 feet before the finish line. There were plenty of spectators on the side of the finish line, and he wanted to stop and celebrate with them.

It’s October. We’re 75% through the year, entering the final quarter, and approaching the home stretch.

How have you run your race this year? Did you have a clear goal at the beginning? Did you start your year at a sprint? Or did you pace yourself?

What do you need to reset to cross the end of the year finish line strong?

At this stage in the year, it’s common to think, “Oh, it’s almost the end of the year. I should start thinking about next year’s goals and so I can get a jump start.”

While it’s not a bad plan to think ahead, don’t forget to finish this year strong.

12 weeks is a long time.

Will you finish strong? Have a seat and watch the rest of the world pass you by? Stop just short of the finish line?

If you’ve already taken a seat (oh, so easy to do!), what can you do today to pick yourself back up?

At our fun run, it took some encouragement, but my straggling runner crossed the finish line, and then we celebrated!

If you’ve stopped short of the finish line, what will motivate you to take those last few steps?

If you’re still going strong, congratulations!

Personally, I have a tendency to start out most goals and new endeavors at a complete sprint. I’m gong-ho, but don’t pace myself and quickly stall out.

I’ve learned some simple* tips to finish strong.

*Remember, simple doesn’t always mean easy. Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do.

Five ways to finish strong

1. Recommit to your goal.

Review your list of yearly goals and pick ONE. If you didn’t set a list of goals for the year, there’s no better time than now to create one.
(You can use this exercise to review all your goals for the year, but go through the entire exercise one goal at a time.)

In the most cliche example in the world, my goal is to lose 5 lbs. And while it’s cliche, I’m pretty sure that losing 5 lbs over the holidays should count on the same level as losing 15lbs any other time of the year, right?! I am a sucker for all things pumpkin, as well as all the seasonal sweets and treats.

2. Make your action steps effort driven, not outcome driven.

Once you’ve identified your goal, determine action steps that are effort driven, not outcome driven. While my goal is a weight-loss goal, my action steps are all going to be things I can control. “Lose weight” isn’t an action. “Stop eating dessert” is.

3. Identify what you need to stop doing.

How are you getting in your own way and preventing yourself from achieving this goal? What actions are you taking that are moving you away from your goal, or keeping you stalled?
In my weight loss example, I need to stop stress eating (so much harder to do than it is to write!) and to stop eating dessert near bedtime.

4. Identify what you need to continue doing.

What’s working now? Keep doing these things!
In my weight loss example, it’s buying healthy convenience foods so that I don’t get hangry.

5. Identify what you need to start doing.

What are you not doing currently that would make an impact toward your goal? Remember to keep these small and manageable action steps. Don’t go too big, too fast. Find small wins.
Back to the example, three things I am going to start doing are: packing a lunch, drinking tea first thing in the morning instead of coffee and doing quick, 7-minute workouts 3-5x per week.

Learning to intentionally slow down at the beginning, and focus on consistency of effort rather than volume of output has will dramatically increase your productivity, stress levels and satisfaction.

What action will you take today to finish strong? 

 

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Welcome!

Sarah Parsons Hi, I'm Sarah and thanks for joining me! I believe that as working moms, we don't have to be exhausted trying to have it all. Sure, we juggle a lot. That just makes us expert project managers, problem solvers and simplifiers. And if you feel like you're not an expert at any of that, well, you're in the right place. It is possible to manage our time well and thrive - at work, home and play. Let's do this!
#3 is key.
This has been a game-changer for my afternoons! I'm so much more productive when I manage my energy and don't try to just power through the slump. #workingmom #manageyourenergy #timemanagement
31 Timesaving Tools, Tips & Templates | strategysarah.com

31 Timesaving Tips, Tools & Templates

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The views expressed on this site are those of Sarah Parsons only, and do not represent those of any employer or client past or present with whom I have worked.
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