by Dr. Amanda McKelroy | November 23, 2021
Have you ever been around a person who has odd habits? I don’t mean social awkwardness, I mean habits such as chewing with their mouth open or picking their nose while they talk to you… and I’m not talking about children. I briefly dated a guy with odd habits. It started long distance, and he seemed perfect. He was tall and handsome, successful in life, social and loved by everyone he met. Eventually, we were actually in the same place at the same time for more than a day… and my eyes were opened, in horror. There were no habits he had that were not avoidable, but he had no conscious awareness he had horrid habits such as smacking loudly when he chewed, reading the newspaper before the man of the house had a chance to, and having terrible communication and accountability skills like disappearing randomly without a word while the family was in the middle of an activity– we never knew if he had turned in for the night or would be right back! The running joke in the house was “where’s Waldo?” Even after we ended our dating relationship, he had no boundaries around our house. He lived in an apartment on the property and would come and go as if he lived in the main house, getting a cup of sweet tea, inviting himself for dinner, just hanging out without reading the room. I couldn’t get any space from him to get over him. The memories make me shudder.
Fast forward about a decade. Because of that dating experience, I chose to live at home for many years longer than the average young adult would. The day came, however, when it was time and I knew I would just have to come up with a way to be sure I had accountability for my home-life habits.
I have a guest coming to stay at my house for the weekend. Knowing this, I’ve been considering my home-habits and routines. How much time I waste on social media, how loud I am, if I leave lights on when I’m gone or candles burning, etc. It’s amazing the ridiculous habits you can slip into when there is nobody to call you out on them. It makes me wonder what habits as a leader I’ve fallen into that aren’t the best – all because nobody will challenge the boss lady on how wise her choices are. For me, this is one of the hardest parts of being single. I don’t want to morph into a weirdo. But nobody is going to examine my habits for me – as a single lady or as the boss lady. It is my responsibility to take account for my own actions.
What habits have I fallen into that aren’t bad, aren’t unethical or wrong, but aren’t the best? Once upon a time I believed that I had to be present at my organization all day, every day: I thought I should be the first to arrive and the last to leave. Over the years I’ve learned to work smarter not harder and have developed a team to share the load, leading to higher productivity and greater ability to predict and adapt to change. It’s the concept of good, better, and best. Are my current leadership habits only good, or are they the best? Do they serve the organization’s goals first and foremost or have they morphed into narcissistic tendencies?
Every few months I take a day or two to re-organize my office, brain, and to-do lists. I pull out all the clutter that has accumulated and deal with every piece of paper. I refresh my recurring to-do tasks and examine my current balance and work flow. Over the years I have learned that the more organized and planned I am the better I function, the less stress I have, the more energized I remain, and the less likely I am to develop habits that are simply not the best for my organization or myself as a leader. When was the last time you looked at every drawer in your desk and dealt with anything that wasn’t in it’s own place and organized? It’s quite liberating and refreshing to know you don’t have a junk drawer, and that every piece of paper lying about it assigned to a task list.
Right now, I’m in the middle of this. This year overall, I have done a better job of addressing one drawer at a time instead of tearing through the whole office in a few days and it has been much better for my brain. Every month I have picked a different piece of the desk or office to re-organize. Throw out the old, verify everything present is needed and in the proper place (sometimes there’s a better place to store things than in our desks). This month my focus is on my schedule. I have gotten into a few habits that aren’t bad, and I quite like, but I don’t believe they are the best for my organization at this present time.
Habit 1: We are open from 7a to 5:45p and an administrator must be present all hours of the day. I have two key administrators that split the shift, allowing me to have freedom of schedule which I dearly love. I’ve found there is a balance between feeling like I should be the first to arrive and last to leave and finding myself in adrenal failure because that’s an extremely long day and typically is fueled by excessive amounts of caffeine. For the past year, I have made running every week day a priority and worked my schedule around that priority. I run trails only, so I cannot run until daylight each morning. I’ve learned that if I run first thing in the morning before coming into the office I can be sure the run will be accomplished no matter how crazy the day gets. The downside to this plan is that instead of being at the office early in the morning for opening hours, I roll in around 9a, depending on how far I ran that day. This schedule has been very healthy for me this past year, allowing me a dedicated hour or so of mental refreshing every day when I tend to hash things out in my head. However, the past little while I feel that the perception of my staff is that I am “late” for work if I am not in by exactly 9a. It is my responsibility to set an example for my staff that is the epitome of what I expect from them, and tardiness is not on the expectations list. Now, I am not actually tardy because I set my own schedule based on the day’s demands. However, if my staff think I am tardy I lose respect and with that I lose influence. So I am going to shake it up starting, well, today. I am going to be in the office early and then have a dedicated time of the morning when I run and my schedule cannot be taken hostage. That way I can see all of my staff as they trickle in for their shifts, say hi, check in, and gauge the attitude temperature of the day, and above all else set a good example. I’m a hard-working person, but a lot of what I do is behind the scenes. The habits that keep me from being highly visible for my staff aren’t bad, but right now they are not the best, so I will adjust my habits to better ones that are beneficial for my staff, even though it is not my preference.
Habit 2: A primary function of my position is to be the big-picture person. Always examining if our current systems and focus is taking us toward our long-term goals. One of our larger long-term goals that has many moving parts involves staff training. I spent five years in graduate level studies learning how to properly conduct research and recognize good research so I can write excellent training curriculum for my staff. Excellent curriculum in my industry can be difficult to find, and I’m a nerd who loves to write. My board fully supports me focusing on studying and writing, but to do this I need undisturbed time or I lose thoughts that will never come back to me. This need results in my shutting my door and “locking myself in” for sometimes hours at a time. But I also have many things on my plate that can be unpredictable, so my schedule is different every day and I have not had a dedicated time for my study, it happens when I can get to it. As a whole, this is not a bad habit, so long as my door is open and I am available to my staff more than I am locked away. But recently I haven‘t had a dedicated time for this and sometimes when I am trying to focus and study they feel they need me and don’t respect the concept of the shut door. I don’t want to get upset with my staff for interrupting what I consider to be a very important piece of my day, so I am going to re-work my schedule so that there is a dedicated time of day and everyone knows when it is when I am simply not available even though I am in my office. Since I am adjusting my running schedule so I am in the office early in the day, that will be my time. First thing in the morning after I have checked in with my staff and they are headed about their own day, I can shut myself away and have a protected time without making the staff feel that I don’t want to talk to them because they interrupted me.
Learning how to have productive work habits is a simple but often difficult process. Boss life doesn’t stop for us to learn new behaviors, so we have to learn as we also handle our day to day responsibilities. There are several books that have greatly helped me learn new habits that are truly effective for me and help me make the most of the day and have a system of habits that help me ward off ones that aren’t helpful and maintain ones that push me toward leadership excellence.
Reading Recommendations:
- Ordering Your Private World – Gordon MacDonald
- Focuses on making sure your private life is getting the same attention and organization as your public and professional life.
- Getting Things Done – David Allen
- Computer software called Omnifocus was created based on the concepts of this book. I personally have used it for many years and have found it exceedingly helpful for having a place to capture miscellaneous thoughts that can later be organized into projects and task lists. As a person who struggles to turn off my brain when I’m not at work, this has enabled me to have true mental downtime.
- 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management – Kevin Kruse
- Filled with stories of productive individuals and how they apply time management principles to their lives. Gives a variety of ideas for habits to be more organized and productive.
- I Know How She Does It – Laura Vanderkam
- Teaches the importance of planning and tracking your time to show where you could improve and if you are spending the correct amount of time on the correct things. Discusses planning strategies for work, home, and self.
