I don’t know if you are having the same issue, but

All of a sudden my January calendar is really full.

How did that happen?  I thought I was “off” for the month! I only have to begin teaching on March 1st! 

Well, add a conference I am involved in this week - https://live.strongernetwork.com  , correcting semester exams (about 80 of them), and a training week (for me to be even further trained) near Geneva at the end of the month, and the days and weeks in January are more than full, they are overflowing!

And that makes me happy.  I will not be bored 

The How of productivity without overwhelm:

How do I keep from feeling overwhelmed, even if the activities are mostly great?

I use a couple of coaching tools on myself. One is the Eisenhower Matrix and one is writing everything down- on the family calendar, on my electronic calendar, writing it in my to-do journal…

The Eisenhower Matrix is great:

It helps me to separate the important from the urgent, and then, when the urgent is not important, maybe someone else can do it.  But something that is both important and urgent gets done immediately.  This means I am working RIGHT NOW on my interview on Wednesday afternoon with Stronger Network (see above).

It also means my taxes, although important, can wait and be worked on in February or so, as they are not yet urgent.

When I write things down… 

I plan and visualize with lots of writing to get things “down” and out of my head.

Every week I look at my week and write a master plan, plus blocks of “creative down time” if at all possible.

Then, every morning before my day starts, I re-consider my day and consider how it will go, who I will speak with and I make a positive plan. I may write more things down, depending.

What about you?

When you are full up, what are your coping mechanisms?

How to you keep space for your creative juices to keep flowing, yet have a balance of busy and not-busy to keep your brain at the ultimate level of “flow”?

I look forward to the rest of this month, and should you need some, coaching or supervision, I would be happy to meet you…(online OR in person in Baden, Brugg, Aarau or Zürich) in February. 

Patricia Jehle   patricia@jehle-coaching.com