Has it ever happened to you that you made your to-do list, you decided on your outcomes, why you needed them, and then prioritized everything accordingly, and then when you wanted to start with item number 1 you...absolutely did not feel like doing that item?
In fact, you'd rather do anything BUT that item number 1?
Actually, item number 7, which you didn't want to do yesterday, all of a sudden looks like soooo much fun?
It happens to me all the time. In fact, I can count on it. If I prioritize something with number 1, I absolutely know that it will not be the first thing I do, unless the world will otherwise come to an end. I will do items number 3, 4, 7, and 8, and I will greatly enjoy doing them BECAUSE I am doing them INSTEAD OF DOING item number 1, but I will not do item number 1.
Tomorrow, when I have prioritized items 2, 6, and 9, THEN will I greatly enjoy doing item number 1, because I am doing it INSTEAD OF DOING items 2, 6, and 9, which I had prioritized.
What does that look like in practice? Take my to-do-list from the last couple of weeks.
Last week, item number 1 on my priority list from Monday to Friday was to send all tax docs to my accountant. Guess what I didn't do - instead, I wrote wonderfully creative things for the presentation video I wanted to make AFTER I got the docs together for the tax return. On Saturday, I had scheduled to actually film the presentation. I woke up and felt entirely non-creative, so guess what I did all day? Got the docs for my tax return and sent them to my accountant until 11pm at night.
Today, I was supposed to first edit the video and then film some things. Instead, I booked a hotel and sorted out my flights (which I had wanted to do last week), practiced singing (which I should have been doing the previous two weeks), memorized a new song (which I had planned for 4 weeks), and THEN prepared the video.
So, in fact, I did none of the things I SHOULD have done according to my plans.
I used to beat myself up about that. In fact, there are people, very successful people, who would not approve, all of them fuelled by masculine energy. Yet, all the things on my to-do-list got done, and what's even better, I HAD FUN DOING THEM, because I felt like a rebel. That means the results, the outcome of my efforts were also much better than if I had forced myself to do things in order when I didn't want to.
Maybe my way of working is simply the feminine energy way of working - going with the flow of the energy, rather than forcing it down a certain path, as masculine energy would do. I still make sure everything is done on time, I just leave flexibility on when to get what done and how - and sometimes, that means I find paths that I could not have planned, because I would not have seen them. Such is the nature of improvisation - it looks unplanned and chaotic, but intuitive project management is anything but - there is order in the chaos, it can just not necessarily be perceived by the left brain yet, sometimes the right brain needs to lead. Surprisingly, this can lead to successes that the left brain would not have thought possible - and I have seen that in practice in projects that were deemed impossible to achieve by left-brain lead managers - and yet, the project was a success!
Work can be a lot more fun and a lot more effective when we accept our own strengths and run with them.
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