How many times have you started your week overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work staring you in the face? From your professional to your personal responsibilities, your schedule can easily have you going insane before you even begin your day, especially as a working woman and mom. Even worse, it can make or break your productivity and efficiency, and even alter your mental state in too many negative ways to count. As a recovering perfectionist working mom on the mend, I know all too well the toll that overcommitting yourself can take on anyone. Regardless of how competent, energetic, or indefatigable you may be, spreading yourself too thin is the perfect recipe for overwhelm, exhaustion and ultimately burnout.
There are many reasons why working women, especially overachieving ones, tend to overcommit in their families, careers and even friendships and other relationships. The root cause stems from an inability or difficulty to set appropriate limits and boundaries. For most, it even goes back to childhood, as girls are generally socialized to be accommodating, helpful and polite, often to avoid appearing selfish, self-centered or uncaring. This in turn breeds endless guilt on the part of women who cannot seem to say no. In many instances, over-commitment in overachieving women can stem from insecurity or pride.
If any of the above sounds familiar, you are certainly not alone. A 2019 study from leadership training company VitalSmarts finds 3 out of 5 individuals agree to do more than they can actually achieve in their available time. 1 in 5 people admits to have reached their limit in terms of commitments. Side effects reported as a result of over-commitment range from acute stress, anxity and worry, to draining feelings of defeat and overwhelm. Even more concerning yet, 44% of this study’s participants confess to not being fully present with their loved ones half of the time, with 37% admitting to being rarely if ever present. In the case of working women, this over-commitment is rarely ever truly rewarded, just by the sheet weight of breadth of expectations and demands on their time and energy.
How to do you keep then from overcommitting yourself when demands and expectations pile up? It’s a question that like so many working women and moms, I’ve struggled with and still wrestle with regularly. Like so many, I’ve tried it all, from attempting to delegate more, to building a not-to-do list, to even attending productivity workshops. Many of the techniques advertised out there would work for some time, until I would revert back to my packed to-do lists and compulsive “yes” habits.
When I read about the rule of 3, which basically consists in using 3 words as a figure of speech to communicate an idea, reflecting a rhetorical technique from ancient Greece, I started applying it to various areas of my work. It wasn’t until a while later that I started applying it to my own schedule, using these 3 guiding steps:
- Identify 3 areas of Purpose
This first step requires much introspection and reflection before even engaging in it. If you take a look at your to-do list, you may notice that it runs the gamut, from picking up the dry cleaning to finishing the quarterly financial presentation. This can make it hard to focus on what is most important and most impactful. Notice I didn’t mention “most urgent”. In the times we live in, everything is mistakenly deemed to be urgent, from picking up a random phone call to having your brain “picked” at the drop of a dime.
This is where the “Rule of 3” comes in. After much reflection and self-audit, can you consolidate your commitments into 3 main areas? These are what I call the three areas of Purpose. These are intentional areas regrouping your most important and most impactful commitments. If you work as an auditor with a side consulting practice, your three areas of Purpose may be Audit, Consulting and Personal, for instance. My three areas of Purpose are Teaching, Writing and what I call my Sacred Zone, which includes my spiritual, personal and family commitments. What are your three areas of Purpose?
- Streamline 3 main goals per area per day and/or week
If you look at your daily to-do list and you have upwards of 15 commitments to uphold, you may be burning yourself out. As a matter of fact, at any given moment, you may not even remember what those are. Instead, streamlining your commitments by area of Purpose, and limiting them to three per area of Purpose can help you accomplish more, minus the overwhelm and stress eating.
What are three main goals you can tackle today in each one of your areas of Purpose? If consulting with clients is one of your Purpose areas, then Mondays may be dedicated to planning, email and administrative tasks, while Tuesdays may be focused on client calls, meetings and networking, for instance. Picking a theme under which to place each day’s commitments may also help in this streamlining process.
- Use the AIR criteria:
The following three crtieria and questions, can help to identify and confirm your areas of Purpose and commitments within each area:
- Alignment: Is this area or commitment aligned with my role, skills and sense of Purpose?
- Impact: Does this area and/or commitment create the most desired impact?
- Real Growth: Is this area and/or commitment contributing to my growth?
Last but not least, keep in mind this is a growing, living, breathing process. The most important metric to consider here is progress, which makes it important to review your process daily. I’m constantly looking at better ways to streamline my commitments and areas of Purpose to create more impact, but also to achieve the ultimate freedom, that is time freedom.
Would you or are you using the Rule of Three to streamline your schedule?
The Corporate Sister.
