The blog

We are approach­ing one of the times dur­ing the year when most of us take a longer con­tin­u­ous break. It might as well be the sum­mer vaca­tion, but right now it’s the Christ­mas hol­i­day.?? Dur­ing these breaks, a nat­ur­al pause occurs and we stop to digest every­thing we’ve done recently.

Take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to focus and aim

Once we’re back at work again, it’s the per­fect time to do a real take­off to start off the inten­sive work that lie ahead of us, until it’s time for the next break. When we’re in the mid­dle of two vaca­tions, it’s easy to focus on work­ing only with the details. It can be dif­fi­cult to put things in per­spec­tive when there are so many things we need to get done.??So, take the chance to estab­lish a clear direc­tion for the com­ing six months to sum­mer, when you’re back at work after New Years.

Do this

1. Book one or a few hours to be alone with your­self in dur­ing the first day back at work after the vaca­tion right away.
2. Dur­ing this time, study the vision you have pre­vi­ous­ly cre­at­ed and aimed at. Per­haps it’s about the busi­ness you run, per­haps it’s relat­ed to where you want to go in your pro­fes­sion­al life. Think about whether you still real­ly want to achieve this vision or if you would rather do some­thing else. Would you like to refine and adjust it in some way? Are you on the right track or is the busi­ness head­ing in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion? What do you need to do the next six months to be able to move in the direc­tion you’ve chosen?
3. Also make it clear to your­self what tar­gets, goals, key fig­ures or mile­stones that deter­mine what is impor­tant in the next six months. It’s only when you know what you’re aim­ing at and how you envi­sion the path to get­ting there, that you can pri­or­i­tize cor­rect­ly amongst every­thing you have to do and every­thing that shows up unexpectedly.
4. Take a minute to think about what major projects or ini­tia­tives you’ll need to run in the next six months in order for your busi­ness to attain the long term vision. If they’re not already on your project overview, make a note of them there and define the first con­crete step for each of these newcomers. 
5. Reflect upon the six months that passed and how you’ve worked. If you would change some­thing with regards to your per­son­al struc­ture and do some­thing dif­fer­ent­ly in the next six months, what would it be???It could be about: 
   • how you store all the mate­r­i­al you do not know when you might need, but you want to be able to find as quick­ly as pos­si­ble with­out look­ing for it once you need it.
   • how you frag­men­tize your to-dos and illus­trate them con­crete­ly, or how you store them so that you have them in one and one place only, and there­fore eas­i­ly can get an overview of what they are and can pri­or­i­tize with ease among them.
   • how you work with your e‑mails, for exam­ple how to con­tin­ue to work more active­ly to ensure that the sub­ject line is mod­i­fied and updat­ed even in long e‑mail con­ver­sa­tions, so that the sub­ject line real­ly describes what the e‑mail is about.
   • how you store those e‑mails you want to keep, in the same loca­tion as the oth­er dig­i­tal doc­u­ments relat­ed to the same project, client or subject.
   • how you once a week do a thor­ough run-through to get a good view of where you’re stand­ing right now, how far you have come, what you have to do, what mate­r­i­al you’ve got and what items you have float­ing in the air.
   • how you in your agen­da reserve time for you to work with any tasks that need to be com­plet­ed before a cer­tain deadline.
6. Also reflect upon the busi­ness you work in. What would you like to do dif­fer­ent­ly in the next six months, com­pared with the recent­ly passed six months?

Make it tan­gi­ble and pre­pare to shoot

If you decide to make a change, make it tan­gi­ble by cre­at­ing to-do tasks, agen­da appoint­ments, check­lists, reminders or some­thing else, so it doesn’t just remain a good idea. Make it easy for you to get to it and make the changes you envi­sion and want right now.?

How do you start off?

How do you do to get a good start on the com­ing six month-period? 

Feel free to leave a com­ment below!