The Weekly Preview: A Source of Serene Productivity
Summary. Much of our stress as we navigate our days is induced by the bandwidth we use processing the growing number to-dos at any given time. On occasion this can go as far as inducing an underbelly of anxiety as our brains consider the potential scenarios derived from the number of unknowns - our brains can run amuck. But what If there was another way? What if there were practices we could put into place to manage the existential overheard at source?
Normalized Sunday Scaries
At the time of writing, most people will be familiar with the mindfulness app Headspace. As an avid user of the app for the best part of the last 3 years, I can vouch for the benefits it has to offer if you’re looking to build a consistent meditation habit. One thing I’ve noted lately is the focus on relieving stress, particularly on a Sunday. I found this notable as you’d expect Sunday would be the day when we’re most revitalized and therefore our stress would be at its lowest, however this clearly isn’t the case. Clearly the stress and anxiety experienced particularly on a Sunday, is common amongst most in western-leaning cultures.
We live in a complex world. It would be an oversimplification to attribute the cause of stress to any one item or theme but given the proportion of our time we spend in the working world, it’s not an irresponsible assumption to consider work as a key contributor. Therefore a cultural norm where the day we look towards the week ahead being a day of heightened anxiety is worth exploring.
The Source of Stress
If I think back to the times when I’ve been most anxious about my work, the source of anxiety was the thought of getting caught out by something - something I didn’t see coming. Yes, workload itself and other factors played a role, but I found the thought of getting caught out, was the real source of anxiety.
When you put this next to competing demands for your time and a growing list of requests and to-do’s, things can quickly become uncomfortably daunting. In my case, the ripple effect was a mild state of ongoing anxiety. Any state of inner calm or equilibrium was too easy to upset.
What is becoming apparent is that this is another shared experience in the human condition. And while this discovery is comforting, it points to a larger culture issue - most of us have an unencumbered windfall of incoming tasks many of which have the potential to grow tributaries of their own. We find ourselves in a scenario where our to-do lists are growing quicker than we have time to consciously and intentionally process. The result is a ceaseless background processing of to-dos. We’re constantly having to remember to remember all the stuff. And while the act of forcing ourselves to remember everything offers some comfort, it traps us in a cycle where we cannot switch off.
Put this way, you start to see the relationship between stress and the lamenting of a “switching-off” period - the weekend. On a personal level, typically the “switching-on” moment – the moment when I diverted my attention from leisure back to the continual processing mode – was met with an influx of data and anxiety. Like putting your thumb over a hose to stop a flow of water, the switching off period over a weekend acted like that thumb. As the background pressure built up, the Sunday marked the moment when that high pressure water – the endless list of potential to-do’s - was released back into conscious memory, thus the anxiety.
Luckily, on the individual level at least, there are processes and systems we can use to manage this.
A Window Into Stress-Free Productivity
When I first read Getting Things Done by David Allen, what struck me was the thoroughness of each step in the GTD process. The second thing that struck me and has since stuck with me, is the focus on developing what David Allen calls Mind Like Water - A mental and emotional state in which your head is clear, able to create and respond freely, unencumbered with distractions and split focus. I like to think of this as a sense of calm and mental stillness as you go about your day.
For those unfamiliar with the GTD method, the focusing principle is simple. Our brains are meant for having ideas, not for storing them. Therefore, developing a system for capturing, coordinating and executing projects and their associated to-do’s – outside of your head – is vital. The capturing part of this equation is critical. This is what forms the basis of mental stillness. It is what forms the basis of reducing stress and anxiety. The act of getting every single to-do out of your head with clear next actions is what releases the background processing power used – it is what provides the foundational steps towards a relief from stress and its many manifestations like the Sunday Scaries.
Once every project and the fullness of its lists or to-do’s is captured in a trusted system that you refer to regularly, only then is your mind free to function as it’s supposed to – to think of and about ideas and solutions. Your mind is free to be present with the here and the now free of the obligation to remember-to-remember. The next part of the process becomes maintenance, ergo The Weekly Preview.
Calm Clarity
Like sweeping your kitchen floor, our minds need the same treatment to maintain clarity and to reduce clutter. In this case our capture-all system is what we use to tidy up.
The first step in the Weekly Preview is exactly that - a clear up of all the clutter accumulated over the course of the week. The clutter being the various to-do’s you’ve picked up, from actions from meetings, notes in your notebook, to cancelling that annoying subscription. In this step we’re simply getting everything out of the various sparce locations, including the brain and into the trusted system, outside of the brain. We are reducing noise.
The next step is selecting what you want to get done over the next week. The period of a week isn’t prescriptive, but it’s become a general barometer for which most things inside and outside of work are coordinated. There’ll be limits to how far in advance you can see – sometimes you can’t predict what’ll be happening at 10am on a Thursday – but we can certainly plan for various contexts for which certain tasks will be done. For example, we’ll know that sessions of deep work will be carried out within the context of an undisturbed desk where you may need at least an hour to work. The phone call to your mum however, can be done within the context of a short walk home from the train station.
Crucially what we’re doing as we select what it is we’ll be working on, is selecting what we won’t be working on - intentionally. This is as powerful as it is focusing. It completely turns down the volume on those things that would normally be calling for your attention as you’re trying to be present working on something else. Or worse, when you’re supposed to be fully present with a loved one or friend.
Lastly, I like to reflect. I like to use a few simple prompts to assess whether things are going as planned and if not, what the key blockers are. It’s also an opportunity to assess what’s been working – something we’re not naturally inclined to-do, but is just as crucial as understanding what hasn’t been working
This simple series of steps done for an hour a week has allowed me find what I call a mental stillness as I navigate my days. It’s what’s allowed me to find a new stress-free relationship with my Sundays. And granted we do have varying levels of autonomy depending on the type of work we do, I would advocate trying this as a potential remedy to a busy and distracted mind. On a personal level the stillness, calm and clarity that have ensued are worth it.
