Personal management – A musing Mulcahy

Sleep like your life depends on it (it might)

I recently spoke with a mid-level executive who told me they fall asleep on their laptop every night, usually around midnight. They then get up to conduct the day’s business starting around 5:00 AM. By any measure, this is chronic short sleeping. It made me wonder, what has gone so wrong with our understanding of the importance of a good night’s sleep?

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Be intentional to be fulfilled.

What a challenging, enjoyable, wonderful time to be alive. Distractions constantly bombard us. We are living through a global pandemic, a European war, and economic uncertainty and have a constant overload of technology, social media, and the daily grind. It is so easy for us to be reactive always – to drift from one thing to another. In my experience, and in that of my coachees, this can lead to a feeling of dissatisfaction, of being out of control. So what can we do to address this? We can be intentional in our actions, thoughts and decisions.

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Care enough to be constant

Life is a peculiar mix of the constant and inconstant. Our days are filled with variability, and yet, some things seem to remain the same. Our life span is such that the pace of change of certain things seems almost immeasurable. Despite this, as constant as certain things seem, deep down, we know nothing lasts forever.

Setting expectations

Life is full of interactions with others. We meet new colleagues at work, we build new relationships in our neighbourhoods, and we might be in a personal relationship that results in opportunities to set and meet expectations on a regular basis every day. Each of those interactions is an opportunity to strengthen or weaken the relationship with the other person. In many of the coaching and mentoring conversations that I have, it is clear that the ability to set and manage expectations successfully is a skill that many of us need to work on.

On Listening to Experts

I recently did something I’ve never done before. I moved a thermostat from one point on my hot water tank to another. I did this based on the advice of a plumber, an “expert” in these matters. Five minutes after I had done the work, my brain started to function, and I wondered why I had done it in the first place.

Advocating for yourself

I am working with several coachees at the moment, and one area that is a common focus, particularly for women, is self-advocacy. This topic can be problematic for people, especially those of us who prefer our work to speak for itself. When is it appropriate to make our needs, wants and accomplishments known, and what is the best way to do it?

Habitual badness

Many of my posts concern themselves with people management and leadership, topics I think about a lot. This one is a bit more personal, and I’m not quite sure where it will end up. It has to do with the nature of habit, the difficulty of maintaining good habits, and how easily we slip into negative patterns.