“Congrats on the new role!,” was the genuine excitement I shared on the news of a professional connection’s promotion, “It’d be great to catch up and hear about it.”
To his credit, he responded immediately: “Thanks! My calendar is pretty full, maybe in six months?”
Six months! (Was it actually six months? Who knows? I just recall being jaw dropped by the proposed timing.)
Now I’m all for appropriate boundaries, but given the scenario and the context of our relationship—just how “busy” must one be to push off a professional check-in six months into the future?
Beyond busy.
And since you, dear reader, in all likelihood, also keep a beyond busy calendar, perhaps you’ve come to a similar realization … it seems we’ve missed the memo on a key tenet of progress: dedicated time to think and do. In other words: the space necessary to do the work.
It’s enough to ask: How does anyone have time to get important work done?
Introducing: The Work Workout
Answer: the Work Workout, a framework for ensuring meaningful progress at work through a proven approach of blocking and boxing: blocking your calendar and boxing your time.
Here’s why it works:
- Whether our calendars are back-to-back or not, our days are full, the distractions abound, and the priorities aplenty. When working out work problems, sustained focus can be a key to processing, identifying next steps, and even breakthroughs.
- With a time-imposed stopping point—in contrast to a fixed-scope, defined-solution—however far you get in working through something is as far as you’re going to get. For now. It’s time to try the thing or come back to it in a future work workout.
Here are three examples of how I have used Work Workouts recently:
- Slide development – I work at an organization where change is initiated through slides. So creating compelling decks that thread the needle of the needs of multiple stakeholders is a currency of sorts. Ninety minutes of “quiet” with funky tunes, focus, and the ability to iterate without distraction for the creative act of storytelling is a recipe for a hyper-productive session.
- Practice – As someone who presents and facilitates often, I’m always wanting to improve my presenting and facilitating. Recently the dreaded umms and uhhs found their way back into my performances. I’m making an effort to practice prior to presenting or facilitating using the Work Workout to rid them from my vocabulary.
- Peer coaching – My friend called me with a work problem. We proceeded to explore the issue, define an intended outcome, and determined next steps through my questions and her reflections.
While I once thought the Work Workout should be reserved for the exceptional and critical, I’ve actually found it to be a spectacularly flexible framework to make intentional change happen on just about any front—from solving a problem, to navigating a specific situation, to seizing an opportunity, to taking control of your growth and development, to figuring out what to do next, to dedicated time to “just” think and do …
… because at its most basic, a Work Workout creates space to do just that.
Cool Down, Work It Out, Warm Up
The Work Workout uses a reverse personal fitness metaphor. Here’s how it works:
First, there’s a cool down. Separate yourself from the minute-to-minute of day-to-day work. Block the calendar. Silence your phone. Turn off email notifications. Turn on the tunes. Tie your walking shoes. Do what you need to do to get focused and into an exploratory frame of mind.
Next: work it out. It’s the time and space for reflecting, thinking, researching, trying, doing, etc.
Then a warm up. Decide what you’re going to do and make a plan to do it. What/by when is my go-to method for action.
So is it as simple as:
- identifying the need,
- blocking the calendar,
- setting an intention,
- cooling down,
- working it out, and
- warming up?
Sometimes simple is what we need.
Put Work Workouts to Work
I’ve been facilitating work workouts for more than fifteen years over happy hours, coffee klatches, and the mobile phone.
They weren’t called work workouts at the beginning because I hadn’t yet realized people were deliberately coming to me when a thing at work needed to be worked out.
When I did, I started calling it a Work Workout to capture what we were doing together: working out things at work.
“Things,” of course, happen every day at work. So it was at that moment I realized the Work Workout could do a lot more.
“Things” + beyond busy + the next obligation just around the corner make the Work Workout an important tool in any healthcare professional’s get-things-done repertoire.
Because the Work Workout is a take action, horizon-expanding, progress-making framework. It’s designed to facilitate intentional change in work situations, enabling individuals to solve problems, navigate challenges, and pursue opportunities. I’ve most used the Work Workout in a 1:1 setting, and it also works in team settings, in tandem with a colleague or trusted advisor, and as a solo activity. It's meant to be completed over lunch at its quickest, at happy hour in its most supportive form, or an afternoon when some deep attention is required.
Work Workouts create time and space for the important work—however you define it. It can be impressive what can be accomplished with intention, with focus, and without distraction. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it. And now you can, too.
A Little Extra: Adding Routines to the Mix
This simplest use of the Work Workout, blocked and boxed time to think and do, is much like a walk or a jog—the go-to workout when time is limited and you need to get your body moving. When we need something more, like improving a skill, or making a decision, or preparing for a big presentation, or plotting the necessary steps to make change happen we can add a routine, an organized sequence of steps to help you work out a thing, to the Work Workout.
Doing [the thing] Routine
So, for example, say you read something in a newsletter and you think, “that’s something that will help my work day,” and begin asking yourself, “how do I make this happen?”, “where’s the right place to do this?”, “what do I need to make this work?”
These are good questions. To transform a good idea in our heads into something we do in practice, we can use the Doing [the thing] Routine. After cooling down, work it out:
- Specifically, what's [the thing] I am going to do?
- Where are the "places" (on the calendar and/or in a particular setting) where I plan to do [the thing]?
- Pick one place to do [the thing] and visualize doing it:
- What are the step-by-step actions required to complete [the thing]?
- What does successful completion of [the thing] look like in this setting?
- Do I need to make preparations to enable success?
- What resources (tools, information) do I need?
- Do I need to inform or involve anyone?
- What reminders or triggers can I set up to ensure I follow through?
- What resistance might I experience? Can I address any proactively?
- How will I check in on progress while doing [the thing]? After I do it?
Now warm up by making a plan and committing to doing [the thing].
James Clear’s Habit Loop Routine
Work workout routines can be supremely helpful. And they’re everywhere when you start to look. Here’s a popular one: James Clear’s habit loop.
Habits are a product of cues, cravings, responses and rewards.
The reward is what we’re after. It’s the end goal of the habit. And it’s delivered by the response.
The response is the activity of the habit. It’s what we want to do. Whether or not it happens depends on your motivation to perform the activity. That’s what makes the craving important.
Because the craving is the motivation behind the habit. We must desire a change in our internal state in order to act. And a craving is always triggered by a cue.
The cue is the signal that a reward is close. It initiates the habit loop. We can rely on cues to initiate the behavior change we’re looking for.
Here’s the routine:
- What habit am I building?
- Cue:
- What trigger will initiate this habit?
- Where and when will this cue occur in my daily routine?
- Craving:
- What desire or benefit is driving me to build this habit?
- Response:
- What exact actions will I take in response to the cue?
- How can I make these actions as easy as possible to perform?
- Reward:
- What immediate reward can I give myself after completing the habit?
- Implementation:
- Note the cue-craving-response-reward habit loop.
- How will I track my consistency in performing this habit?
Plus/Delta (+/Δ) Routine
Here’s one more. Plus/Delta (+/Δ) is a retrospective evaluation tool that can be used to reflect on a scenario or performance once it has concluded, such as after a presentation, a project, or a difficult conversation. The idea is to take note of what went well and identify opportunities for improvement.
Here’s the routine:
Divide a sheet of paper in two, label one section +, the other Δ.
For +, record answers to the question: What went well?
For Δ, record answers to the question: What could be improved?
Reflect on insights and lessons learned and decide if any follow-up actions are required on improvement opportunities.
You likely even have a few routines of your own. It might be worth spelling them out explicitly, adding them to a work workout routine library, and getting even more use out of them.
