OG Tuesday Issue #172

Start your morning with this affirmation:

Today’s checklist: Explore your deepest wants, prioritize for real, complete a January challenge, and bookmark a resource for female founders.

Want is a fascinating thing.

We all have wants and they drive our behavior. They seem so crystal-clear in our minds, and yet, many of us don’t fully understand our wants.

Without this clarity, we can’t take focused action.

Pull out that shiny new journal you got for 2024, and give yourself some quality time to deeply reflect and respond to the following prompts.

You might be surprised by how much a little attention can clarify your path forward.

Self-revelation prompts for 2024:

⚡ Run better meetings with your team using this template. Make it a meeting to remember, with this team meeting agenda template in Figjam.

When you amp up your agendas with action plans, storyboards, and agile roadmaps, you can make every staff meeting—and every moment—count.

🔥 Pro-Tip: Use your business email to access hundreds of templates and invite collaborators for free!

1. General productivity is your true top priority.
We obviously love getting sh*t done. It’s empowering.

However, the simple act of checking things off a to-do list can be practically addicting.

Desperate to maintain that exhilarating feeling of getting things done, we may lose track of whether or not we’re getting truly important things done.

Snap out of a mindset that tricks you into thinking things are important just because they happen to be on your to-do list.

💭 Ask yourself the following question: What to-dos will truly bring me closer to my long-term goals and/or distance me from consequences or setbacks?

2. You’re not doing your “task math.”
What benefits does this task come along with? What problems or challenges does it cause?

To figure out what actions truly produce a net gain, imagine weighing your answers on a scale to determine which is heaviest.

Doing one thing might produce all kinds of benefits, but if it comes along with even more problems, well…you get the picture.

⚡ Priorities should be the actions that truly move you forward.

3. Things you’re working on somehow seem less important than new things that come up.
Some people call this “shiny object syndrome,” but that’s not necessarily fair.

People who succumb to this productivity pitfall aren’t necessarily easily distracted.

They might just be easily bored or crave constantly escalating challenges.

People tend to task switch because novelty is exciting. We crave it. It’s good for our minds.

🛑 However, it can block us from making significant progress toward our true priorities.

If you find yourself yearning to switch tasks, really think about whether or not the new thing is truly more important than the thing in progress.

If your honest answer is “yes,” then switch.

But! Be mindful of your overall patterns.

If you’re thinking of reasons to task switch again in about a month or so, then it might be a sign to buckle down.

4. You evaluate tasks individually instead of ranking them against each other.
Evaluating tasks individually goes against all the principles that makes ranking an effective way to get sh*t done.

Considering the relative value of all your tasks is what prioritization is all about.

You will always have more than one thing to do. They can’t all be priorities, even if you feel like you love them all equally.

Lining them up and giving them a good hard look may allow your favorites to emerge.

January can be cold and gray. You just want to stay cozy and comfortable. A little comfort-zone challenge might give you the burst of excitement and energy you need to take on everything 2024 has to offer.

Before January 31, we challenge you to do something outside your comfort zone.

Remember that comfort zones come in all shapes and sizes. You can complete this challenge in any way that feels delightfully uncomfortable to you. Being a little uncomfortable, and working through that discomfort, is really what this challenge is all about.

Discomfort tells our bodies and minds, sometimes erroneously, that something is dangerous. Challenging our reactions helps us avoid mislabeling legitimately positive things as threats.

Growing beyond our discomfort means we’re growing beyond our self-imposed limits.

Bookmark this organization.

SheScales has a mission to raise up female founders.

“Statistically, women-owned businesses perform better than those run by men,” reads a quote from SheScales CEO Michelle Cardinal on the org’s homepage.

“This may shock some, but as a women-led agency, this comes as no surprise to us. Despite their documented successes, why do women find themselves with fewer resources? SheScales aims to help shift the imbalance by providing free consultancy services and networking opportunities to the next generation of female marketing leaders.”

They just announced who they chose to back for 2023-2024.

It could be you in 2024-2025. (Just something to start thinking about.)

Watch the SheScales website for application updates.

📱App: If meditation and better sleep is what you seek, check out Headspace. Try the basic meditation course if you’re new to the practice, or the sleepcasts if you have trouble falling asleep. There’s something for everyone — plus you can try it for free for 14 days.

🔍 Platform: If you’re ever looking for a new doctor, dentist, therapist, etc., try looking on ZocDoc. We love that you can just plug in your insurance type and it gives you a list of covered providers in your location. Plus, you can also read reviews and ratings for the healthcare provider.

🤤 Snack: AshaPops in the Vegan Cheese flavor is making it into our carts at alarming rates. They also have other yummy flavors so try out the variety pack if you want to try them all.

🛠️ Tool: If you do any kind of social media posting on a regular basis, check out Planable for free. It helps you organize and schedule all your posts for different channels in one place, and let’s you collab with others easily.

❗Know of any job openings? Share it with our community here.