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How treading lightly can ease the burden of your to-do list
Picture this recent scenario I was faced with when working for a client of mine: a crucial piece of work landed in my inbox. It was a high-stakes project for the client—reviewing a brochure for a flagship product, one that played a key role in their sales funnel and one we need to go out after a webinar.
I’m deeply invested in my client’s success. We’re talking all in here.
When something like this comes up, the natural reaction? You clear out hours in your calendar, make endless to-do lists, and feel the weight of responsibility settle on your shoulders. You tell yourself, “This is big, and I need to treat it as such.”
But here’s the thing I’ve learned and that greatly helped me in this scenario:—approaching serious business with a heavy heart can actually work against you. My advice?
Tread lightly and with joy.
Easier said than done. Why is that so hard and how have I learned to change my mindset?
The Corporate Hangover
If you’ve ever worked in corporate, you know the feeling. I call it the corporate hangover—the temple-throbbing, heart thumping, anxiety inducing mindset we’re conditioned into when something critical comes up.
In corporate, handling a major task could look something like this:
Stakeholder meetings: Wrangle the people with the clout to make or break things
Nightmare project management tools: Setting up The Important Thing To Do on those inflexible platforms we all love to hate. If we don’t, computer says no.
Office politics: Keep a side-eye on the guy gunning for your job.
Busy, busy, busy: Spend half your time telling yourself you are too busy to do this project justice and the other half listening to people tell you how they are currently too busy to help.
Send-ophobia: Because one bad email means “Go back to square one.”
Well, we’re not in corporate anymore, Toto and now you work for yourself, you’ve got your metaphorical ruby sole trader slippers on: they are full of sparkly-light and the ability to crack on with stuff in the click of a heel (or three).
Lightness in Action
That high-stakes brochure came in at 3:40 PM with the webinar mid morning the next day.
My first thought? “This is important. It needs time. Headspace. Serious deliberation”
I felt the old corporate heaviness start to creep in.
But then I stopped myself.
What my client is paying for isn’t my ability to grind my teeth and stress. My client is paying me because she trusts me to use my expertise to get the job done well and because of the energy I help bring to her business.
So, I set a timer for 40 minutes. I refreshed myself on the document’s purpose, let my thoughts flow naturally, and dove into the work with focus and enjoyment.
You know what? It took me 20 minutes to complete the task, and I wasn’t rushed. I was fully immersed, gave it my all, and I am pleased with the results.
I spent the rest of the forty minutes ensuring the automation set up to deliver the document to webinar attendees was working. I emailed the client, letting her know we had time during our regular check-in early the next day to go over any tweaks. No back-and-forth. No late night email scramble.
Tread Lightly
Look, sometimes sh*t happens and you do have to work late on a Friday to get things fixed, through not fault of your own. And yes, that's a pain and a drag and a bore. But more often than not, tasks are just things that need doing and how you approach any task (even the painful ones) is down to you.
If you have a choice of ways to approach something, choose the one most likely to bring joy.
Still feeling that nagging pressure? Let’s chat. I’ve got plenty more cures for the corporate hangover, and I’m happy to share.