By proper, I mean:

• You left your office building
• It was approximately the middle of your workday
• You ate something
• You did not return for at least 30 minutes

The following do not count as a proper lunch break:

• Scavenging leftover breakfast pastries from another group’s meeting in the conference room
• Eating in front of your work computer while doing non-work things (kitten videos, personal email, etc.)
• Forgetting/neglecting to eat lunch and then going to Starbucks at 4pm

Reader, when I worked in an office I regularly did all of the above.   Many of my clients  - be they administrative assistants or executive directors - are also challenged by the seemingly  simple goal of taking a proper lunch break.

Why on earth would you want to take a proper lunch break?  Three reasons:

• Taking regular breaks improves productivity and focus.
• Turns out that sitting for too long every day is risky to your health and longevity.
• Research shows that distracted eating leads to overeating.  

Enough convincing – here are some strategies for taking a proper lunch:

Start with once a week.  Commit to getting out of the office for 30 minutes one day a week.  Work up from there.

Make it a date with yourself.  Plan ahead of time to do something nice for yourself.  Put it on your calendar, go somewhere you enjoy being, and don’t stand yourself up.

Make a date with someone else.  Plan to leave the office with a buddy – or meet up with a friend who works nearby – and it will be much harder to flake out at the last minute.

Leave your phone behind. Bring a book, a magazine, or maybe something from your “to read” pile, but give yourself a chance to unplug, get some fresh air, and disengage from your inbox while you eat.

Attach lunch to other outings.  Need to be out of the office for a morning meeting?  Tack 30 minutes onto the entry in your calendar and have a proper lunch on your way back.  Afternoon external meeting?  Leave 30 minutes early and arrive relaxed & fed.

Reframe lunch as increasing, not taking away from your time at work.  Nothing helps a productive morning become a productive afternoon like a break in the middle (see research above). And, much like when you get those great ideas in the shower, an unstructured and relaxed lunch can pay off in a creativity boost.

Start a lunch club.  Over at the National Organizing Institute blog, they have a great how-to on starting a lunch club, providing peer support and interesting meals, 5 days a week.

What are your strategies for taking lunch? What difference does lunch make in your day?

From my very first months in my first nonprofit job, where I was involved in fundraising, I learned from my mentors the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) practice of relationship cultivation leading up to “the ask.”

Here is a wholly fresh take on the art of asking, in the form of a phenomenal TED talk by the musician Amanda Palmer.  She’s talking to her fellow artists, but I think her insights fall into the “general instructions for enlightened living” category and certainly have relevance to nonprofiteers.

She says: Connect. Then ask without shame.

Connect.  Then give people the opportunity to support your work.

Connect.  There are people who will gladly underwrite what you are doing –  and who will be grateful for the opportunity to do so.

Asking isn’t always easy, but there is a way for it to feel fair, meaningful, and connected on both sides of the table.

Connect.

If you need to reconnect with what it feels like to do your best work – let’s talk. We can get you there!

It can take as little as 15 minutes to rise above the chaos and map out your day, and you don’t need to lock yourself in a room with a whiteboard to make it happen.  I’ve written before about the morning meeting with yourself, which involves taking the first few minutes at your desk to get a handle on what’s ahead.

Starting even earlier in her day, a client of mine does her daily planning ritual each morning during her subway commute. She calls it The Daily Coffee Check-In.  A parent who directs a national program on 3-day-a-week work schedule, she has to be strategic with her time in order to accomplish her work without it spilling over into her non-work days.  So, every workday, as she juggles her coffee on the train, she fills out this checklist:

The Daily Coffee Check-In:

1) What’s lingering in my mind?

2) What do I need for meetings today?

3) What must I accomplish that can’t wait until the next day in the office?

4) When can I devote time to this? Should I reschedule anything?

5) When do I need to leave today? What time may I have tonight/tomorrow if absolutely necessary?

With these five questions, she enters her day with clear intention, a sense of her bigger picture, and a plan for getting her work done.

Inspired by my client, I set out to design my own Coffee Check-In.  I came up with this:

Sarah’s Coffee Check-In:

1) What’s on my schedule today?  How do I need to prepare for each appointment?

2) Which non-urgent project(s) do I want to make some progress on today?

3) What must I do today in order to feel today was a success?

4) When will I take a lunch break?  When will I complete my work for the day?

5) What one thing have I been putting off that I will finally address today?

What questions would be on your morning coffee check-in list?

1.  Identify & make space for your top priorities first.
Identify your major priorities and make time for them in your schedule first. Then, make your lower priorities fit in around the big stuff. If you fill up your time with the little things, it becomes impossible to fit in the big things later.

2. Get everything out of your head and into a trusted system.
As David Allen says, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.” Get every nagging thought about something you have to do out of your head and onto a list or calendar.

3. If a task takes less than 2 minutes, do it now.
Don’t put off a small task for later if you could get it done now in 2 minutes or less.

4. Keep a list of next actions & start every next action with a verb.
Keep a list of the very next things you need to do. Each item should be as specific as possible and start with a verb. You are more likely to take action when you see “ask David about timeline for final report,” on your list than when you see something like “final report.”

5. Have a daily meeting with yourself.
Once a day (preferably at the start of your day), take 15 – 20 minutes to check in with your top priorities next actions list and calendar. Identify the 3-5 things you must do today to make the day a success.

6. Review everything on your plate weekly.
Take 60 – 90 minutes a week to review all of your commitments, assess the past week, and look ahead to the coming weeks. You will catch things that would otherwise slip through the cracks.

7. Use your “power hours” for your most brain-intensive work.
Figure out what time of day you are most alert, sharp and energetic. Do your hardest work then & save the mindless tasks for when you’re spent.

8. Charge your electronic devices outside of the bedroom.
Get your inbox out of your bed! Purchase an alarm clock if you’ve been using your phone & put your devices in the other room when you turn in for the night.

9. Create intentional time and space away from technology.
This can look like: blocking your internet access when you are writing, unplugging from all technology for 24 hours once a month, not looking at your phone between work and when the kids go to sleep, or sitting and focusing on your breath for 5 minutes a day.

10. Do what you say you’re going to do.
You’ll gain the trust, respect, and admiration of others – and yourself.

Here’s the challenge, which lasts for 24 hours from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday:

The day can jumpstart a more regular practice of unplugging, something I’ve written more about here, here, and here.

Want to give it a try?  Learn more and take the pledge here.

As a workflow coach to busy professionals, I get to see both the benefits and challenges of our ever-shrinking, instantly-syncing and always-buzzing technology.  The plus is that we can work from anywhere, anytime; the drawback comes when we are working everywhere, all the time.

The truth is that your inbox will still be accepting emails when you die. Will you choose to live in your inbox 24/7, or will you step away from time to time and be present in the messy, physical, relational world?

We have to get really good at choosing when we’re working and when we’re not. The radical act of unplugging – of intentionally turning off our devices for a few hours, days or even weeks – can have profound effects:

• Coworkers will see that you place boundaries on your time and adjust accordingly.  By not responding to work emails after a certain time of night, on the weekends, or on vacation, you signal that you respect your own time and that of your colleagues.

• Loved ones will appreciate your undivided attention. A dinner without text messaging and a day outside without email will not go unnoticed.

• You will grow to enjoy the alertness, calm, and productivity that comes from focusing on the present moment without attending to a blinking device.

If turning off your devices for even an hour seems like an impossible feat, here are some questions to get you thinking:

• What parts of your life could you experience more fully if you were to unplug?  What are the consequences if you don’t unplug?

• What one technology habit, if you changed it, would make the biggest positive impact on your life?

• Where in your day, week, or year, is it most important to you to you carve out time to disconnect from technology?

No one else will draw these boundaries for you.  The only person who can stop you from answering email 24/7 is you.  So, where will you draw the line?

The problem is that somewhere along the pursuit for 100% perfection, we face diminishing returns.  We wait to send an email until we get the wording right, and an opportunity passes us by.  While we’re stalling on completing a project to our own exacting standards, our boss or funder is wondering where it is.  And when we ask our staff member for the fourth revision on that fundraising letter, we can see their morale take a dive.

When I see perfectionism of any sort cropping up in myself or in a client, I’ve begun to ask:

For most of us, doing a 90% job is good enough – great, in fact.  (I admit for some , it may not be good enough — I have had surgeons as clients.  But for most 90% is just fine.)  Further, a conscientious perfectionist’s 90% may be 100% acceptable or even outstanding to her colleagues and supervisor.

Give it a try: let go of the 10% that exists between what you must do and how perfectly you imagine it can be done.  Then look around and see if the sky is falling.