Work Sprints & The Universe Conspiring in Your Favor
Work Sprints & The Universe Conspiring in Your Favor
The Goal Achievement Podcast, hosted by Productivity Expert Matt East, is all about helping you find clarity, design a plan, and most importantly achieve your goals.
During today’s episode:
A listener asks, “I've had a string of bad luck and I was wondering if you had any ideas that could help me keep a positive mindset through it?”
Work Sprints
My daily 6 list update
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Episode Transcription
This is episode number 27.
Welcome to the goal achievement podcast. I'm your host, Matt East. Thank you so much for joining me. This podcast is all about helping you to find clarity, design a plan, and, most importantly, achieve your goals. Now let's dig in
Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you guys are all doing well. I think we have a great show today. that may be overselling it a bit. I think we have a pretty darn good show today. We're going to talk through work sprints. So what is a work sprint? A listener asks I've had a string of bad luck, and I was wondering if you had any questions.
That could help me keep a positive mindset. So we'll touch on that too. And of course, we'll chat through my we're going to very quickly chat through my daily six list today. And, yeah, let's dive in. Oh, also, I should mention this. I've received some suggestions from you guys, from listeners, for the building a habit series and, topics that I have been the, have been sent in or suggested are.
To do a recording around meditation, waking up earlier, reading and writing in a journal daily, being grateful, exercise, drinking more water, and setting your priorities for the day. If you have any other suggestions, let me know. I'm going to be really tearing into those and recording them. I'm going to try to record all those prior to that.
New year's is that possible? I don't know. That's a di don't want me to do that. I'm going to record some of them prior to the new year and, some might bleed over to 2019, but I was, I'd love to get them done sooner than later. And, I will start working on those, probably later this week, maybe even for tomorrow's show.
We'll see. So let's dig in on work sprint. So what's a work sprint. So if you're working on a big project or just trying to solve a big problem, or maybe you have an idea for something you're trying to articulate, you need to figure it out. Doing a work sprint can help you get started and stay focused, and make substantial progress in a very short timeframe.
So it's a process that. A work sprint is basically a process that helps you to focus on one big thing for a short period of time. And it's usually work-related. You just try to make way more progress in a brief time span. Then you would, if you would, work, say over a course or a month or two, so maybe you just work like on something you really concentrate for about five days or four days or three days or two days.
And, and you give it like all of your attention or, virtually all of your attention for those days, while you're working and, it can, sometimes it can just be really difficult to find that. Willpower and energy to focus on what's really important with your work. Just cause it's so easy to get consumed with responding to emails and going to meetings and just doing all those little things.
A work sprint is not necessarily just about speed. It's also about building momentum and really being able to focus on just like your most important work or your most critical project for just a brief period. As I said, Springs can be done for virtually any length of time.
I've done them before for five days. I've done them for one day. So one day, two days, one-week sprints, I've done all of that up to one week. And I would just say, if you do a sprint, try to clear your schedule. To allow large blocks of time to dedicate to the item that you're going to be focusing on.
And one thing I've noticed with a work sprint is it's an amazing way to just help me get over the initial hurdle of getting started. So I don't know. I just feel a lot of resistance sometimes in getting started. And once I start, I'm good to go. No big deal, but I love work sprints. If I'm dealing with resistance in getting started. So when you know something big needs done, it can be really tough to dig in, but I have found that sprints can really help me out. Also, I've noticed, they force quicker decision-making because I'm usually trying to make significant progress on, let's say it's a three-day sprint.
It just forces me to try to like, if I'm, saying building a website in three days, it just forces me to make decisions. And, it's what Seth Godin calls shipping of forces you to ship your work and just deal with it not being perfect necessarily. And it should be mentioned that either.
You can do a sprint, a work sprint all by yourself, or sprints can be done with a team. If you work with a team of people at work, or if you own a business, you can try to rally the troops and create a time to do a sprint as a team. If you're trying to ship a big project or whatever it is you guys are doing.
I've mentioned that if you're working on a big problem or you've got an idea, This is a great way to just stay focused, and you can make really substantial progress in such a short timeframe. So give it a shot. It's really cool. It's an amazing thing. Sprints don't require you to work nonstop either.
So sometimes people perceive it as like you're going to work 24 hours a day. I would suggest you use work your normal Workday, but with ultra focus on just one item. And, that, the one thing that you want to be laser-focused on making progress and, I shouldn't mention from my personal experience, if I'm doing a work sprint, I definitely mentioned it to Rachel.
That's my wife, if you haven't listened to the show. I just want her to know that I'm doing it so that she's aware. And, I just let her know, Hey, I'm trying to get really dialed in here for a week. And, I just try to get her support and, that helps a lot. And Rachel definitely does work sprints herself.
And during those, I just try to be particularly attentive to her during those times, so that she feels supported. And, and if, if you're doing a sprint, I would just definitely mention it to your spouse just to gain their support heading into it. It can be really easy to get into the flow, into, your.
Like where you're just making a ton of progress on something that you've been struggling with. And, and so you may not want to stop your work during those times when you're just like really making substantial progress. So it's nice to, for them to, for your spouse, Hardy, I came maybe coming home later.
Or, if your office is at home or something, Hey, really trying to be dialed in here. So no interruptions of possible. And, yeah, that's good. Also, I shouldn't mention, and this is a no-brainer, but, if you're doing a sprint for something at your work, which is very common, You know where you have a boss, I would definitely share it with your boss so that they can support it.
And support you during the process and hopefully be mindful of not sending you too many distractions during your sprint. And a boss is typically going to love you doing this cause you're going to make incredible progress on something at work. So it works, man. I've done this. My entire career, and it really works.
I mentioned to Rachel tonight that I was going to do an episode on work sprints, and she laughed and said, I'm about to dig in on one of those. Yeah, really cool concept. If you have any questions, shoot me an email. Let me know. You can find my email at matt-east.com, and yeah, shoot me an email.
Hit me up on Twitter or whatever. I'm on LinkedIn a lot too. The other thing I was going to chat through is a listener asks the question. I've had a string of bad luck, and I was wondering if you had any ideas that could help me keep a positive mindset through it. That's a great question.
And I do. I have a couple of ideas I'll throw out there and a bummer about your bad luck. That's no good. You got to figure that out. The first thing I would say, or I guess I would suggest, is to just be very intentional about the things in your life that are going well. So you mentioned there's a couple of things that aren't with bad luck. I would just try to be very proactive about noticing what's going and try to put this into practice by taking a minute or two each morning. Like even before you pop out of bed like literally, you just wake up and try to list some things that you're grateful for just in your head. You don't even have to say them out loud, just list them in your head and try to list like ten items that you're thankful and grateful for.
And they can be really simple stuff. I'm grateful for my pillow, clean air to breathe, a fresh new day, my parents, watermelon, clean water, whatever it doesn't matter. That's really not the point. Don't worry. Don't overthink it too much. And something that's important here is, don't worry about repeating stuff each day.
That's absolutely fine. So if every day you start out that you're thankful for your pillow, that your head's on. That's absolutely fine. The important thing here is you're just trying to like really get your mindset, heading into the day and, it's just gonna be harder to feel down in the dumps or if it's just gonna, it will, it's gonna be much more difficult to be down on yourself if you've shared, Your gratitude towards, all the things in your life that you're thankful for a lot of things in your life that you're thankful for, before getting out of bed.
And if you can list more than ten things, don't limit it. Just list away. And I know this sounds simple. If you're at all in a weird frame of mind where you're feeling sorry for yourself or anything, this is huge. Really try it. And let me know if it helps. I don't know where I picked this exercise up, but I fricking love it.
And I, I do this every morning. I absolutely love it. And the next thing I would suggest, and, I know this is hard to do when you know, things shitty things are happening in your life, but when something that you perceive as negative occurs. Just try to consider the idea of it actually being something that is positive for you.
Even if there's like a 0% chance that you can see it at the time, if it's a really bad thing, just be open to the idea that just, maybe it's the universe conspiring in some weird way in your favor. And I stole that phrase from Rachel, the universe conspiring in your favor. And, I have no idea where she got it from.
Or she thought of it, or where she, I don't know, she stole some from some somewhere, but it's hard to apply when you're in a difficult position in life. But if you can do it really can help. And I have a good story about this. I played college soccer after. Yeah, I played college soccer, and after graduating, I was playing in a co-ed indoor soccer league.
And this is, I don't know how long after graduating a couple of years, two years. And one of my teammates on the co-ed team was one of my great friends, he ended up being the best man at my wedding, and he's a fantastic soccer player. And, anyway, he took a really hard shot on goal. And he kinda miss hit it, the ball.
So there was a girl defending him, and she jumped in the air to get out of the way. But when she jumped, she couldn't really avoid the ball. So the ball caught her in the face and he hit the ball hard. And since she had tried to jump out of the way, her momentum. Made her fly back a few feet, like in the air.
And then she came down and really drilled her head. Like really like her head slammed onto the turf and she was out cold and she got smoked. Like it was terrible. I thought it was bad, so she was out cold. So the facility that we were at, they called an ambulance and an ambulance got there really quickly took her off on a stretcher.
She was like out. But, she was breathing. She was just like out cold. Anyway, my friend that had missed kick the soccer ball felt like terrible. He was like crushed by it. Like he fell into a depression for it over the next couple of days, like thinking about her and feeling terrible. And he didn't mean to do it, but he felt really bad.
So anyway, A couple of weeks pass and our team was going onto the field. We were playing again. It was two weeks later and we were going onto the field. As the team that had the girl, that was hit, their team was coming off the field. So we were overlapping with them as we took the field and they were leaving the field.
And I asked one of the players that I recognized, I said, Hey, how was how's the girl that left in an ambulance a couple of weeks ago? How's she doing? And I had noticed that she wasn't at the game, which kind of freaked me out. So he, he looked at me like I'd lost my mind and oh man, I felt terrible.
He said, you didn't hear? You haven't heard what happened to her? And I was like, no, And I swear for the moment, I thought for sure, I was like, Oh my God, my friend killed her. Like I thought she was like a gone or something. Just from the way this guy had reacted, like asking me, you don't know what happened to her.
So anyway, I said, no, I don't know. Yeah. So he goes on to say, your buddy saved her life. I was like, what are you talking out? He said, they took her to the hospital in the ambulance after, after the. They picked her up in the ambulance and they at the hospital, they did a scan of her brain and they did a scan cause how hard the ball hit her. And then how hard her head hit the ground. But the scan ended up revealing that she had a tumor, a pretty well-developed tumor in her head. And, because they did the scan, they found it and they were able to get it out of there and remove it. in that crazy. So this gal got smoked in the face by a soccer ball, which is the worst thing ever or not a fun thing.
I will say that it's not a fun thing. And it ended up being incredibly good fortune. When things happen, that seem terrible - you just have to consider the possibility that maybe just maybe the universe is conspiring in your favor. So when you're. When your boyfriend breaks up with you and you're crushed, or your girlfriend breaks up with you and you're crushed and maybe it's the best thing ever.
And then something else is right around the corner. So just consider that, so to the listener who asked this question, I would just challenge you to think about the things that you consider bad luck and just. Just be open to the possibility. Could there be something positive that is actually going to come from this that you just can't see now as the universe may be just conspiring in your favor, when you think about it, even the most difficult situations that we face in life?
Often leads to the most extraordinary personal growth that we ever have in our lives. Be open to the idea. That's all I'd say. So hope those two little things help, Probably a million other things you could do, but there's work too. I thought off the top of my head.
So yeah, you should be very grateful and thankful in the morning list, a bunch of items that helps get your mind, And you have to actually do it for it to work. And then the other thing is, Just consider that the universe is conspiring in your favor, even in those really bad moments.
All right.
My daily six list, I'm not going to go through the whole list. I've got some split pea soup on for dinner that I need to go check on and I can smell it and I'm worried about it. I was six for six. I'm one day in. I love hearing how you guys are doing so email me and let me know. and, yeah, like I said, I got a boogy.
I gotta go check on this soup. Thanks a ton for listening. I really appreciate it. I'm super thankful and grateful for you guys. And, Oh yeah. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. If you want to be notified when new episodes are released and thanks again, we will chat tomorrow and that's it.
Bye.
