Reset Your Week With Stop, Simplify and Support

“Reset Your Week With Stop, Simplify and Support” - Estelle O'Callaghan

"What can I stop when all of it feels necessary?" It's a fair question for mid-career women carrying invisible load at work, and for women returning to work after long leave who want to show they can deliver. When everything feels necessary, nothing changes, and the drains you've mapped keep landing in the same place.

Over the last two weeks, this blog has covered naming your invisible load and mapping your top two drains. This week is about resetting those two drains with three moves: Stop, Simplify and Support. If you haven't mapped your drains yet, last week's blog has five questions to start with.

WHAT IT COSTS TO KEEP CARRYING IT THE SAME WAY

Leaving the load on your shoulders and hoping the week gets easier costs you in three ways.

Your thinking time shrinks. When every task stays, there's little room left to think, decide and lead well, which is the part of your role that most needs you.

The drains become permanent. Work that nobody questions tends to stay, even after the reason for it has gone. For example, a process set up for a project that has finished can keep asking for your attention months later.

Support never comes. If you keep carrying something alone, the people who could share it may never realise it needs sharing. When support isn't asked for, it's easy to read the silence as a sign that nobody can help.

HOW THE THREE MOVES WORK

The Bandwidth Reset has one goal: to protect the quality of your decisions by reducing the load on your thinking. Each move comes with a question that does most of the work.

Stop. Stop removes low-value tasks that take too much of your time and energy. Ask, "What would happen if I stopped doing this?" For example, a regular report that few people read, or a check-in that repeats what's already been shared, may be worth stopping.

Simplify. Simplifying reduces the effort, scope, frequency or complexity of work that still needs to happen. Ask, "How could this require fewer decisions?" For example, a template for a message you write every week, or one channel instead of three for a regular update, cuts the thinking the task demands each time.

Support. Support moves work from solitary responsibility to shared responsibility. Ask, "Who else needs to participate in carrying this?" This can be the hardest move for capable people, because being reliable can start to feel like the job itself. Being needed isn't the same as being appropriately supported. Support can mean delegating, asking, automating or aligning with someone whose decision you need.

Being needed isn't the same as being appropriately supported.

Across your top two drains, aim for one Stop, one Simplify and one Support action. You don't need all three for every drain. It helps to write the three moves as three columns on a page, with your two drains down the side. You'll often find each drain suits one move better than the others.

TURN EACH INTENTION INTO AN ACTION AS YOU CAN SEE

Most resets start as intentions, and intentions are hard to act on because there's no clear moment when they're done. It feels abstract. "Attend fewer meetings" sounds sensible, but it doesn't tell you what to do on Monday morning. An observable action does: "Decline one meeting where my input isn't required and request the actions." The same applies to "delegate more" and "spend less time on email": each becomes useful only when it names who, what and when.

To write your own, finish this sentence for each action: "This week, I will create bandwidth by ____." Then check what you've written against three questions:

• "Could someone else see it happen?"

• "Does it have a day and a time?"

• "Could I start it in 5 to 15 minutes?"

If the answer to any of them is no, make the action smaller or more specific until it passes.

WHY THE FIRST STEP SHOULD TAKE 5 TO 15 MINUTES

A first step that fits into an ordinary day is far more likely to happen than one that needs a clear afternoon you won't find. Small and specific beats ambitious and abandoned, and a short step you complete gives you evidence to build on. Once the first step is done, the next one is easier to see.

For example, the first step for a Support action might be drafting a two-line message asking the person who owns a decision to make it by Friday. The first step for a Stop action might be a short conversation to check whether anyone still uses the report you're thinking of dropping.

WHERE TO START THIS WEEK

Choose one drain. Start with the drain from your map that you can influence most easily this week.

Pick the move that fits. Decide whether it needs stopping, simplifying or support, then write the action using the sentence above.

Put the first step in your calendar. Give it a start date and time, so it moves from something you mean to do into something that's booked.

Notice what changes. At the end of the week, write one line about what the step made easier, even if the change was small.

Next Monday's blog looks at how to protect your reset when the weeks get busy.

WHAT A RESET DOESN'T MEAN

A reset isn't about becoming more efficient at carrying an unreasonable load; it's about making conscious leadership choices about what you carry and who carries it with you. One Stop, one Simplify and one Support action, done this week, will tell you more about what's possible than any amount of planning.

WHERE TO TAKE THIS NEXT

If the Support column is the hardest one to fill, the Ghanvey Digital Library is a place to work on it alongside others: a room as well as a library of resources, with a live session and an Implementation Lab each month, plus scripts, templates and challenges. Membership is $49 a month with no lock-in contracts.

Membership is $49 a month with no lock-in contracts.

Join the Ghanvey Digital Library

Warm Regards

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