Transitioning into 2015

Happy 2015!

New year, new you, right? We do this to ourselves every year, don’t we? “This year I am going to do better!” And then we don’t.

I once heard someone say that you have 4 burners, like a stove. One burner is family, one is friends, one is health, and one is work. If you want to, say, become the CEO of a successful organization, you have to turn that burner way up and turn the others way down, if not all the way off. But if you do that – your family, friends, and your health suffer. I’m always cautioning people about their burners. You can’t burn at 100% on all burners all of the time.

I like the burner examples, because it illustrates a point very well. But in reality, we have a lot more than four things going on at once.

I created a tool that will help you think through transitions. It can be adjusted to fit many things – from a simple transition into a new year to an organization’s transition through new leadership. The idea is the same as the burners – there are lot of things going on at the same time and you need to decide how much energy to put into things.

The sample that I am sharing here is based on a transition I went through about a year ago – from a working woman to a working woman that was also in school. You can download the sample here.

It starts with 10 categories that needed my attention. I listed what I was currently doing, what I needed to do during the 18 months I was in school, and what my focus might look like once I was done with school. The idea is that each column needs to add up to 100% (and no more!).

Walking through the Current column, you can see that I was volunteering a lot and had a job on the side (editing books). I was also spending a lot of time working out, making healthy meals, and doing all the things necessary to get in shape. I had a lot of time to hang out with my friends and be active in hobbies like photography and reading.

When school started, that had to change. I talked with the organizations I volunteered with and let them know that I would have to drastically reduce my involvement. Because I was learning so much at school, I spent more time at work implementing the new things I learned, so that percentage bumped up. I stopped my side job completely. At the same time I started school, I also started a new relationship, so the family percentage went way up. And, with a reduced focus on health plus the addition of some love weight, I have gained more than a few pounds – perhaps I should not have reduced my health focus to 5%. School bumps from 2%, which came from reading articles at work and such, to taking up 35% of my time. I had very little time for friends and hobbies.

I graduate in March – leaving me just 3 short months until I transition yet again. While my percentages may fluctuate a bit, I plan on increasing the time I spend with family (I’m planning my wedding this year, so that number might end up being even larger), happily dialing up my hobby time, and trying to lose the weight I gained over the past year.

This is a helpful tool as we enter the new year, but consider using it for work purposes as well. Perhaps your ED is leaving and you will have an Interim for a while. The 10 categories on the side can easily be changed to things like Fund Development, Strategic Planning, Internal Processes, etc. It’s important to know how the current/recently past ED spent their time, how you’d like the Interim to spend their time preparing the organization for a leadership change, and the things the new ED should focus on.

As we all know, planning is half the battle. Implementation is a whole other issue. But planning is critical to your success. Try planning your 2015 using this worksheet to wrap your head around what you need to focus on to achieve your goals.