[3-1-3] Are your seasons happening to you, or are you shaping them?

Hey 🙂

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about seasons — and how differently we can live through them depending on whether we let them just happen to us, or whether we get deliberate about them.

If you’ve got kids, you know exactly what I mean. Terms, mid-term breaks, summer holidays — clear seasons, whether you like it or not. Same with the weather changing, whichever hemisphere you’re in. The question is never if the season changes. It’s whether you’re reacting to it or planning for it.

This week is the first week of summer holidays for my kids. And instead of just letting it steamroll my work week (which, historically, it has), I’ve been deliberate about it. Truth is, I’ve also been a bit run down this week — nothing serious, just low energy. So my rule for myself has been: one project a day. That’s it. Fully focused, all the way through, then done.

Here’s the paradox — constraint has made the work better, not worse. When I try to squeeze everything in, I end up with this constant background hum of “not enough time,” every single day. That’s no way to live. But when I accept the constraint and get deliberate about it, the frustration drops right out and the work actually gets done.

This is what your 3-1-3 is for. It’s not a box-ticking exercise. It’s a tool that keeps you deliberate about your season, whatever it looks like right now.

So, in case it’s been a while, or you’re new to this — here’s what it actually is:

Three Wins — Three things that went well this week. Not huge, sweeping victories necessarily, just real progress you can point to. This matters because it trains you to notice momentum instead of only noticing what’s still undone. Most people are naturally wired to focus on the gap, not the ground they’ve covered.

One Priority — The single most important thing for you to focus on next week. Just one. Not five things dressed up as “priorities.” This is the constraint doing its job — forcing you to decide what actually matters most, rather than spreading yourself thin across everything that feels urgent.

Once you’ve named that priority, don’t just leave it on the page — get your calendar open and block out your 20% time for it. Actually put it in the diary. Protect it like you would any other non-negotiable meeting. This is the bit people skip, and it’s the bit that actually matters, because a priority that doesn’t have a slot in your week is just a wish. Even if the week goes sideways (it always does, a bit), you’ll get to the end of it knowing you protected the time for the one thing that mattered most.

Three Tasks — The three concrete actions that will move that one priority forward. Specific, doable, this-week kind of tasks — not vague intentions. This is where the priority actually becomes real, instead of staying a nice idea you never quite get to.

Take a few minutes this week and run through it. And if you want to send it my way, you know I’m always glad to see it.

🗣️ 👀

Chris.