[3-1-3] What got in your way this week?

Hey 🙂

It’s Friday, which means it’s time for the 3-1-3.

My experience this week was interesting. There were a number of projects all in different stages, and when I looked back on the week, I asked myself the prompt I always start with: What does progress look like this week?

I looked at my calendar, and my immediate thought was: “Not enough progress.” That’s usually my first thought, and the whole point of this exercise is to catch that thought and reframe it — to remind myself that even though it doesn’t feel like much happened, there was actually a lot of progress made.

But this week I went a bit further. I said to myself: “Okay, I am actually right. Both things are true.” There was some progress, but there genuinely wasn’t as much progress as there should have been. There were things in my calendar that didn’t get done that should have gotten done.

So I asked myself some harder questions:

• Why didn’t it get done?
• What was the distraction?
• Where were my expectations misaligned or not set correctly?
• Where did I fail to delegate properly?
• Why did I come to the end of the week with some projects not as far along as they should be?

As much as I believe in finishing the week with a sense of progress and momentum, this week it was clear to me that it just wasn’t as productive as it should have been. There was a clear plan — it just didn’t work out. A few things were going on:

• It’s the summer holidays, and the kids are off school.
• I had a fair bit of driving, dropping the kids off and picking them up.
• A couple of projects needed input from other people.
• A couple of projects were at the implementation stage, which meant a lot of back and forth.

Some of these things took more from me than I’d expected. If I’m honest, that’s some bad planning on my part.

I’m sharing this because I think it’s worth taking the time, alongside the usual 3-1-3, to ask yourself a bonus reflection this week:

• Where were you off track?
• What got in your way?
• What do your distractions actually look like?

Think of one example — something you planned to do that didn’t get done — and have a look at why. It’s probably something obvious: wrong time of day, too much on the plate, something more urgent cropping up, a task taking longer than expected, a team member needing more of your time than you’d budgeted for. There could be lots of genuine reasons. But it’s worth naming them, so you can plan next week more realistically.

Your 3-1-3 this week

1. Progress — What three things look and feel like progress for you this week? Three wins, three achievements — what actually moved forward?

Bonus prompt: Where did distractions show up this week? What’s one project that didn’t get the progress you’d have liked? Have a look at your calendar — what can you learn from it that will help you use your time better next week?

2. Your single most important objective — What’s the one thing that, if you focus on it next week, would make everything else easier or unnecessary?

Bonus prompt: Open up your calendar now. Start blocking out your 20% time — your deep work — around this one objective.

3. Three actions — What three things must you do next week to move the needle on that single most important objective?

Once you’ve got those three, go ahead and start adding the detail into your calendar — the actual tasks and blocks of time that need to happen to move things forward.

That way you can wrap up your Friday with a proper sense of what progress looks like, some real learning from your calendar, and a solid plan for next week.

Even if you plan nothing else, you’ll know exactly what your one most important objective is — and you can walk into Monday already knowing what needs to happen.

Drop your 3-1-3 in the comments, or send it to me directly at chris@chrismarr.co.uk — I look forward to reading it.

Have a great weekend.

🗣️ 👀

Chris.