The Slow Lane Productivity Dial
Before we jump in: This article was originally shared with my email community in November 2020. I'm sharing it with you on the blog today in the hope that it may be of some encouragement and insight to you in your creative journey right now, and also give you a little sneak peak of what you can expect from Weekly Letters too. If you'd like to receive letters like this one straight to your inbox every Monday, you can sign up below. You'll also have access to all of my Mini Books too!
This week has been my first back at work since having our son, August Henry.
Motherhood has been a beautiful and crazy ride so far. Postpartum recovery has been slower and harder than I was fully prepared for, and the love I feel for my son and my gratitude for his safe arrival into this world is deeper than I can truly put into words.
I am now in awe of every parent I know, of how they are able to balance the responsibilities and joys of parenthood alongside being a fully functioning human too, and I am slowly but surely figuring out this new chapter of my life with as much patience and grace as I can give myself.
I’ve been gently easing back into business this week, diving deep with my wonderful clients and slowly finding my feet as a working parent.
I’ve never been more grateful for having a slow, simple, spacious business, that I can steer this ship by only needing to work 10-15 hours each week.
But returning to work while I’m still very much adjusting to this new chapter is without a doubt a little daunting.
I knew as soon as the second line turned pink that I’d be taking a somewhat short maternity leave, something I’m sure many of us who are self employed choose (or have) to do. As I had a full client schedule carrying over (and as the breadwinner in my marriage too) signing off for months on end just wasn’t an option for me, so being as intentional as I can as I ease back into work has been one of my biggest priorities this week.
Something I’ve been coming back to is what I like to call the slow lane productivity dial.
What exactly is the slow lane, you may be wondering?
It’s the road many of us choose to walk when a slower, gentler, more spacious road serves us, our health, our energy, and our family lives more than the path of hustle, hustle, hustle ever could.
The slow lane is where we opt-out of going at everyone else’s pace and choose to embrace our own instead. It’s where we care more about the journey than we do about reaching our desired destination as fast as we can. It’s where we choose depth over width, ease over hustling for our self-worth, and intention over living and working on autopilot each day.
The slow lane productivity dial is a tool I’ve found useful for bringing more intention to how I want to show up energetically in each season of my business. There are four levels of the dial.
Level One: Rest
This is where we choose to slow down in our business, when we actively choose to do less (sometimes even nothing at all) so that we can recharge our tank or reprioritise our energy elsewhere in our life.
Level Two: Maintenance
This is the level where we choose to coast a little, where we just stay on top of what needs to be done but opt-out of pursuing or creating anything more than what is essential and necessary in this season. This is the level I'm embracing right now as I gently ease back into work.
Level Three: Marathon
This is where we are committed to a long term project or goal, while usually also maintaining what is essential and necessary too. At this level we are choosing to eat the elephant one bite at a time and slowly but intentionally work our way forwards towards the goals that matter most to us. This is the level I'm hoping to transition into as I start to find my feet in this new chapter of my work and life as there are projects that I want to carve out some time for next year when time and energy allows.
Level Four: Sprint
The sprint level is when we are embracing a little intentional hustle, when we’re working towards a new project or goal at a very focused, specific, and sometimes perhaps even a little intense pace. This is when we’re choosing to go all in energetically in this season in the pursuit of something new in our work - it’s unsustainable to spend every season at a sprint but for some of us it is, now and again, the very best level to serve a particular focus or goal.
I find it so helpful to think of my energy in business through the lens of this dial, to be intentional about which level I’m choosing to show up from in each season.
Being intentional with where we are on the dial in each season we’re in gives us permission to work at the pace that will truly work best for us. It can empower us to embrace what is, instead of believing the lie that we should be working by someone else’s rules and at someone else’s pace.
The specifics of each level are for you to define for yourself, but this framework is here to hopefully hold some space for you to give yourself permission to show up and work in whatever way works best for you in this season.
If you’d like to dive deeper into the slow lane productivity dial, to explore what level works best for you in this season, I’ve created some worksheets to hopefully help you do exactly that.
Here’s to living and working at whatever pace truly works best for us...
As always, I’m rooting for you!
With love,
Jen
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