Work Rituals (Part 1): The Birds Eye View Work Ritual

Thank GOD all my organization skills from grad-school didn't go to waste

It’s the third week of August as I write this and I’m cracking up because in the past week I’ve had four good friends, and two slightly-more-than-acquaintances send me some panicked messages:

“I’m starting school again and I’m curious if you could help me figure out how the fuck not to drown.”

I thought I might be tired of talking about school since I made the decision to dip out of the rest of my PhD program after finishing my Master’s degree this past spring.Turns out, I am so fucking excited to talk to people about school and work strategy. I nerd out hard on making the grinds we find ourselves into a meaningful ritual.

There is something deeply satisfying to me about floundering around in my own really hard work, getting to the other side of that process, and then being able to pass on a little tid-bit or two about what worked for me or what I saw work for other people. Some might call me a masochist. They’d be right. Some people might also call me a mentor or a guide…those people might be right, too. Jury’s still out.

Regardless of the title—this post is all about implementing a work ritual.

I wrote it in two parts because they both feel important for different reasons and I wanted to be able to go into them in a certain amount of depth to capture it for those who are interested and have been asking me for tips.

This is something I could legitimately talk your poor ears and eyes off of for days. I’ve condensed the best way I can but please know that if you have questions, hit me up, I love talking about it.¹

This Part 1 is all about the “Birds Eye View Work Ritual”. Which, for me, is the work ritual I do at the very start of the week as a hard reset and reassess. I also do a slightly shorter version of this the start of every work day. This work ritual helps settle the dust so I can spend the remainder of the day doing what I like to call “Work Sprints” which I will cover in Part 2.

Both of these work rituals are something I do every single day (to some degree) that I do work for myself or someone else. I’ve learned to rely on them for consistency and momentum in achieving projects of all sizes. They’ve helped me with large-scale projects that take years to complete and also mini-projects I want to do as a favor for a friend in an afternoon.

I especially rely on these rituals when I’m having a very hard time motivating or am in a seasonal slump of depression, anxiety, or some unexpected news has snuggled its way into my life during a busy time.

Step One: Set & Setting

When I have the time, space, and energy I make sure that I’m working in an environment that is clean, organized, and completely decluttered. Only the essentials are allowed to whatever task I’m trying to accomplish. I have learned over time that I prefer spaces with a lot of natural light.

However, sometimes we don’t always get to choose a beautiful space. When I was working in my windowless office my last year of grad school I took some special time and attention to nest into a space. I carefully chose items that made me feel motivated and reminded me of my overall goals and had pictures of the places and people I love the most to remind me who and where and what I was doing all this work for.

Transparently, when I’m in a nomadic state of being, I don’t always get to have a set office space or quiet open space with natural light. When I’m working remotely and displaced from my normal routine, my set and setting has been something I’ve learned need to come from inside me….but a few items help me set that tone².

Step Two: The Tools

Depending on the work I’m doing, this might vary. But in general my workflow often has:

• My bullet journal - to keep track of everything in a streamlined way

• My computer, my phone & my chargers - because I don’t live under a rock

• Some simple art supplies - been loving a cheap box of crayons lately

• My tarot deck - My daily deck right now is the This Might Hurt deck<3

• Some essential oils - I like peppermint and Douglas Fir

• Customizable interval timer — I literally use one called IntervalTimer

• A pomodoro app — I use BeFocused.

• A todo list app — I use ToDoist

• A favorite pen

• 750words account tab open — This is where I do my online journaling/word vomit

• At least 2 different beverages — always water, always something else fun

• Headphones — to signal to the outside world that “I’m fucking busy, thank you.”

• A good, lyrics-free playlist

Step Three: The Placement

At times I’ve been really strict started my workday at exactly the same time each morning. During those spans of time, the Birds Eye View Work Ritual would typically be the very first thing I would do when I would get to work.

That’s not currently my situation, so instead of having this be at a very specific time, I now more generally associate this as being the start of my work day or the start of a span of work.

Next week when I talk about my Work Sprint ritual, you’ll notice that my work sprint ritual never takes more than 12 minutes (and that’s very intentional). When I start my work week or work day, I’ll let this work ritual take as long as it needs so that I can focus on bigger, more over-arching goals and let the most organic and creative way to get there reveal itself to me.

Step Four: Crafting the Momentum

From years of nerding out in psychology, being obsessed with habit formation, and learning how to achieve flow-states with difficult cognitive tasks on-demand, I’ve come to love crafting ritual containers. The start of a ritual is the start of momentum. It’s the actions and intentions that signal to your brain “hey, you, this is the moment we start to work now!”

In general, whenever we’re planning for a full week ahead (or full day ahead, or full semester ahead) we want to understand that as the day, week, month, semester, or project drags on—our access to mental tools and resources diminishes over time. Having dedicated time to check in and make good decisions from a grounded and well-rested place helps save time in the long run.

On that note, with my “Work Day Ritual” I’ve learned over time that this particular work ritual does best when it’s a little more fluid. If I try to make this part of my day too rigid I have had the tendency to miss important to-do list items or get overly focused on being productive that I forget to enjoy the process as much and am more reactive to my schedule rather than responsive.

Ideally when I craft this, I try to make it be something I look forward to every start of my week or every start of my day so that when I am getting ready for work this very particular part of my day has a sense of ease and purpose surrounding it, even when I am really busy or overwhelmed.

The current iteration of “Birds Eye View Work Ritual” looks sometime like this:

1. Identifying time I have to do work for a span of several hours and blocking it out in my schedule.

2. Letting anyone in my immediate area know that I’m working for X amount of time & asking for space/privacy/any work specific boundaries I need to get my work done

   1. sometimes this involves putting on my big “I can’t fucking hear you” headphones³ and ignoring people when they try to talk to me

3. Pulling a tarot card or

   1. setting or revisiting an overall intention for the week/day

   2. choosing or revisiting a motivational quote for the week/day

4. Opening 750 words (or a similar place to let my word vomit out)

5. Creating a Birds Eye View to-do list with different major categories

6. Identifying my TOP 3 most important to-do list items in the order that I would like to do them and putting that at the top of my to-do list

7. Identifying any extremely easy tasks that I can cross off almost immediately and putting them at the bottom of my to do list

8. Put everything on Do Not Disturb & close out of any messaging apps

9. Identifying roughly how many work sprints I have time for today

10. Dive into my Work Sprint Ritual (I’ll be going in depth on this one next week)

    1. This includes breaks where I take time to go on walks, do a little bit of art, or something physical with my body semi-regularly throughout the day

11. Repeat my Work Sprint Ritual until I’m done with my most important items or run out of time

    1. My last work sprint of the day is soully dedicated to the extremely easy to cross off items from my to do list and it’s a spring to see how many of these I can get done

12. Put ALL my work things away for the day & flag any important to do items for the following work day

13. Give myself some kind of little reward if I remember.

Like I said, this process can take anywhere from 10 - 45 minutes. The purpose of it is not to laser focus (that’s the focus of Part 2!) but instead to prioritize and set yourself up for success by making work feel manageable and at least marginally enjoyable.

Step Five: Choosing Wisely & Giving Space for Process

Usually this process takes a bit longer on the first day of my work week (which is often a Monday for most people) and typically gets shorter and shorter as the work week goes on. For example, if I’m working a typical Monday through Friday work week, on Monday this process might take me 45 minutes to sift through. By Thursday or Friday, this entire process will feel complete in about 15 minutes. This is often because Monday is helping me find the general map of my week and by Thursday or Friday I’m pretty clear on the direction of my tasks and it’s mostly about just getting the work done.

This entire process is meant to be a touchstone. I use this work ritual to ask myself the question every day “Is this what serves me now?” and “Am I using my precious time wisely?”

At the beginning of the week when I’m more refreshed, I can make wiser decisions for myself later in the week when I know I am going to be mentally more tired and relying on going through the motions.

Step Six: Breaks ARE the most important part

I’ll get on my soap box a tiny bit more about this next week but breaks are crucial to this process going well. Just like you can’t realistically sprint everywhere you go in your regular life, you’re not supposed to be doing mental sprints all the time either.

Getting somewhere fast is not always the sign of getting there well. Or getting there ease-fully. Or getting there in a way that is life giving.

This is where my crayons come in. Walks come in. Dancing comes in. Quick phone calls to friends and loved ones. When I do my Birds Eye View Ritual I often give a little bit of thought and attention to the question

”What would feel good and kind to my body this week on breaks?”

I try not to judge whatever the first thoughts are that bubble up with that question and then I help plan for them.

Step Seven, Eight & Nine: Shifting to Sprints, Shifting to Breaks, Wrapping All the Way Up

This Birds Eye View Ritual is a great way to trigger the brain into lighting up and getting the creative juices flowing. However, I have noticed that a lot of habit formation teachers, researchers, and educators do not spend much time talking about shifting out of a task.

I am by no means good at this either, but it’s something I’m also working on.

Shifting out of a task helps our brains know “okay, this part of our week/day/focus is over now! Nervous system you can take a break!”

At the end of a full day doing some simple things to place any undone work into a category for tomorrow, celebrate the success of whatever got accomplished, and let our brains and our bodies shift into the next phase of our day is crucial. Like I said, I’m not great at this part. I cram my schedule way too full and then tend to get a little scattered and overwhelmed every couple of months. This is where I’ll be focusing more of my energy in the coming year.

However, some of the things that I can I identify from my past when I was doing a better job at this were things like this:

• Writing a to-do list for the following day so I can signal to my brain “Hey Brain, don’t worry. We got this, it’s on tomorrows list. You can chill out now.

• Texting or sending off a voice memo to a co-worker, fellow cohort member, or close friend who knows my goals to say “this is what I got done today!”

• Making sure I have a regular bubbly water, mocktail, or fun event planned right at the end of my work day to move immediately into so my brain is forced to switch gears

If anyone else has some better routines around this I would loooove to know them! Send them my way and I’ll tinker with some new things this winter.

*phew*

Okay well that’s it for Part 1 of this badboiiii.
Next week I’ll talk a bit more specifically about my Work Sprint Ritual, which has saved my ass more times than I can count.

<3 In the meantime, I’d love to hear how you all ease into your work weeks.

1. Better yet, if you’re looking to fully facelift your work routine or need an accountability coach I also offer 1:1 coaching ;)

2. Often times I’ll carry a specific essential oil that helps my brain know that I’m in “focus” mode. I like peppermint and Douglas fir scents for this the most :). The idea here is that I am priming my brain to recognize work is associated with very specific settings.

3. Ppppssst, I dont always have music playing. Sometimes I literally just wear them in silence so that people don’t disturb me.