Just 5 Over the Holidays

Remember this? Managerial Batching: 1, 2, 5 and 7. Let’s focus on the “Just 5” part of it with practical, relevant, and useful holiday batching.

This is the season, where Less, is definitely More. To save you a click…

Just 5

In MWA culture-building, ‘Just 5’ carries two meanings.

1. Just 5 minutes each day for The Daily 5 Minutes. We say, “If you aren’t doing the D5M you aren’t managing with Aloha” and we mean it, for conversation reigns supreme in our daily practice. (Find our newest reference page for D5M here, and learn about its history in this book excerpt.)
2. Just 5 is our list bucket. We “Take 5” to contain any and all list-making within 5 items max, feeling that more is likely to be unreasonable. We feel that “Less absolutely IS More” and having to stop at 5 helps us focus on what is most important and deserving of our attentions. (It’s a condensation.)

In regard to number 1., The Daily 5 Minutes is the best gift an Alaka‘i Manager gives to their staff, for it’s the gift of unconditional understanding and generous co-authorship they give all year long (within the 2 by 2 batch). It’s also the best gift an Alaka‘i Manager will give to themselves, so they can constantly learn from their people. If you haven’t started your own D5M practice, this is the best time to start, for the holidays seem to open us up to each other more easily.

If you’re working, stop procrastinating and do it, and D5M well.
If you have time off now, make the D5M commitment once and for all, and prepare to do it when you return to your workplace.

Our list of 5 is what I’d like to focus on with this Holiday Batch.

Many business coaches will tell you to ramp up your business focus now, for this is a time when most of the world slows down business-wise (other than retail) and you can seize those curtailed attention opportunities to competitive advantage. That has never been my approach, for much as I love my business playground, the Managing with Aloha culture requires a healthy balance (PONO) of the personal and the professional. I prefer to have the Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Years holiday season be a time of personal emphasis with professional support.

My own business, Say Leadership Coaching, is therefore on annual sabbatical for four weeks, the last 2 weeks of December, and the first 2 weeks of January — I shut it down completely, hanging that “Closed” sign on the door so I and all my partners can take the time off and make it personal. This season, we’ll be back to our SLC work on Monday, January 14, 2013 and I expect we’ll be raring to go then as we usually are, personally fortified (NĀNĀ I KE KUMU) yet ready with new ideas to share with each other for the New Year (KA LĀ HIKI OLA).

We have done this since my MWA coaching business was founded in 2004. Our annual SLC sabbatical is currently number 1 of our Just 5 batch as the supportive, professional contribution. Numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the batch are personal.

We know we are fortunate, and you may not have the same freedom or professional permissions in the field or company you have chosen to work within, however I encourage you to adopt Just 5 as your holiday batching now too.

Give yourself a break, and enjoy the holidays as much as you possibly can. Defer the new, focus on streamlining the old that will be your keepers, and direct your best attention and intention to a Just 5 which is meaningful for you. The world conspires in this season of good cheer; don’t deprive yourself of that Lokomaika‘i generosity.

To illustrate, this is my own Just 5 Holiday Batch right now, including their value drivers and/or Key Concept parameters:

1. ALAKA‘I: Lead the annual SLC sabbatical energies by merit of my own good example.

2. Ho‘omaha: Reflect on the past year (what worked, what didn’t), make my ‘keeper’ decisions, and prepare in the best possible way (‘IMI OLA) for the new year to come.

3. Define my next BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal, coined by Jim Collins), a personal one. This sabbatical I am happy to say goodbye to 2012, for I was dealt a crushing blow, and had to accept that I failed with the BHAG I had been working on for more than a decade now. Those possibilities dried up, but the possibilities with a new BHAG are abundant (Palena ‘ole, Key 9), and I must choose from among them and imua, go forward with a positive expectancy.

4. Reckon with the internet, and with ‘the cloud’ in my ‘Ohana in Business modeling (Key 6) and Sense of Place landscape design (Key 7). It is time for me to conduct another digital purging. No new apps (and thus, outpost communities) until I optimize my existing ones which are true keepers. Optimize the tools (e.g. Evernote, Kindle Direct Publishing, and others with good contribution to my productivity) over the toys, but keep the joy in working them.

5. Numbers 1 through 4 are a lot. Be thorough, and be complete with them, and trust in my intuition. Don’t bite off more than I can chew, replace well with no additions, and go for the beauty in the work. Invest in each process, and learn as much as I can from them (‘IKE LOA). Recognize this Just 5 Holiday 2012/2013 batch is prep for 2014 – The 10th anniversary celebration of Managing with Aloha.

So dear readers, I may be very quiet between now and January 14th. The quality of my sabbatical is dedicated to my family first and foremost.

In the Talking Story years of my online publishing I planned an editorial calendar that would fill up any publishing void, but here on Managing with Aloha (dot com) I want to be true to number 1 in my holiday batch for you too, and not expect you to keep up with any extra reading from me. If I do send an update to your inbox or RSS reader, it will be a follow-up to this post in some way. If you want even more, I encourage you to make this particular reading complete, and follow the archive links I have embedded within this post for you (like this one, about vacationSTRETCH and sabbaticals.)

But first, grab your journal, and start to draft your own Just 5 batch for over the holidays. My coaching to you is to make it personal — gift yourself to the rest of the world. A healthy and happy you is the best you can do for all of us.

And lastly, choose to spill your spirit. If there is any way you surrender now, give in to that abundance within you, for surrendering to the thinking of your ALOHA will always bring you far greater clarity.

Ua ola loko ‘ao i ke aloha;
ALOHA provides life and learning from within.

I wish you every blessing of this merry, magical holiday season.
~ Rosa