Skip to main content

Shaking Up Your Routine

In the past week my routine has been shaken and more is coming over the next two weeks.  Instead of stressing me out, it has actually energized me!  From the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) perspective, I have a preference for Perceiving.  In other words, always searching for more information rather than pushing for closure, spontaneity, and starting projects.  Like seemingly everyone in the Washington, DC area, I am usually tightly scheduled around a constant routine.  Teaching three new classes in less than a week and preparing for two new volunteer commitments has challenged me to stretch into new areas and use old skills with a new group of people.  Both things are extremely rewarding to me, in large part because of my Perceiving preference.

So how does a person with a Perceiving preference function in a predictable routine?  For me, there are things that have to happen at certain times.  There is barely enough time to get my work in during the hours my son's school is open when you count in commuting time.  For me, I am constantly striving to learn new things at work, volunteer my time with people who share similar values when I can, and learn new things with my son.  Right now, I would say I am at an all time high with all three and I usually don't even mind that they all seem to fall into a fairly predictable routine.  But when that routine is shaken there just seems to be a little extra spring in my step.  (For clarification, getting food poisoning and being sick for three days is not the kind of shaken routine I like.  What I like are those shaken routines where you are active and productive just in a new way.)

What does shaking up your routine do to you or for you?  Is it a bit of a buzz similar to the feel of a triple shot mocha from Starbuck's or does it feel like a weight on your shoulders?  How do you help yourself balance the push for closure and the need for spontaneity to make sure you are able to handle multiple types of situations that come along?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What an Extraverted Intuitive Needs to be Productive

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is based on the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. Jung observed that people have inborn preferences for gathering information and making decisions and that these preferences guide an individual’s behavior. The mother/daughter team of Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers expanded on Jung’s theories and created an assessment to make the combined work accessible to all individuals. Today, the assessment is used by most Fortune 100 companies and over two million people worldwide, annually. The assessment identifies an individual’s inborn preferences on four dichotomous scales: where you focus your energy, how you prefer to take in information, how you make decisions, and how you deal with the outer world. Type is best used to understand other people, improve communication, and develop individual skills. The first dichotomy is Extraversion (gets energy from other people) and Introversion (gets energy from reflection).  The second is

You Will Never Be As Hard on a Single Working Mother as She is On Herself

I was recently half an hour late to a Junior League of Washington meeting and a when I asked a question about something they had discussed earlier a friend made a joke about getting there on time.  Yes, within no time at all I realized she was making a joke and didn't worry about her.  The reason it hit home and I continued to worry about being late was that I was beating myself up inside about being late.  Her teasing comment was barely heard because of the screaming judgmental voice inside every single mother that says "you can't do this" or "you're doing it wrong." To give you a little perspective, let me give you an idea of what I needed to do to get to my meeting at 7:00 PM.  I needed to leave work at 5:00 PM, walk to a metro station, wait for the right train and take it to my station about six miles away, walk to my son's daycare to pick him up, get the feedback for the day from his teacher, on this particular day we had to find the shoe my s

Rule of Thumb for Leadership Development

How committed to that leadership development program you signed up for (or were nominated for) are you? Better yet, what does committed mean to you? I will try to attend the whole class except for that phone call I need to take and checking e-mails during the program. I will put my out of office on for the time of the program and attend the whole session.   I will do all the pre-work assigned. I will make notes and incorporate something from the program afterwards. I will work for at least six months to integrate the concepts, reflect on application "experiments," and revise my process. In a world where training professionals are constantly being able to state the return on investment for leadership training, the dirty little secret is that there is often very little return because the participants are not committed to the program.  Honestly, if you are not spending 7-10 hours working with the new concepts outside of the classroom for every hour you are inside th