Why it’s important to prioritise what matters and protect those boundaries
I recently spent three days with my core leadership team in Edinburgh. It was hard work, but also a lot of fun and incredibly productive.
We don’t get a lot of opportunities to get together in person - my office is in Edinburgh, my marketing manager works out of Aberdeen and my operations director is based stateside - but I know that it’s absolutely vital to invest in ourselves as a leadership team, which involves being in the same room as each other - at least some of the time!
During those three days, we had the chance to plan our priorities for the remainder of 2023 and the year ahead. We also did some detailed planning for the book launch, which included some important logistic and strategic decision-making around international distribution and marketing and PR activity, amongst other things. It’s true that some of those important decisions included testing the cocktails and macarons for the launch party, and that there was also an opportunity to shop for early Christmas presents (courtesy of a visit to one of my favourite clothing shops, Rosypenguin in Edinburgh), ahead of a team photoshoot the following day. Which just goes to show that there’s always time for a little bit of fun in life, even in the midst of all that productivity and big work conversations!
With so much else going on (in terms of growing the business and the impending book launch), it would have been easy to postpone our plans to meet up, or simply to arrange a series of online meetings. But I have big plans for Firefly in the coming year and beyond, so I know how vital it is to carve out a dedicated chunk of time to spend working on the business. Having that time together, in person, gave us the chance to really focus and immerse ourselves in the work, instead of getting caught up in the nitty gritty, day-to-day stuff. It can be challenging to carve out time to spend together as a team - and to protect those boundaries - but it matters.
We can apply this approach to almost any aspect of our lives, even our personal relationships. It’s so easy to forget to carve out quality time for each other, to nourish and nurture our social connections, because we all get caught up in the day-to-day stuff. In our personal lives, setting aside quality time might look like:
Organising date nights with partners.
Making time with our kids to do the things that matter and that are meaningful to us.
Sitting down together at mealtimes when possible.
Picking up the phone or connecting in other ways, such as sending letters or parcels, especially if our loved ones aren’t close by.
Prioritising what matters to us might also mean giving ourselves time for some of the projects which have been neglected, or that we haven’t been able to complete for whatever reason. Some of my followers probably remember that this time last year, I was gearing up for dance classes. Full transparency: I have to confess that I still haven’t been - but it’s something that I plan to reprioritise, because it does matter to me.
Take a moment to think about the projects that you had planned for this year, and if you haven’t been able to complete them, think about what you could do to push them back up the list of priorities again. You can read more tips on how to start moving towards your goals and living more intentionally in previous blogs.
In the meantime, whether you want to work on a relationship with someone, spend more time on self care, or have other projects that you really want to do, why not start again now? Prioritise what matters to you and then protect those boundaries, fiercely, just as you would if you had made a commitment to somebody else.
