Oh look! A new idea! Something different than what I’m currently doing! I certainly have shiny object syndrome, a propensity to want to do something other than what I’m currently doing.
But for the past 6 months I’ve been doing pretty good in terms on concentrating on life coaching and Introvertology, and I owe a lot of it to my decision workflow diagram. Occasionally someone will ask me to do a gig related to a previous career, and I’ve been able to turn them down with only fleeting regrets.
Decision workflow diagrams aren’t just helpful in terms of career decisions, they can also help with getting enough downtime, whether to accept social invitations, etc. If there’s a certain kind of decision that you struggle with or that keeps you up at night I highly suggest you create a workflow diagram to make your decision as easy as possible. You can download a blank copy of my diagram shown above in Pages form, or in Word form (I don’t have Word, so apologies if the formatting is messed up). My version of the diagram has a lot of “Maybe” and “Use intuition,” but yours can be clear cut, like this one.
That’s a brilliant idea!
I’m a total flowchart nerd so it’s natural that it appeals to me, but I think there’s so much value even for people who may not be.
Lately I’ve been doing many “hard” decisions that I formerly thought I could never do because I’m such a shiny object obsessive and people pleaser, but setting firm priorities helped a lot.
If I can see how doing a certain thing directly harms my [most important thing] I’m less likely to give in.
Hi Nela. Totally, firm priorities are so important!
That’s a good point about noticing if it directly harms the most important thing. For my next iteration I think I might change my “run away” boxes to “harmful to my goals.”