Alright so Monday morning hits and I’m chugging coffee trying to dig out from under a mountain of emails. Felt like garbage. Totally forgot I subscribe to this weekly horoscope email, right? Popped up between a vendor invoice and Brenda from HR asking AGAIN about that expense report. Figured, what the heck, might as well check what the stars say before my 9:30 stand-up disaster.
Opened that email and bam – Virgo Weekly Career Horoscope screaming “3 Key Things To Focus On Now.” Usually I skim this stuff and forget it five minutes later, but this week felt different. Maybe it was the leftover takeout, maybe it was divine intervention. Who knows.
So I Actually Decided To Do It
First step? Wrote those three key things down on a sticky note like the email said:
- Re-Organize Your Workspace & Systems (Seriously, It’s Bad)
- Double-Check Communication, Especially Around Deadlines
- Identify One Frustrating Repetitive Task & Streamline It
Laughed at the first one because my desk looked like a hurricane hit a paper factory. But okay, fine.
Tuesday Morning: Operation Desk Wreckage. Didn’t just tidy, I went full berserker mode. Dumped three ancient folders of meeting notes nobody’s needed since 2021 straight into recycling. Found my missing stapler jammed behind the monitor! Finally tackled that pile of cables and plugged everything into one power strip. Took maybe 45 minutes but holy cow, finding my headphones without a 10-minute hunt? Worth it.
That Communication Thing on Wednesday felt obvious until Dave pinged me about Thursday’s report deadline… I swore it was Friday! Pulled up the project doc, sure enough, Dave changed it last week and tagged like 20 people in the comment, which I totally missed. Absolute chaos avoided by replying “Yep, on track for Thursday” instead of “Sure, Friday’s fine!” Crisis averted by simply reading the dang history.
Saved the Best for Thursday. That “frustrating repetitive task”? Filling out the weekly team progress form. Clicking the same dang boxes, copying the same project IDs, typing the same “completed phase 1” descriptions. Opened the form template, highlighted every stupid field you had to manually fill every single week, and messaged IT Steve: “Yo Steve, can we auto-populate this bit from the project tracker ID? And maybe pre-fill these common statuses?”. Steve replied “Shouldn’t be hard, send me the form.” Mind BLOWN. How long was I just taking that crap sandwich?
Friday afternoon rolled around. Desk? Clear. Dave? Didn’t bite my head off. Steve? Said the new form should be ready Monday. Maybe those stars are onto something.
