Here's an all-too-common scene from my life:

It's Monday. The week starts and I feel on top of things. I know the priority items, I'm energized and enthusiastic, I feel in control.

Then, Tuesday rolls around and something starts to change. My energy starts to wane as the to-dos pile up, my stress levels rise.

By Wednesday, I'm holding on for dear life, riding out the storm into the weekend, when I can finally catch up and recover.

I'm willing to bet I'm not alone (and I apologize if that scene gave you chills). It's easy to allow your weeks to spiral out of control as you try to navigate your personal and professional responsibilities.

Fortunately, I developed some tricks that helped me fight back...

In today's piece, I want to share the 4 tiny habits that helped me change the narrative, take control, and dramatically improve my weeks.

(NOTE: These are so easy and quick, you can start using them today)

1. Defining what a "win" looks like.

When you're in it, it's easy to get caught up in the days and lose sight of the bigger picture.

While I used to preach the idea of narrow focus on daily priority tasks, I found that when I just focused on the day, I was prone to taking on Rocking Horse work—work that creates movement, but no real progress.

To address this and maintain perspective on the bigger picture, I make sure to define what a "win" looks like for the week before it starts.

I spend 15 minutes on Sunday evening defining a "win" for the week ahead. I write down the ~3-5 things that, if accomplished, would characterize real progress.

I create a Weekly Win Card that sits on my desk during the week. If I ever find myself getting lost in the craziness of a day, I can use the card to zoom out and make sure my central focus remains on the bigger picture.

2. Creating an awareness of my energy.

An important lesson I've learned:

Burnout doesn't come from long hours or working weekends. Burnout comes from working on things that drain your energy with people that do the same.

To create a better awareness of your energy, try my Energy Calendar exercise for the next week.

At the end of a time block or meeting during the day, color-code the activity:

• Green = Energy-Creating
• Yellow = Neutral
• Red = Energy-Draining

Don't spend too much time thinking about it, just trust your gut based on how you feel after the activity. Pay attention to what you were doing during the block and who you were doing it with.

Look at the trends at the end of the week:

• What are the common Energy-Creating activities?
• What are the common Energy-Draining activities?

Once you’ve identified the common Energy-Draining activities in your life, the goal is to minimize their impact.

This can mean:

• Isolate them on your calendar (good)
• Tweak them to make them neutral (better)
• Eliminate them (best)

An example of how this might work, using my Energy-Draining activity of zoom video calls:

• Isolate: Batch them into a single day to limit the impact on my week.
• Tweak: Moved as many as possible to walking calls instead of zoom.
• Eliminate: Say no to calls without clear action items.

You'll never completely eliminate the Energy-Draining things from your life, but you can aim to steadily improve your Energy-Creating-to-Energy-Draining (Green-to-Red) Ratio.

That translates to less burnout, more flow, and faster progress.

3. Executing a daily management sprint.

Generally speaking, the work that tends to pile up and command outsized headspace is the management work:

• Emails
• Admin tasks
• Miscellaneous to-dos

This work needs to get done, but unfortunately, it's also typically the lowest value work in terms of driving you forwards and creating tangible progress.

To navigate this challenge, create a daily management sprint:

• 30-60 minutes
• Later in the workday

This is your window to be a management machine—get into a flow state and gamify the process of crushing your basic administrative tasks.

These tasks are so brutal because we never time-bound them, so they naturally bleed out across the entire day and drain us throughout.

Forcing a time constraint makes you hyper-focused on closing the open loops—you complete them more efficiently and with higher quality. Win-win.

4. Investing 30 minutes per day in a vision.

Here's some simple math:

You have 1,440 minutes in a day.

Invest 30 minutes of that in building your vision for the future. That's just 2% of your day, but if you do it for a year, that vision may become your reality.

• Read or write
• Build a prototype
• Meet one new person
• Learn a new skill

You may say you aren't happy with your current standing in life, but are you doing the small things to change it?

Commit to investing 2% of your day to build a brighter future.

Small Things Become Big Things

These small changes have the power to transform your weeks. Trust me, I've lived it.

Remember: Extraordinary change is simply the result of ordinary acts done well, over and over and over again.

It may take longer than you think—and it may be hard to see when you're in the chaos of the moment—but it will happen.

Always take the small things seriously, because small things become big things.