Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, a firm

specializing in helping leaders and organizations fully activate their teams, driving both engagement

and performance. If you've listened to me before, then you know that I prioritize priorities,

because as the saying goes, when everything is a priority, then nothing

is a priority. But also if you've listened to me before, then you'll know that I live in the real

world. And I understand that sometimes even the best advice feels a little out of reach in

certain seasons. Like, I don't know, maybe the very end of a very chaotic year. So many people around me

are super overwhelmed right now. They're trying to get a million and four things done before the

year closes out. And they're saying things like, I know, I know I need to prioritize and I will,

but I just have to power through this season and then I'll be ready. So I say,

okay, I wish you weren't juggling so many things at once, but if juggling is really your only option,

then let's talk about some ways you might navigate that in a way that will leave you unbruised

for the holidays. First, know what you can drop. Okay, you've got a lot of balls in the air,

and of course we hope not a single one drops. But as a safety measure, start by assessing all of them

and then determine if one just had to drop, which would cause the least damage. The other day,

I was carrying too much. Like, this is not

a metaphor. I literally just had too many things that I was trying to move from my office into my bag.

I think I had four books, a journal, my wallet, and my laptop. Go ahead. Guess what happened?

Yes, I dropped everything, including my laptop. Now, thank goodness for insurance,

but here's the point. What I should have done is look at everything and determined that the

laptop was the one thing in there I could not drop. And as dexterous as I am, which, by the way, I am not,

I should have made a separate trip for that one. The stakes were too high.

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