I’m in the middle of my cool-off week, and you bet I’m in a good mood. Having extra time on my schedule and an empty scrum board makes me want to try something different—run a new experiment. And since it’s a cool-off week and all the rules are off the table, why the heck not? Hence, this post and a new format. I decided to share a little bit about my last sprint and experiment with a new format. Let me know if you like this format and want me to continue doing it.
February 2025 Sprint Review
Sprint Capacity
I had my usual sprint capacity, so I stuck with my regular 5-projects-per-sprint load.
Sprint Focus
The sprint focus can either be your #1 goal or a theme that combines multiple sprint goals. This sprint, my focus was a theme: “Clear and organized finances.” It involved several sprint goals, such as filing taxes, opening new bank accounts for my business, and creating budgets.
Scrum Board
I still use an analog Scrum board in our home office/guest room. However, this sprint, the office was mostly used by my husband, so I didn’t have as much access to it as I would have liked. As a result, I’ll be experimenting with something new for my Scrum board next sprint. I’ll keep you updated.
Daily Standups
Thanks to The Focus Room, my daily standups have been on point. This is the most consistent I’ve ever been with them.
A little tip: I have an alarm set for 6 PM to remind me to post my daily standup in our group chat. This has been working well. By that time, I’m usually finishing cleaning up after dinner and not on my phone to see calendar notifications. But an alarm clock is a great reminder to do a standup.
I prefer doing standups the night before so I can wake up with a clear plan for the day.
What Helped Me Get Things Done
Here are the things that helped me show up for my sprint goals—even the boring ones like doing taxes—every workday.
- Group standups. Knowing I had to report my progress to the group at 6 PM made me want to have at least one ✅ on my list.
- Working sessions. I used group working sessions to tackle my taxes. During one session, I sorted a big box of receipts into different piles, and one hour was enough to get through the entire box! Another member used the session to go through her mail pile, while someone else worked on decluttering their house. A lot of us used this time to handle boring but necessary tasks, which was a huge relief once they were done.
- Time-blocking my work hours. Yes, I’m back to time-blocking! But to keep it reasonable and avoid burnout, I only time-block the hours my daughter is at daycare (aka my workday).
- Daily morning walks. I’ve been waking up early and going for an hour-long walk every day. It keeps me grounded, calm, and energized. Sometimes I listen to something inspiring, sometimes I walk in silence, and sometimes I brainstorm and record audio lessons for the Focus Room.
- Descoping projects. My perfectionism always got in the way of doing this effectively—and, most importantly, on time. But I think this was the first sprint where I managed to do it without all the “It’s not good enough” drama.
Sprint Insights
- To solve overwhelm, shift from a simultaneous to a sequential execution philosophy. (I wrote an entire post about this here.)
- There’s a version of your dream life you can build with what you have. This is a juicy one—I want to unpack it in a future post.
- I’m officially done with the idea of subtasks for personal projects and goals, and I have a solid explanation for why. (I’ll be writing a separate post on this soon.)
