Making the Weekly Update Yours

by Kim Brewster

One of my most dreaded tasks in the first few months of my job was a weekly update e-mail that we send to let everyone know what we’ve been up to. With our trainers out so often, it’s nice to have that weekly connection.

As office coordinator, there are a lot of the usual weekly tasks to promote smooth processes between the president, our team members and me. A lot of my e-mails are things that can be handled in two minutes or less (remember from the 4 D’s – Do It if it takes less than 2 minutes) – hardly stimulating material but definitely filler if I chose to list them. My team members also don’t need to know how many airline reservations I booked last week or how many spreadsheets I updated. What they need to know is the status of projects, processes and requests.

But somewhere between the mystical and mundane, there is life. So often, our work lives take on a life of their own and we forget or don’t elevate what is important to us outside of work. Take time to include something from your personal life in your updates. It helps you remember those special times and lets your co-workers know there’s more to each of us than our job descriptions or titles.

Of course, choosing how much “personal” you choose to share depends on the audience. But hobbies, classes you may be taking, movies you saw, books you read, what’s happening with kids-grandkids-pets, vacations, etc., are all worthy of capturing. Plus those activities are part of our work/life balance or we would be just work.
Why wait until Friday afternoon or Monday morning and try to recapture the past week? If I don’t write something important down, it’s like burping Tupperware – it escapes. My best tip for staying on top of an update e-mail is to record items daily. I keep a draft e-mail documenting what I’ve done this week which can be added to daily or as something is completed.