Read This If You Ate Dry Turkey Last Week

"Save the neck for me, Clark" - Cousin Eddie

Why do we do this to ourselves every year?

We say we're going to cook it according to the recipe, but that never works.

And so, year after year, we end up cooking the same dry turkey.

And since we've been cooking turkeys for hundreds of years, theoretically since the pilgrims landed in Massachusetts in December of 1620, you would think we'd have figured it out by now.

But we did.

Here's how it actually works

It turns out that the white meat is different from the dark meat. It has less fat, among other things, and so the white meat cooks at a lower temperature than the dark meat.

This means that while the dark meat is becoming juicy and tender, the white meat is overcooking to that predictable, stringy, papery texture.

Ugh.

So how do we fix it?

Smart cooks figured it out.

It's called spatchcocking.

You basically butterfly the turkey and lay it out on the baking tray.

Spatchcocked Turkey

The convection around the turkey allows the temperature to be lower near the breast and higher near the thighs. I know, it's perfect.

So, then, why do we insist on cooking dry turkey every year?

Because of this:

When Norman Rockwell painted "Freedom From Want" in November of 1942, it was published in the magazine The Post the following March. It resonated with many people because of the socioeconomic hardships many Americans were facing.

It resonated so much that, to this day, we cook our turkeys to look like the one in the painting.

That's about as far as I can logically explain the phenomenon.

So, as we floss the remainder of that turkey from our overworked teeth this week, let's consider how we'll approach the last of the winter holidays.

You can choose.

It's not taste vs. aesthetic.

It's taste vs. sentiment.

And the sentiment can change--but we have to change the way we cook the turkey first, and then the sentiment will follow.

And then, pretty soon, with enough people, we'll all have spatchcocked turkeys.

And then, not long after that, spatchcocked turkeys will be the way we've always done it.

And then the taste and the sentiment will be in harmony.

But it does require you to do something different, first.

It requires you to be the first to change things from the way we've always done them to the way we do them now because the way we do them now is better.

2 Minute Action:

Quick: write up a list of things that you do that you've always done. On it, you might have ways to cook a turkey, but it might also have ways to get married, process TPS reports, or retire.

Now pick just one of those things that seems important and urgent.

If you could design it from scratch, for what you need, according to what you value, how might you do it?

6 Tell-Tale Symptoms Of A Broken Workflow

Are any of these things part of your normal day-to-day?

1. You are constantly being pulled in a million directions.
2. You are constantly reacting to the "emergency of the day."
3. You are constantly needed for approvals and reviews.
4. You can't get your own work done because you are a slave to others'.
5. You start early and finish late but still can't seem to get everything done.
6. You feel busy all day, but you can't really point to anything specific that you finished at the end of it.

If you experience any one of these on a day-to-day basis, you could be in trouble.

We all experience these symptoms from time to time, but if it happens for too many days (or weeks) in a row, something is broken.Don't panic.It's normal to ebb and flow like this. What's not normal is experiencing these symptoms chronically.

Here are some things you can think/do/remember that will help alleviate these symptoms:

There is always an infinite amount of work to be done--so working harder or longer isn't a feasible long-term solution.Just because it's urgent doesn't mean it's important. Define what's important first, then go after what's important AND urgent.I can admit, it feels good to be needed, but if people can't move forward on their work because they need something from you, YOU are the bottleneck. Your team is counting on your to empower them with the tools and resources to move faster without you overseeing every little thing.Being busy doesn't mean you're productive. Productive means you have a measurable output. Busy is just an "energy consumption" metric that tells you your RPMs.

2 Minute Action:

Here are some options for today.

• Look up the Eisenhower Decision Matrix and use it to prioritize your tasks for today.
• Schedule a "retrospective" with your team, partner, colleagues, or clients. In it, you should ask "what went so well that we should keep doing it?" and "what should we stop doing or could be improved?"
• Create a Scrum board that makes it really clear what is done and what is still being worked on.

It's your responsibility to identify and solve problems in yourself, for your clients, for your patients, for your students, or for your team.Until you train and empower them to, no one else is going to do it for you.

Most People Do This And It’s Killing Them

I should have invested earlier.I should be further along on this project than I am.I should known an emergency might happen.

Have you heard yourself talk like this before?

It’s known as “shoulding all over yourself.”Unless there is a lesson you can learn and apply to the future, this kind of thinking is useless.In fact, it’s counter productive.It pulls your valuable attention away from the reality of where you are right now (and what you CAN do) and puts it on what you cannot change.There is a 0% ROI on ruminating.

It’s normal to have this thought pattern, so it’s okay.

It’s your job to catch this and make the adjustment, regulate, and choose to put your attention somewhere more useful.It’s not a light switch. Be patient. It’s one of those things that just takes a lifetime to master.Hang in there.Do your best with what you have, where you are.

2 Minute Action

Name 3 things you haven’t let go of or things you haven’t forgiven yourself for.You can also just name some things that are on your “worry list” that don’t really need to be because there’s not much you can control about them.Pick one and take 2 minutes to focus only on that and let yourself off the hook.Feels kinda good to be nice to yourself, right?This will come up again later, so be patient with yourself as you build this habit.