As we now enter the month of April and come to the close of March, so much has transpired in the world over the past month that I am sure most of you reading this are living a much different life than you were only 30 days ago. With the spread of the COVID-19 virus, much of the world has completely shut down and encouraged us all to remain safe inside. I’ve been in complete awe seeing how the pace of the world has slowed as we all retreat into the safety of home.
Since the pandemic has hit, I have been reaching out to those of you in my community looking for inspiration and ideas for content to create for you during this uncertain time. My lifestyle has truly seemed to be spared during this crisis so far- I mentioned in a video last week that I’m not feeling the affects many around the globe are feeling, and because of that I want to do whatever I can to help those of you feeling the real burden of all this.
I definitely encourage you to keep up with the content I am producing across my platforms. Here on my blog, over on my YouTube channel and also on Instagram! But for today, I wanted to share with you a special FREE Planner Insert that I’ve designed with this trying time in mind.
As we are moving into the Spring in the northern hemisphere and soo many of us are unexpectedly stuck at home, I have created a Spring Cleaning Checklist. Just a simple insert to help you keep on track with any home cleaning and organization you might be doing, especially since home has become the center of the universe for each of us.
And of course, if there is anything you need from me, any questions you have for dealing with your productivity or life during this challenging time, please let me know how I can support you and bring you the solutions or resources to make things a little easier for you!
Like everyone in the world, I have good days and bad days and it always seems like the days when I am most productive just sort of randomly happen. They are usually unplanned; one day I just wake up and things seem to flow. There are no obstacles and the day just passes easily while I remain focused on the things I need to accomplish. When this happens, it’s easy to think that I just got lucky. Like the stars have aligned for me to have a productive day, but tomorrow I might not be so lucky. The truth is, however, although we might experience these days as random occurrences, there are things we can do to mimic the conditions and have the most productive day ever, whenever we want. I’ve actually figured out four important steps or phases we can take to have the most productive day ever, and if you also follow these steps you can create the right conditions to have your own productive day on demand as well!
Your Productive Day Starts the Night Before
The most productive days always begin with a few key actions taken the night before, but for each of us, the exact actions to take to set tomorrow up for success might be different. Think about the things that cause resistance in your mornings. Are you exhausted when you wake up? Do you struggle to pick out your clothes? Do you make a mess in the kitchen preparing breakfast and you’re brown bagged lunch? Whatever elements of your morning are a struggle for you, identify them and decide what action you can take the night before to vault those hurdles. Getting to bed earlier, laying out your clothes, prepping a breakfast and lunch? Maybe it’s not your own resistance you face and the struggle is with partners or children. Get them on board if necessary and take some time prepping with or for them so tomorrow morning is a breeze.
Make Your Morning Count
Now that you have mitigated the biggest sources of resistance in your morning, you can start your day with more peace and ease. Begin by spending a little more time in bed this morning. I know what you’re thinking- but I promise, this will be time well spent. After all, you took key actions last night, so now you can spend 15-20 minutes before exiting bed in quiet prayer or meditation. If it helps to use a guided meditation track, have some options bookmarked on your phone so you can pop on your headphones and get yourself aligned before your feet hit the ground.
Once it’s time to get down to business for the day, no matter what sort of work you do, spend a another 10-15 minutes with your planner working out time when you will focus on your most important priorities. Decide what those priorities are; time with family, a workout before or after work, an important event or meeting, or specific work that is due. Once you know those top 3 priorities for the day, make sure you have the time blocked off for their completion in your schedule. Then of course wrap up your planning with any other scheduled events or tasks you need to remember.
Wrap Up and Wind Down
Towards the end of your workday it’s incredibly important that you intentionally wrap up any work that may need to be carried over for the next day and get your workspace or inbox in good order. This will make it much easier for you to have a productive work day again tomorrow. Spend perhaps the final 30 minutes of your workday intentionally winding down for the transition from work back to home life. Set the intention that you are leaving work at work and moving into the next phase of your day with peace and ease so that you can now step into being your best self for your personal priorities. Whether you work outside or inside the home, that intention mental switch is an important daily transition to make so that you are showing up as your best self for yourself and other, and also making the most of the next phase of your day.
Simple, right? Maybe not necessarily easy, but a pretty simple four step plan. I’d love for you to test this plan out in your own life and report back on how it worked out for you. Remember, this plan is intended to be general steps for you to take, but you need to hammer our the specifics for your day and your life for things to work out as productively as possible for you. But, it is great to have this template or outline to work off. Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
10 Productive Time Management Tips that Will Change Your Life!
Much of the measure of our personal productivity comes from the way we spend our time. Students often come to my content and classes with the hope of learning a secret technique that will change their lives, suddenly helping them achieve a weeks worth of work in a single day. For many people, that is the goal of proper time management and productivity. To figure out a way to cram more tasks into a shorter time frame. To find a way to hit a metaphorical pause button on time so that you can deal with the task at hand and avoid the unexpected interruptions that leach time away from you. To master a sense of self-discipline so we are excited to wake up early and focus on completing a string of predefined tasks that will bring meaning and value to our effort and sacrifice.
Can I let you in on a little secret?
There is no one technique or strategy that will help you achieve this, instead, from my experience this sort of productivity comes from a mindset shift where we make many small strategic changes to the way we approach our time and work that ultimately add up to big results. Shifting the way we approach each individual choice we make, each micro-habit if you will, can lead us to feel like we are managing our time well, and ultimately we feel more productive. When we feel more productive, we become more productive. For that reason productivity is a mental construct just as much as it is something that can be tracked by measurements and metrics. So, if you would like to start making these strategic little shifts to your mindset to become more productive, here are 10 productive time management tips that will change your life.
1. There is always enough time for the things you prioritize.
How often do you find yourself saying “I wish I had more time in the day for X.” Fill in the blank with any number of personal priorities that are seriously lacking time and attention in your life. Notice how I said personal priorities too, and not work priorities. Most of us don’t feel like we are focused too little on work, instead, we instinctually know we are focused too little on the quintessential meaningful things in life. Family, friends, our health, personal goals, rest, you name it- if it’s something truly important in life, we are likely sacrificing it for something that is ultimately less meaningful but seemingly more urgent. The problem is though, those meaningful things are our priorities, or at least we would say they are. But we are actually de-prioritizing them and then acting like time is the enemy here when really there is enough time in the day for those priorities, if we actually prioritize them. You know this is true. You know you get the same 24 hours in a day that everyone else has, so the problem isn’t that you don’t have enough time. The problem is that you aren’t prioritizing the things you say are priorities. Remember, the to do list is never ending, there will be more to add to it tomorrow and the chores will need to be repeated again. So, spend time on the important things first, and you can let everything else fill your spare time.
2. Plan a little less to make room for things that pop up
If you find it hard to get things done because you experience a never ending string of interruptions to your work that ultimately dig you into a time and productivity hole you struggle to dig yourself out of, you need to readjust your expectations. Specifically, you need to cut back on the amount of things you plan to achieve each day, and make room for those unexpected interruptions that pop up. You know I love me a good plan, but when you are failing to complete the plan repeatedly because there is too much on your plate each day or your focus and attention is often redirected to emergency or unplanned events- you need to start planning for that. Yea, expect the unexpected and put some white space or buffer time into your plan. Take a look at the patterns of your interruptions and the work you plan and fail to accomplish each day. Are you planning for 8 hours of work but only achieving 5 hours on average? Well, then start planning for 5 hours and see how that goes. And I know what some of you are thinking, that you have 8 hours of work to do each day so you can’t plan for less, but you can. You see, if you aren’t getting it all done that means some things are being pushed off for the next day, and after too many consecutive days of this you find yourself in a hole. So, some things are either not getting done, or you are carving into personal time, sleep, family time, etc, to try to get everything done. So, something is ultimately falling off the to do list for good. What I am suggesting is that you get a little more strategic about the work that goes onto your plan each day and intentionally cut off things you know are less important so those items don’t take up precious time. Give it a try, see if adjusting for and planning around interruptions gives you back time and energy to get the most important work done. I have a strong feeling it will.
3. For best results, do one thing at a time
I can remember back a decade or so ago when the concept of multitasking was all the rage. And then research stepped in and explained that when you multitask you don’t complete twice the work in the same time, you either spend much more time accomplishing the tasks or are lucky if you even get one of the tasks done properly. Focus and dedicated attention to a task are incredibly under rated time management strategies, but if you try them for yourself I think you will find that you get a much better result and drain less of your energy. Yes, there are of course times when you can do more than one thing at a time because the tasks don’t matter- like listening to a book on tape while working out or doing chores- but an example like that only works when one activity was passive to begin with and doesn’t need to use the same brain centers to work. Try listening to a book on tape while following a recipe for dinner- you need some form of attention on both of those things, so you will ultimately burn the entree or have to go back to replay a missed chapter. So, be intentional when you multitask and instead try doing one thing at a time and see how well and how quickly you actually accomplish it.
4. If you lack motivation, create and stick to a routine
When it comes to productivity and time management, it’s easy to feel like you require strong motivation in order to propel yourself, but this isn’t necessarily true. Yes, motivation is great and when you are highly motivated you are very likely to enthusiastically pursue a goal or complete a task, but motivation usually doesn’t last. What lasts are the patterns created by a daily well established routine. This is a strategy I often see used by great writers. From the outside, we might think that writing a book requires motivation and inspiration, but when you learn about the lives of writers, you find that they usually have a dedicated routine for their writing that they follow day in and day out despite their motivation levels. Because self-discipline and routine are actually stronger factors than motivation and more consistent as well. You could be motivated to write a book one day and then the motivation runs out after a few hours or days, but if you have created a daily routine for your task you will come back to the writers desk day in and day out until the work is done. So, if you have goals or objectives but no motivation- no problem! Define a routine, execute against it, and after a while that routine will propel you further than motivation alone ever could.
5. Determine what will have the biggest impact and do that first
I’ve researched so many different productivity philosophies pertaining to the order in which you should complete tasks and although all of them do work in their own way, I’ve found that nothing is more guaranteed to succeed than working on the most important and impactful work first. It all comes down to prioritization and the true nature of productivity which is to achieve the greatest results with the least effort. Note that I did not say achieve the most tasks, or check the most items off the to do list in the quickest time. I said achieve the greatest results. So, if we start by identifying which tasks will have the most impact and the biggest payout and do those first, we are seeing instant productivity outcomes. Yes, this means we need to pause and analyze what we are doing and why. It means we need to take a task and see the process and outcome and weigh those factors for each task on our list to determine what goes first. But if you can spend this time, you will ultimately have more to show for your effort. Remember, there are always things we have to do but that doesn’t mean they generate results. Not all actions generate a valuable return on time invested. And more time spend on a task doesn’t mean it will have more of an impact. We need to be strategic about where we spend our time and focus our energy first on those result driving actions if we want to better manage our time.
6. Before you start a lengthy task, write down all the steps and arrange strategically
I often extoll the virtues of project planning, but I feel like I often leave out an important step in the process that really makes all the difference to the amount of time and energy it will take for you to achieve an objective. Before you start on an objective, something that takes more than a few actions to complete, you really should write down all the steps you think you will need to take and then consider how you can arrange the steps strategically to make the process as seamless as possible. Yes, a project plan itself is a set of written steps towards an objective, and we do often write the steps out in an order that makes logical sense initially, but that first draft of tasks can always be improved upon. You can look at that list of action steps and perhaps remove a few items that might be redundant or unnecessarily. You may be able to group a few different tasks that belong to different phases of the objective to save time and energy. The point here is just that we don’t want to start with our first draft of a plan. We want to refine it. We want to take some time to play out the details in our mind and see if we missed any gaps or can consolidate any actions. That will always give us the better result in the least amount of time.
For more productivity tools and resources for planning, download your copy of my FREE Productivity Toolbox by clicking the image above!
7. More time doesn’t equal more productivity, less time usually does.
I realize this tip is one that seems completely illogical but it absolutely works. We often think that the more time we dedicate to a task, the better the outcome will be. Think about it, you have some work you need to accomplish so you carve out some time in your schedule (a very productive move) and you block off a little more time for the task. Or you have a project due in a few weeks time, so you allot yourself the full duration to work on it, because you think the more time you spend on it, the better the outcome will be. While it is true that better results come from having adequate time to execute, there is a point where giving yourself too much extra time can become a waste of time. Parkinson’s Law states that work will expand to fit the time allotted for its’ completion. Meaning, that if you have an objective that should take a few hours to complete, you can achieve it within that span of time, but if you give yourself a full day, or a full week to achieve it, it will also expand to that full day or week of work. This is why more time doesn’t equal more productivity, but instead, if you give yourself less time or just enough time, you can achieve great results with time to spare. Now of course, buffer time is always great to help account for interruptions which can be a problem for many people. But that is where you may want to consider giving yourself an earlier deadline to achieve an objective where the true due date might be a little further off.
8. Procrastinate on purpose and work around it
Procrastination is something that affects all of us, no one is immune to the inclination to waste a bit of time. The most productive people, however, know how to procrastinate purposefully. This comes down to understanding the ebb and flow of your personal energy cycle so you can work at full force when you have the power to do so, and can take a meaningful break when your capacity is lower. Track throughout your days when you find your energy is at a peak, when you are in flow with your work and getting things done at a good pace. Track also when your energy begins to wane. When you find yourself loosing focus, when your pace slows and when you may be more easily distracted by people or gadgets. When you find your personal focus and energy peaks and valleys you can then plan to procrastinate or take a break right as your energy is falling and you can give yourself permission to relax. That’s the most important part really. I think when we procrastinate during the day we often feel guilty for doing so and don’t fully enjoy the little mental break we are taking. But when we procrastinate on purpose with our energy cycle, we can feel good about it and see the procrastination as a productive way to recharge our personal energy. I don’t know about you, but when I am low on energy I can do no real meaningful work and everything takes me twice as long to get done. So, if by allowing myself space to delay my work helps me to rest my mind and bring my energy back up quicker, that is the best way for me to spend that time.
9. Write everything down and set alerts for as much as possible. Do not rely on your brain to recall information
How many times do we have to forget important details before we learn that we cannot rely on our brains to remember things. Instead, we need to get in the habit of writing things down and setting alerts so that we recall said information at the proper time. The way I do this is simple. When I think of something I feel like may be important, I list it in the brain dump section of my planner. If the information pertains to an existing project, I list it on the project page, if it is something I want to remember on a certain day I put in in my calendar. If it’s time sensitive, I set a reminder or calendar alert. If I am out and about without my planner, which happens often, I use another device to track said information- my phone! By either creating a note, adding something to my schedule from my phone or by sending myself an email so I don’t miss the information later. Then, when I am back with the planner anything that needs to be written down gets put in it’s proper place. Yes, this is a habit that takes time to implement, but it is so worth it not to miss important information. By writing everything down I have seriously minimized the number of metaphorical fires I have to put out that might otherwise steal my time and attention, and I see that my work has improved when I have all my creative ideas at my disposal at the time the work is done. All because of one key habit.
10. Systemize repeating and ongoing tasks
As I mentioned earlier, when it comes to out to do list, there is no end to the amount of tasks that we need to accomplish and many of these items are repeating or ongoing tasks that we will never truly finish or permanently remove from the to do list. Unless, of course, you find a way to systemize the task. Meaning that you develop a method or process for handing the task that simplifies or minimizes it. Let’s take chores for instance. Chores are a never ending series of tasks. We vacuum the floor one day and it immediately begins to get dirty again, so we need to repeat the task the next day or the next week. We do the dishes but they pile up at the same time. So, how do we systemize these things? By defining a regular cycle in which to address them. Dishes may need to be washed daily, our floor vacuumed once a week, the blinds dusted every other week. By taking the time to list out the task, decide on the frequency we will address it and then scheduling the time into our calendar, we can minimize the amount of energy and time we spend on it. Now, of course, some tasks may be able to be automated as well. When we automate tasks, we set up a system that repeats on its own. When I think of automated tasks I often think of bill payments and purchases. Most bills can be set to autopay so that we don’t have to think about them. Money can be automatically transferred to an account and then the account can be debited for the bill. Or regular purchases can be set to automatic schedules so it saves you the time and energy of having to remember to refill a necessity yourself. I do this with my pet supplies and some supplies around the home that deplete at regular intervals. Many sites have auto ship options to make systemizing ongoing purchases one less thing to have to remember, ultimately saving your time and energy to devote to other things.
So those are 10 productive time management tips that will change your life, if you let them and if you execute on them of course! If you enjoyed these tips I would love to hear which were most impactful for you and of course which are giving you the best results in your life and productivity. So, please do leave me a comment below and let me know!
We’ve come now to the end of February 2020 and I have to say, looking back at this month, I am so proud that I was able to get myself back into the swing of creating regular content for you all in the form of blog posts, youtube videos and even some great free resources and inserts for you! So, I thought it might be a good idea to put together a link roundup of all the different content I created this month so you have a quick reference guide to ensure you didn’t miss anything you might be interested in.
I’m going to call this monthly installment series ICYMI- which stands for In Case You Missed It! For those of you who have been with me for a while, you might remember that years ago I used to include a section in my email newsletters called ICYMI which was a roundup of all my content created since the previous newsletter has been sent, and it was a great way to ensure my regular community members didn’t miss anything I created. I put a lot of work into the content I produce for you, and so often my content answers questions I regularly receive my community- so I absolutely want to make sure you see everything and learn as much as you can from what I’m sharing! So, without further ado, let’s jump into the content you may have missed this month!
I hope this roundup helps you locate any content of mine you may have missed this month. I’d love to hear which content was your favorite from the month and what you’d like to see more of from me in the future. Please leave me a comment below and share your thoughts!
I have been on the internet for a very long time. I was building my own websites and doing an early form of micro blogging back in the early 2000s while I was in high school. Yea, it’s been a while and with each new iteration of tech, software and internet enabled gadgets, I feel like I have accumulated so much digital clutter. And I don’t think you even had to be active in the digital space for as long as I have been to feel similarly. Most of us have a backlog of emails in our inbox, a camera roll cluttered with photos, videos and screen shots, and just too much digital stuff to look at, scroll through, listen to and watch!
It’s time for us to do a digital declutter- at least, it’s time for me to do a digital declutter.
If you are not familiar with the concept of a digital declutter, it’s very similar to the concept of a home, room, closet or drawer declutter. We are going to go through our digital devices and start clearing things out.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Why is this necessary? Our digital devices are equipped with enough hard drive and cloud backup space to keep every single email, picture, screen shot, app, and note- so why would we actively declutter this if we can just keep it forever?
You’re right, we do have nearly unlimited storage space for all our digital information, however, when was the last time you truly went back and reviewed older files? I know for me, I occasionally scroll through files looking for something I know I saved and because of all the other digital clutter, it’s hard for me to find that one single thing I’m looking for. Even when I use the search function in an app like my email to find something I know I saved, I find it hard to locate that specific email. I’ve frequently lost digital files on my devices, and so, perhaps we give that seemingly unlimited storage capacity and search functionality too much credit. Like physical clutter, digital clutter can absolutely be an eyesore or weight on our shoulders, complicating things that should be an organized convenience. So, if you are ready to lighten your digital load and have an easier time with your devices, here are some ways you can start your own digital declutter.
7 Ways to Declutter Your Digital Life
#1.Get to Email Inbox Zero: I’ve created an entire video on the exact process I use to get to Email Inbox Zero, so click here to check it out. No, Inbox Zero doesn’t mean we are going to delete all of our emails. Instead we are going to use a system of organizing to process through unread emails and properly store or delete emails as necessary to ensure our inboxes are as organized as possible and that no email is left behind.
#2.Unsubscribe from Email Lists You No Longer Enjoy: While you are completing your Email Inbox Zero project, I know you’ll find emails from subscription lists you no longer enjoy. So to cut down on future email clutter, let’s just take a minute, before deleting those old emails, to locate and use the unsubscribe function to prevent future necessary email clutter.
#3.Delete Unused Apps On Your Devices: As I am completely integrated into the Apple ecosystem, whenever I get a new device, like a new iPhone for instance, it automatically downloads all the apps from every other device I own. Ugh! This is such a pain because I use certain apps on my iPad and not on my iPhone, and I end up with pages of apps I need to organize or remove. Let’s save ourselves the hassle and just purge all the old apps we no longer use. So check your phone, tablet and even your computer for old apps or software you can remove to save space and processing power for other things.
#4.Review and Clean Up the Pictures, Videos and Screenshots on Your Phone: The photo albums on my phone are a particularly cluttered part of my life. I take so many photos, videos and screenshots and very rarely delete any of them. So, if you are like me, I recommend you first take a moment to back up your photos from your phone to either your computer or to a cloud storage system. I have a Dropbox Pro membership so I can set my photos to back up to the cloud there just to ensure I don’t loose anything important. Then once everything is safe, I will go through my photos/camera roll and just clear out anything that doesn’t need to be on my phone.
Looking for more great tech resources for your Online Business? Click the image above to get the Female Entrepreneur Online Business Toolkit today!
#5.Create a Digital Filing System on Your Computer: Now, this happens to be one the few areas of my digital life that I do have pretty well organized already, but I know so many people have a computer desktop covered with files and no clear system for storing information to future reference. For me, my system begins with folders in my “Documents” folder of my Mac. In there I have sub folders for different areas of my life and of course a dedicated folder for my business. It’s not just on folder, of course, but I keep folders nested inside each other for different aspects of my business in a file system that makes logical sense to me, so I always know where I need to store specific files and where to find them when I need to reference them again. My in progress files go in a dedicated folder called “In Progress” and I try to declutter this folder on a somewhat monthly basis. Although I always try to ensure I am saving photos, documents and other files to their appropriate place in my filing system, sometimes when I have a number of items I need to reference for a project, it’s easier to just leave them in one folder and put everything “away” once the work is complete. Whatever system makes sense to you, put something in place where you can properly organize the files on your computer, because again, search doesn’t always work out, especially if you name a file something random, forget to change the name on a file that might have had a generic title or if you misspell your file name as I sometimes do and then loose things in plain sight. At least when files are in their proper place in my system, I can narrow down where I need to look for them!
#6. Scrub through Your Podcast Subscriptions and Replace some Old Shows with some New Ones: I don’t know about you, but when it comes to free platforms like podcasts, I tend to go overboard subscribing to all different types of shows I might be interested in. In truth, however, there are few I follow through with listening to. So, it’s a great idea to review my podcast subscriptions and make sure I take off any shows I thought I’d want to listen to but didn’t like or never got around to while my interest was high. The thing about podcasts, especially if you use a podcast app like the one that comes standard on your iPhone, is that the episodes technically download to your device so they do take up storage space. If you don’t listen to a show for a while, the episodes stop downloading automatically, but if you are subscribed to a lot of shows that can be a big chunk of your hard drive taken up. So, review the podcasts you’re subscribed to, remove subscriptions to shows you don’t like, and perhaps even unearth a new show or two that piques your interest.
#7. Unfollow Instagram Accounts that No Longer Inspire You and Find a few New Ones that Light You Up: One of the aspects of the digital declutter I didn’t even touch on yet is how having soo much content at your fingertips can sometimes overwhelm you in a negative way. Specifically, when it comes to social media platforms like Instagram (but feel free to replace IG with any platform like Twitter, Facebook, YouTub, TikTok, etc) we might start following people or accounts for certain inspirational content, but then after a while it becomes a game of comparison to us. If you aren’t looking to your social content feeds feeling uplifted and inspired, and instead feel judgey, overwhelmed or brought down by what you see, it’s time to purge your feed. Remove, unfollow or unsubscribe from feeds that bring you down, and replace some of them with new content to lift you up.
So, those were 7 Ways to Declutter Your Digital Life. I’d love to hear what you thought of these ideas and how things go for you as you start your digital declutter process. To make this process even more methodical, if that’s something you’d enjoy, perhaps consider turning this into a 7 day challenge for yourself and performing one of the activities per day for a week. Let me know how it goes!
Today on my YouTube Channel, I am sharing the scientific research behind why habits are hard to change. For me, learning this information helped me better understand the way my brain works and come to a deeper understanding of some of the most common anecdotal information and evidence on how habits work. I hope by learning this concept, you will be better prepared to plan and execute on habit changes in your own life!
I want to let you in on a little personal development secret.
This year can absolutely be your best year ever.
How do I know this?
Because when you have been involved in personal development as a lifelong journey the way I have been, you begin to understand that no matter the ups and downs that life throws at us from year to year, season to season, the one thing we always have control over is our actions. Ultimately, it is our actions that define the success of a year, and when you take the time to learn from your past- your past mistakes and your past success as well- you can use that information to make better decisions and take better actions in the present. That means, no matter how wonderful or how terrible you think years past have been, you have a solid foundation of knowledge to reference to make this year the best year of your life. Armed with all that you already know and understand about yourself and the patterns that bring you success or failure, all you really need is a simple action plan of steps to execute to bring your best year to fruition. So, here are 6 simple (but not always easy) steps to your best year yet!
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6 Steps to Your Best Year Yet
#1. Choose the direction you are headed
The first step to having your best year ever is to clearly understand the direction you are headed for your life that would definitively make this year great. After all, how can we ensure your year is great unless we know what greatness looks like and feels like for you. Each of us will have a unique perspective for what would make a year great. What areas of our lives we want to see improvement or change in, what specific milestones we want to hit. It’s important to start your year off with a big picture vision for what you want to accomplish.
Now, to be completely transparent with you, from experience I have seen that very often this first step is the hardest for people to execute on. Although some people are blessed with a definitive vision for what they want their life to look like in the future, most people have a general feeling that what they have right now isn’t enough but they aren’t sure what they really want from life. If this is you, know that it’s completely normal to feel this way, but that this is ultimately a symptom of your general mindset. I’m going to talk about mindset more in step 6, but for now, understand that if you are struggling to see a bigger picture for your life, you likely have limiting beliefs that need to be challenged having to do with your potential and what is or is not possible for your life. It is very common for me to work with students who have been taught not to expect much from life, and that you certainly shouldn’t set goals and aspirations for things bigger than your current station in life. This is unfortunately a common symptom of small minded beliefs that have been passed on through generations, but it is not a true reflection of the world. In our current day and age it is extremely common for people from humble beginnings to lead marvelous lives and expand their worldview. Whatever you can dream for your life, you can achieve with the right mindset and a good plan to get you started.
DO THIS: I recommend spending some time journaling about all the wonderful things you want life to bring you. Take your time with this step, dream big, and if you reach a point where you feel like you want something but you also feel like it’s not possible for you to achieve it, push back on that limiting belief because I have found through experience that most things in life are possible in one form or another if we get creative about our solutions.
#2. Turn your vision into actionable goals
Once you have come to the end of your journaling about the future, it’s time to take your vision and turn it into actionable goals. Now, do keep in mind that this one journaling session for your future isn’t the be all and end all of all your goals. It’s just a jumping off point to get you started. As you turn your vision into goals, you may find that in order to achieve one goal, you will need to complete one or more other goals first. And that once a specific goal is reached, you may want to follow it up with something else. Keep all these goals in mind, again, don’t worry about how many goals you are creating, because there is enough time for you to accomplish everything you want in some way or another. So many goals branch off from other goals and dovetail together that when you weave together your goals for the vision of your life over the next 1, 3, 5, 10+ years, you really do have time to have it all!
DO THIS: Use the acronym S.M.A.R.T to turn each dream for your future into a Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time Bound Goal. Specific: what are you specifically trying to accomplish? Measurable: How can you track or measure when you have reached the goal? Actionable: What actions can be taken to affect the outcome of the goal? Realistic: How can you realistically achieve the goal? Time Bound: When do you want to accomplish this goal by, how much time should it take you to accomplish it and where in the course of your expected life does it make the most sense to work on this goal?
#3. Give your goals a practical plan
So far in this process you have started with big vague dreams, then turned them into actionable goals, and now you must give each goal a set of practical steps to execute on. For some of your goals the path for achievement will be pretty clear to you. Some goals like getting a specific degree or having children are more straight forward. That doesn’t mean you might not experience certain obstacles to achieving them, but you at least know how to get the goal done. For some goals, you may need to do some research to understand the best way for your to approach and successfully accomplish the goal. Luckily, Google is ready to supply a steady stream of insight and information for nearly any goal you may want to accomplish that you might be unclear about. Finally, some goals are a bit more abstract and may not have a set of directions at the ready for you to use to execute on. Again, some resources online may be helpful, it might also be helpful to find someone with experience like a mentor to help guide you, but if no good information can be found, just start with a plan that seems to make the most sense to you. When it comes time to execute on plans, it’s rare for anything to go completely according to plan anyway, but getting started and taking your first step in any direction towards your dream is a start none-the-less.
DO THIS: Create an action plan for each goal that is due to be worked on in the next year. Don’t worry about creating complete action plans for each and every goal, as year to year you can reassess your goals and create the desired action plans.
#4. Get out of your own way to get things done
Once the time has come for you to execute on your action plans, this is when the real resistance comes in. If you thought it was difficult to just imagine the future vision for your life, wait until you actually start to take action. That’s when the deepest, darkest limiting beliefs of your mindset will rear their ugly head! Your mind will find anything, any tiny little reason for you not to take action towards your goals, so be prepared for this. It’s quite normal and expected for this to happen- in fact it’s a scientifically understood part of the human brain. You see, your brain is a wonderful organ that manages practically all the functions of your body, but it does so by living in the metaphorical past. Anything you have experience with is acceptable for your brain, but anything new, like these big new goals and plans you’re making to change your life, are viewed as a threat. So the best thing you can do is take things slowly, step by step with your action plans and find a way to establish a routine where you give yourself dedicated time to work on your goals.
DO THIS: Aim to create a habit of doing at least one thing for your current goals each day and track your results. Taking small but steady action is a great way to build new neural pathways in your brain that establish permanent patterns and routines for you to go after your goals.
#5. Keep the details of your life organized
There are few things that can steal time away from us taking action on our goals like the necessities of everyday life. We all have to live, right? That means we each have a set of non-negotiable tasks that belong on our to do lists right there beside the action steps for our goals. So, as much as possible to mitigate this, I like to organize and systematize the mundane elements of my life. Organizing your life isn’t always the easiest task, but it is absolutely one that yields tremendous long term results. So, identify the areas of your life that are the biggest obstacle to giving time to your goals and find a way to system
DO THIS: ID a mundane or routine area of your life to systematize. A system is essentially a protocol for dealing with the task on an ongoing basis so you don’t have to think about it each and every time the task comes up. A great example of this is meal planning and prepping. Everyone has to eat and deciding on what to eat right before each meal adds to your decision fatigue each day and takes up valuable time you could be working on your goals. Instead, pick a day of the week to create a complete meal plan for the week, go grocery shopping and then prep some meals ahead of time. This process may take a few hours one day, but by bulking the task you ultimately will save much more time an energy than it would take to cook each meal individually each day. Of course, there are plenty of other areas of life you can systematize if meal planning doesn’t work for you, so consider where you end up spending the most unnecessary time and develop a system for minimizing your effort in this area of your life.
#6. Control your mindset
Mindset is your personal view or attitude toward yourself, your potential and the way the world works. Your mindset has been specifically crafted by your direct experience in life and the information you are given by those around you. Although your mindset is a liquid concept with the potential to evolve throughout your life, for many people, it solidifies by about the age of 7. Meaning, the experiences you had as a child, plus the experiences, lessons and stories shared by your direct family and community have solidly shaped your outlook and world view. But, our mindsets are simply a collection of experiences and beliefs- not necessarily true or false, but usually limiting in some way. They have the power to color our outlook of the world and affect the way we respond in different situations. If you have a strongly positive mindset, you may see the world as full of possibility and eagerly welcome and overcome challenges. But if you have a more negative mindset, you may be limited in the things you believe you can do, accomplish or deserve and you will act in accordance with these beliefs allowing even small obstacles to derail your progress or even worse, finding any excuse not to start on a journal to a cherished goal. Because mindsets are formed so early in life, most of us having been living with our intact and unchecked for the majority of our life, so it takes a lot of patience and self awareness to reprogram your mindset to overcome limiting beliefs. The best thing to do to start the reprogramming process is to handle limiting beliefs as they pop up on your journey. You can identify your limiting beliefs by paying attention to the things you try to avoid, or things you think negatively about yourself. Negative self talk is a major red flag that a limiting belief is present.
DO THIS: As you identify your limiting beliefs, one by one, in the moment that they arise, I recommend doing the following. First writing down the limiting belief that is holding you back in the moment. Next, identify where this belief came from. Did you learn this belief from family? Was it something that played out in your own life that you assigned to yourself? There is always a source for each of our limiting beliefs- a person or a situation that was a catalyst for it. Then, write down an example of when your limiting belief is actually untrue. Identifying evidence that goes against a limiting belief is one of the best ways to break down the stereotype and overcoming it. Finally, write out a phrase that is in complete opposition to your negative belief- effectively turning your negative limiting belief into a positive expansive belief. Every time you face that limiting belief again in the future, stop and force yourself to say and act on the positive belief instead. In time, one will be replaced by the other.
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So those are the 6 simple (but not always easy) steps to your best year yet! I know I gave you a lot of action steps and information to process here, but truly, these six steps are just the tip of the iceberg for your success. The deeper you go into each of these steps, the more you will uncover about your personal goals, aspirations, productivity, and mindset. For that reason, if you would like additional guidance as you work through this process, I would absolutely recommend the YOU GOT THIS Workbook.YOU GOT THIS is a Goal Setting & Planning Guide that not only walks you through these 6 steps in depth with much more example and information, but also contains dozens of activities and worksheets to help you clearly map out this process and bring it to life for your best year ever!
So, if you are serious about taking focused effort to improve your life through goal setting, planning and organization, click the button below to purchase your copy of YOU GOT THIS now!
It’s been a bit of a challenge for me getting into a new routine with my posting for the New Year after being out of one for a while, but I am hoping to build some momentum here on the blog this month! What a better month to reaffirm my commitment to my content than February, right? After all, February is a month where we often celebrate the concepts of devotion, dedication and commitment, usually in the form of personal relationships, but they can be any relationships. I do love my blog and my community and although I’ve been in a long season of transition trying to find my footing again with my work, I am still committed to showing up for each of you through my content and that is a very important relationship to me.
I know that success with this endeavor is going to boil down to whether or not I can get my routines in order and stick to them. One of the major routines I am currently working on is to write and design more for my community. After all, writing and designing is at the heart of my work and is truly my creative passion that I unintentionally cut out of my priorities in an attempt to focus more of my content on video. Video is great, don’t get me wrong. I love my YouTube channel and creating content for it, but more and more I feel like I’m just not as talented with video as I am with my writing and designing.
If you remember, there was a time when most of my content came in the form of blog posts and free designs I shared with you, and I’d like to work back to that point again. I feel more creative when I write regularly and when I create beautiful new things I wish existed in the world. That was once at the heart of my creative passions that have seemingly been reignited in the last month (I strangely credit this to the Chanel Desk Agenda) and I would very much like to flame the fires of that passion in February.
So here is my plan: I am going to commit to creating something every day.
This could be writing;a blog post, passages for my impending productivity book, or updating content on any of my platforms
This could be designing;a new insert, graphic, template, etc.
This could be photography;a stock image for my personal library, a picture for my websites, or a post on Instagram
Now, I realize that most of this creative work on a daily basis may seem invisible to you in my audience, and might even seem piece meal to myself, but the objective would be for a new routine to have formed by the end of the month and that you in my audience will notice the shift. I’d love for my platforms to seem a little fresher, for their to be a more stable flow of content to you, and to have created some lovely things to share that excite and inspire you!
To kick this month off right, I want to make sure you have seen a few of the new sharable freebies I’ve already created for you this year!
Okay, so I think that’s everything for today, but stay tuned to my blog for more great content this month. We’re going to talk more about self-care this month, I’ll be sharing some more posts on what I’ve learned about metaphysics, and because it’s that time of year- I also have some tax tips to share for fellow entrepreneurs to help make tax season a little less stressful.
In today’s video I am walking you through an activity I like to do to organize my habits and routines called My Ideal Day! I encourage you to download the free insert and create your ideal daily schedule to keep you on track with your goals for the year!
Today I am continuing with my Productivity Myths series where I explain why some common productivity advice isn’t accurate and uncover the truth hidden beneath the myth so you can actually improve your productivity!
Productivity Myth #3: Hourly schedules keep your day on track!
It seems like pretty basic planning and productivity advice, doesn’t it? Even many planners come designed with hourly grids where you are encouraged to map out, hour-by-hour the tasks of your day. It reminds me of a quote “a place for everything and everything in it’s place” but twist that to “a time for everything and everything in time.” In a different world, where things always run smoothly and best laid plans come to fruition, an hourly schedule does seem like the perfect solution for planning your day. But, alas, over time I have come to recognize how this seemingly sound advice can wreak havoc when put into practice.
Now, I do want to provide a disclaimer to this information and say I recognize that in some cases, using an hourly schedule is necessary for the work that some of us do. Many businesses work on an hourly appointment schedule for very good reason, and I am not suggesting that this practice should end. I’ll expound on the situations where using an hourly schedule does work a little later on. What I am suggesting with this information, however, is that for those of us with more control over how we spend our time, there are significant reasons why hourly schedules are problematic to overall productivity.
First, let me explain the productivity science behind why using an hourly schedule may seem to work. There is an axiom in productivity known as Parkinson’s Law. It states that “work expands to fill the time allotted for its’ completion.” In common language this means that no matter how much time you give yourself to work on a task, it will take you that long to complete it. Now, in the past, I often took this axiom to also mean that work contracts to fill the time allotted for its’ completion. Meaning that if you give yourself less time to complete an objective, you will also accomplish it in that time as well. However, I have come to realize that this is not true for objectives across the board. Yes, if I give myself 15 minutes to clean my kitchen I can get a decent job done by speeding up my actions that I might usually do at a more relaxed pace in 30 minutes. Or, I might do a decent job but skip over some actions or lessen the quality of the work I am doing to some extent.
Now, cleaning my kitchen is one situation where my adaptation of Parkinson’s Law works well enough, but there are plenty of other examples where it fails. For example, if I am traveling by car to visit a family member in another state, this may be a trip that takes me 90 minutes on average. Now, if I gave myself a time frame of 120 minutes, by Parkinson’s Law, it may very well take me 120 minutes because I might stop at a rest area or for a snack or gas on my way to my destination. However, I cannot expect to be at my destination in 30 minutes or even 60 minutes because the laws of physics and the state of New Jersey say I cannot legally travel by car and reach my destination in such a short period of time. In some respects I believe that the concept of Parkinson’s Law shows how making a realistic schedule and sticking to it can work for completing objectives, however, it doesn’t really work when trying to limit time spent on tasks. In addition, it pretty much ignores some of the most common issues that interfere with productivity when using the model of an hourly schedule to manage your objectives.
So, next I want to lay out a few of the most common issues that arise when using an hourly schedule. If you have ever tried and failed to stick to one, you might recognize a few of these yourself from personal experience.
The most common issue I see with using an hourly schedule for your day is that many people have a difficult time carving out the proper amount of time to alot to an activity. If you have ever tried an hourly schedule and assigned tasks to a specific time slot, you likely faced the scenario where your tasks were taking longer than originally expected and although you were working diligently on your tasks, you started falling behind. Unfortunately, many people are just very bad guessers when it comes to assuming how much time something will take. It’s a default for many of us to assume something will get done quicker than is realistically possible. Even (and sometimes even especially) when we know we have completed a task before in the past. How often have you said to yourself “oh, I’ll do this now, it will only take 15 minutes,” but by the time you wrap up 40 minutes has elapsed? When it comes to time, hindsight is not 20/20 and unless you have specifically tracked and measured your time for various activities in the past, more often than not, you remember it taking less time than it really did.
The second most common issue people face when using an hourly schedule is that unexpected issues or distractions often pop up during the day and divert our attention away from our schedules, again throwing us off track. I think the concept of distractions keeping us from our work is something we are all familiar with and understand how that negatively impacts productivity, so let’s focus on unexpected issues. Unexpected issues can take the form of changes to our planned tasks, technical or communication issues that halt the flow of our work, or people/processes we need to work with or through to complete our work. These aspects are the most unpredictable part of creating a schedule because no matter how diligently we work towards our objectives, in many scenarios other factors can keep us from being productive and staying on track.
The third and final common issue people face when using an hourly schedule is that they ignore or fail to account for their personal energy cycles. People are not robots. Even if we know the precise amount of time our tasks will take and can ensure we are in a distraction and problem-free environment, it is still hard for us to stick to a schedule because working back to back on tasks is mentally exhausting and mental energy is a difficult factor to plan for. Each of us has an amount of energy we begin the day with and that energy cycles in highs and lows that most of us are not attuned to. Sometimes, work just drains us and this results in a slowing of our rate of productivity that again throws us off schedule. Yes, sometimes coffee can help us power through it, but that affect is usually only temporary.
Next, I’d like to explain one lesser recognized issue when it comes to using hourly schedules, but one that I am extremely mindful of, and that is the fact that hourly schedules prevent us from going with the flow of least resistance in our work. The way I look at the previous three common issues to using an hourly schedule is that they each represent a different form of common resistance that throws us off our well laid plans. This is an indication to me that the plans, however, were not well laid. Yet, people will continue to push through, clinging to their schedule, trying very hard to stick to it and then feeling overwhelmed and dissatisfied when they fail to achieve the plan. For me, when I approach my work, I see my objectives as outcomes I would like to manifest and so I prefer to go with the flow and not hold too tightly onto my own expectations or plans for how something should go in order to be completed. Although in many cases with our tasks, our reasonable expectations will be fulfilled, that’s not because things can only work out one way. Objectives can be met and outcomes can come to fruition in a myriad of ways, so when we try to stick to our plan as though its the only way forward, we usually prevent ourselves from meeting our objectives in the easiest way.
This is where I will insert my favorite productivity example of playing a game of chess to illustrate the point for you. In chess the objective is to capture your opponents King piece. Games of chess can last hours or even days between two players matched in skill making countless moves across the board, but a chess master can also win the game against a lesser skilled player within a matter of just a handful of moves. Think of your daily schedule or plans as those games of chess. Most of us start our day with a strategy that involves many moves and through our days sticking to this plan we can hit roadblocks that cause us to have to make even more moves to get to our desired outcome. But, in reality, there is a path you can take where you only have to make a few key moves to reach your objectives. It’s the Pareto Principle, 80% of our results come from 20% of our actions. So my suggestion to you is that using an hourly schedule is like playing a long game a chess, when you might actually be able to use a different strategy with far less effort to reach the same ends.
Now, I don’t want this article to be all negative, because as I stated earlier, there are situations where using an hourly schedule works, and I think we can learn from these situations how to best use an hour schedule to manage our tasks and objectives productively.
I think the best example of when an hourly schedule works is with an appointment based time management model. So visiting the doctor, getting a service done or having a call or meeting. When your work requires you to achieve a certain number of daily objectives, like sales calls or patient visits, mapping out an hourly schedule and working with clients within that window is a great way to put that reverse principle of Parkinson’s Law in place. The key here is that the limit or expectation is agreed upon by all parties and that a regular routine of service is fulfilled. I guess we can all have a laugh about expectations at the doctors office as in some instances our appointment window isn’t always honored, but for other professional services or customer calls the system works because their is an expected process to follow that from experience has very little deviation. So essentially, when your task or objective follows a script or prescribed system or process, it’s okay to use an hourly schedule for time management as long as other factors like interruptions can be minimized or prevented.
So I hope you can see now why I do not use hourly schedules on a daily basis for myself and I don’t normally recommend them to others. Moving forward I hope you will use this information to help you more adequately evaluate factors that hold back your productivity and keep you from executing on your objectives. Think about paying closer attention to or even tracking the time it takes you to complete tasks so you clearly understand the time expectations of your work. Notice the types of issues that pop up when you work on different objectives to help you better anticipate drains on your time the next time you complete those tasks. Most of all, I hope you will start to notice the patterns in your own mental energy while you work to understand how your energy cycles throughout the day. Each of these areas will help you understand yourself and how to maximize your productivity in the future, bringing you close to becoming the master of your productivity game.
I hope this information has been insightful to you and helps you to master your productivity game. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the topic and how you are using this information to benefit your life! So, please do leave me a comment below!
