It’s the Most Wonderful Time of Year! Holiday Season! And I have a few Tech and Planner Freebies to share with you to help kick December and the last leg of 2016 off right! Click here to get your Planner Freebies, the 31 Days of Merriment & Cheer Monthly Task List as well as your December 2016 Dashboard. Both are available in A5 and Personal Filofax equivalents from The Charmed Shop!
Don’t forget your Tech Wallpapers as well! I have a nice seasonal design for you that is a little bit different than the other designs this year, but I just love it, don’t you? Download yours here on The Charmed Shop!
I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving if you are in the US and you knowI love when I see your photos on Instagram sharing how you are using and loving your monthly freebies, so make sure to use #CharmedGTD if you post a picture on Instagram or Twitter, and feel free to tag me @MissTrenchcoat as well so I can see you photos and give them a big heart ♥
With Thanksgiving just a few days away, I thought it would be timely of me to share a Holiday Hits Playlist with you to get you into the Holiday Spirit! You’re going to be Fa, la, la, la, la-ing all week through your turkey-coma and LOVING every minute of it. So, without further ado, here is my Spotify Playlist for you to enjoy!
I hope this playlist helps you get into the Holiday Spirit! Let me know what other tunes you think I’m missing, down in the comments and I just might have to add them to my playlist so we can ALL enjoy!
The week is here! Thanksgiving Day is just 3 SLEEPS AWAY and the Charmed Shop’s BIGGEST ANNUAL SALE is about to begin.
NOW IS THE TIME to start making your holiday shopping list for the special friends and family in your life that you will be gifting to this year AND don’t forget #1, YOURSELF! While you are out shopping this weekend and over the next few weeks generously thinking of others, you don’t want to forget about picking up a few essentials for yourself. The end of the year is always a stress-filled, action-packed season, and it’s so easy to loose track of time and your own priorities when you are feeling the weight of a never ending to-do list on your back. Commit to Working Smarter, Not Harder this season and give yourself the GIFT OF PRODUCTIVITY with some of these planning essentials!
Here is a Special Preview of what you can expect from The Charmed Shop’s Annual Holiday Sale that starts Thursday November 25th and ends Monday November 28th!
PLANNER & OFFICE ESSENTIALS
• Meal Planning Bundle: Available in both A5 and Personal Size, this bundle of printable inserts for your planner is everything you need to streamline your meal planning process for JUST $10!*
• Holiday Deco Artwork & Printable Stickers: Personalize your planner for the Holidays with a Printable Holiday Sticker Design AND the Most Wonderful Time of the Year Printable Artwork that makes a perfect cover, divider set or dashboard for your planner. Just $10!
• The Charmed Life Planners & Functional Planning Bundles are BY FAR some of the best selling planner supplies in The Charmed Shop! Get your complete Printable Charmed Life Planner or Bundle Now Available in Full US Letter/A4, A5/Half Letter & Personal Size Filofax Equivalents, just $25 for the Charmed Life Planner or $35 for the Whole Functional Planning Bundle with your Choice of Planner and Project and Task Tracking Inserts as well!*
PRODUCTIVITY MUST HAVES
• The Work Smarter, Not Harder Bundle: My Two Popular Video Master Classes bundled together for one great price JUST GOT EVEN BETTER! Get yours for just $50 and get your productivity and goals in order for 2017!
• The Charmed Life Master Class: My signature self-guided personal development master class that will teach you my 10 Charmed Life Secrets and how to apply them to your own life, is just $49 during the sale!
Best Sellers
• The YOU GOT THIS Strategic Goal Setting Workbook: If you DO NOT have this printable, action-oriented goal setting tool, you are seriously missing one of the ALL TIME BEST SELLING resources in The Charmed Shop. Get yours for just $19 before the New Year so you can map out your goals and FINALLY have a clear path to achieving them!
BUSINESS BOOSTERS
• Online Business Course Bundle: Looking to start an online business in 2017? Have a current online platform you would like to turn into a business? The Online Business Course Bundle includes EVERYTHING you need to build your brand, following and income streams online! Get the Bundle for just $277 or choose the upgraded Bundle that includes one-to-one consulting calls with me for just $547!
EXTRA DISCOUNT CODES
As I mentioned in my post last week, the Holiday Sale includes two options. A public sale option, that I’ve outlined above where anyone can go to the shop and purchase the special discounted products, and a private option for those on my email list. If you are subscribed to my list, as an insider you will ALSO get access to special COUPON CODES for up to 33% off your total purchase in The Charmed Shop! So, if you want ADDITIONAL SAVINGS on EVERYTHING you purchase during the Holiday Sale, get on my list ASAP by filling out the form before and don’t forget to confirm your subscription to my email list or you will miss the codes!
TO DO & FREE PRINTABLE BONUS
The Sale is still a few days away, but I don’t want you to miss out on these great discounts because they are seriously a once a year occurrence. So, to help you prepare for your busy week ahead, I have some helpful tips for getting yourself prepared, plus a FREE Printable Bonus for you.
I hope you have enjoyed this Holiday Sale Preview and that you have some ideas for what you don’t want to miss out on in The Charmed Shop this week! Remember, if you want to save even more this week, you need to be on my list, so don’t forget to sign up!
5 FREE Resources to Help You Plan a Joyful and Low Stress Holiday
With a little over a week until Thanksgiving Day in the US, I thought now was as good a time as any to share some of my best seasonal Holiday productivity tips and tricks to help you get organized over this busy and often stressful period of the year. Yes, the holidays are wonderfully magical as they remind us of the love, family and gratitude we have in our lives, but holiday celebrations don’t come without their own brand of challenges. Coordinating people, meal plans, multiple events and holiday wish lists can be a struggle for many of us, but hopefully, I can help make it a little more productive and enjoyable for you with these 5 FREE Resources to Help You Plan a Joyful and Low Stress Holiday!
First things first, if you have not snagged yourself my FREE printable 30 Days of Thankfulness list for you planner, do so now! You will want to frame everything you do during this season in a sense of gratitude, and this planner insert is a great way to keep that idea fresh in your mind.
If you are someone who struggles with stress and anxiety during the holidays, my video The 5 Steps to a Stress Free Holiday, is going to be a resource for you. Definitely watch it and take some notes to keep with you on the strategies I share to help you prevent and overcome stressors as they arise during the next few weeks.
This next resource is an AMAZING planning tip that I learned about right before last Thanksgiving and it really helped me keep my Thanksgiving planning and prep very streamlined. If you are hosting any dinners or family get togethers during this time check out this video on How to Plan for Thanksgiving! I promise, the strategy shared applies to more than just Thanksgiving!
After you have watched the video from resource #3, if you are still looking for some great tried and true recipes that I rely on for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, here is a blog post filled with my favorite recipes! Most, if not all, will be served as part of my holiday dinners this year!
Finally, we can’t forget about holiday shopping. It can be stressful, expensive, and time consuming, but with in this video, I share some of my Must Have Holiday Shopping Apps to make the process a little easier and even a little bit enjoyable!
I sincerely hope you found these resources valuable as you begin to get into the thick of your holiday planning! If you have any other resources or tips you would like to share, please feel free to add them below in the comments so we can all benefit. One last thing I thought I should mention, is that I have started a Holiday Themed Board on Pinterest called Christmas is Coming! I’ll be sharing more resources and recipe ideas there if you’d like to follow along- and don’t be surprised if you see a resource you suggest pop up as a pin as well!
It’s time for another link roundup! Here are my picks for this month’s best reads around the web to help you with your Personal Development, Productivity and Business! Enjoy!
As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed these articles and I’d love to read anything you found informative this month, so please feel free to leave links in the comments below!
No matter how much I write about productivity, I still receive numerous messages each week by loyal members of my community who are swamped with too much to do and too little time to do it! They feel overwhelmed, they want to focus more on the things they love and they want to know the secret to my productivity. I can completely relate to feeling like you are cagged in by your work and a slave to your schedule, but the truth is their is only one productivity tip that will help you, me or anyone else tame our workloads. This tip isn’t much of a secret, unless of course, no one has ever told you about it, so today, let’s unpack this #1 Secret No One Told You About Productivity!
What is the #1 Secret No One Told You About Productivity?
The biggest secret about productivity that you may not know is that You Can’t Do It All! I know, I know, this goes against everything we have been taught to believe about human ability and persistence, not to mention every girl power message I’ve heard for my last 30 years on this Earth, but it’s true. No one single person can do everything. Yes, I do believe you can achieve all the things you want to achieve in life, but you certainly won’t be doing it alone and if you’re clever, you’ll find ways to hack your daily life and to do list so that you are focusing on the key tasks, routines and decisions that will support your quickest route to success. Now, I want to come back to this point on hacking your life to optimize your success in just a moment, but first, I want to give you some practical strategies for taking this productivity secret and using it to your advantage!
If I Can’t Do It All, How Does Everything Get Done?
You’re probably asking yourself, if I can’t do it all, how does everything get done? You do important work, you have lots of important priorities, and much of what you handle must be done, right? Absolutely! Much of what you handle probably does need to get done, but not necessarily by you. So, if you find that you have too much on your plate, you put in the work and still find that everything isn’t getting done, you really need to start doing two things.
You Need To Delegate And Delete!
First, you need to take a look at everything you do, all your priorities, projects, work, and personal obligations. You need to have a complete understanding of all the elements that take up your time because you will need to Delegate some and Delete others. To delegate, you need to understand what tasks on your list can be completed by someone else. I know many of us, especially the type A’s out there, have a hard time giving over control of tasks to others because we want to know something has been done right, but if something does not require your hand to complete it, you need to assign it to someone else. This could mean an assistant at work, a spouse or child, or even hiring help like a cleaning service or handyman. Not every option is going to be available for every one of us, but wherever we can, we should try to delegate important tasks to someone who is capable of completing the task, even if it means we have to train them how to do it and then reap the time benefits in the future.
Once you do that complete evaluation of your obligations, you will certainly find that you have some things you are doing that can be deleted from your to do list altogether. Like I said earlier, most of what you do probably needs to get done, which means some of what you do can be let go of completely to help you lessen your load. Think about all your extras first, like voluntary obligations outside of work or home. It’s great to be a team player and responsible member of your community, but if you are overwhelmed by everything you need to do and frequently find that you are missing important tasks, you really need to delete any priorities that you signed up for. This doesn’t mean you can never add them back in, but be honest with yourself about what is truly important and be ruthless with anything that takes up your time. Of course, it won’t just be voluntary tasks that you need to delete. Ask yourself what tasks are repeatedly missed or forgotten. Sometimes when we frequently push a task off it means its not actually required to be done. Any extras like this should be deleted from your list until you have reached equilibrium with your time and tasks.
Optimizing Success By Hacking Your Productivity!
Like I mentioned earlier, all of us can improve our productivity and succeed in achieving more of what we want if we optimize our lives with a few hacks here and there. If this sounds interesting to you and you’d like to learn these tips for working smarter, not harder, I’m very pleased to announce that my Planning for Success Master Class is now available! This Master Class and Q&A replay are four information-rich hours of actionable strategies designed to solve your most pressing productivity issues. Included with the class are numerous downloads and worksheets to help you put the strategies taught in place for your specific situation. This class is a tremendous value filled with the precise information you need to optimize your daily life for productivity, but don’t take my word for it! Here is what students from the class are saying:
“The Planning for Success Master Class was so timely for me! I am in constant struggle (more now than ever) with time management and project/tasks all being priority that this class gave me major amounts of tools and guidance that will allow me to gain some sanity again. As a business owner, wife, mother and a person who wants to be all things to most people, this class gave me perspective to what is manageable and plan-able! It has been what is missing in my many years as a professional. I am so glad that I can watch the master class and q & a as much as I want in order to help me build better planning habits. I loved this class and it was time and money well spent! Thank you Alexis!”
– Beth, MO
“The Planning for Success Master Class was a truly great experience! As someone who has run workshops and training, I am in absolute awe at Alexis’ planning, delivery and thoroughness. It has been incredible value for money and I hope that many more will be able to experience this amazing product. I have been given so much information and feel so inspired! Alexis has managed to address most of the organizational, time management and motivational issues that have been plaguing me. I am in-between careers and had hit a dark and sticky rut. This workshop has not only showed me the way forward, it has also turned all the lights on! Many of the concepts were new to me so it has helped to go through the video more than once. It is invaluable that I am able to keep referring to it and I can see how it will all become second nature with some practice. The Q&A session is also extremely interesting. Alexis’ generosity with her time and information sharing are what make her such a great Mentor. I was a fan, now I am a convert! Thank you!!”
– Maria, Australia
“The Planning for Success Master Class was amazing! I have been feeling overwhelmed and almost paralyzed lately in regard to achieving my goals and completing projects. This Master Class provided me with a clear and manageable blueprint that I believe will help me to begin living my life fully again. The value I received from the Planning for Success Master Class was far greater than what I paid for it. Thank you for being so generous with your knowledge and your time. And, I think your online presence is both impressive and beautiful; how you manage to communicate with complete strangers you can’t even hear or see, with such a high level of compassion and grace, is beyond amazing!”
-Cynthia, NV
Don’t let your dreams and goals sit by the wayside any longer!Sign up for the Planning for Success Master Classand join the countless members of my community who’ve benefited from this informative and actionable class!
The 3 Quick Steps for Feeling Productive RIGHT NOW
Overwhelm can strike at any moment and turn a seemingly organized, well-planned day into a downward spiral of confusion and self-doubt. When this happens, it’s so important that you quickly recognize the pattern and take immediate action to halt and reverse it. You can take back your day no matter how deep a spiral you have fallen into, but you need to take these 3 quick steps to get you feeling productive right now!
Step 1: Turn off Distractions
When I get overwhelmed, even the slightest distraction can cause me to panic, so I need to make sure everything that makes noise or has an alert/alarm is silenced. Silence your phone, kill the music, and turn off your computer’s audio and display. If you can’t avoid all noise completely, put on a pair of headphones or put in some earplugs to give you peace and quiet for a few moments as you gather your thoughts.
Step 2: Do a Brain Dump
When your head is spinning out of control and can’t focus on a single task to work on, you need to make space in your mind by performing a brain dump. Take out a piece of paper and a pen and just start listing out everything you are thinking about that is causing you stress or overwhelm. The items don’t even need to be task related. Jot down those negative thoughts, what they are saying and how you are feeling inside. By writing it down, you are figuratively transferring that energy out of your brain and onto the paper. This works well with anything that comes to your mind that for one reason or another, your brain just won’t let go of. So write it, dump it out and get your brain clear to focus.
Step 3: Breathe
Hopefully by this point, you have significantly reduced any distracting noise or screens around you and have completed a brain dump to get everything out of your head and onto paper. Before you get back to work and process through your to dos, take a moment to sit and breath in the silence. Close your eyes, sit comfortably and inhale deeply through your nose, exhaling from your mouth. Breathe in for five seconds, hold your breath for 2, and breathe out for 7 seconds. Repeat this process for at least five minutes before getting back to your work.
I hope these tips help you to regain your control and sense of productivity when overwhelm strikes! Let me know in the comments if you have any other tips or suggestions that you use in this situation.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing,” and in the case of those looking to do their best work and be as productive as possible, mistakes are commonly made when we take concepts at face value without understanding how to apply them. So, today I want to cover the 7 common mistakes I see people make, that are most likely killing your productivity as well!
1. A Disorganized To-Do List
Anyone will tell you, if you want to get more done, you need a to-do list, but did you ever stop to recognize that your to-do list may be the cause of your productivity woes? A disorganized to-do list can often be more dangerous to your productivity than no list at all. When a daily to do list is too long to complete, fails to batch like-items together or lacks a structure for prioritization, it will debilitate even the most productive person. To remedy this, keep one master to-do list with all your open actions but make a separate daily list with a reasonable number of tasks so that you aren’t overwhelmed by the expectation you are setting. Next, list like items together or use a symbol or color code to match up items that should be done together or maximize efficiency. Finally, identify three items on that list that are the most urgent and complete those as soon as possible before moving on to the rest of the items on your list.
2. Multitasking
The concept of multitasking is an example of when common knowledge doesn’t equal common sense. Years ago, the concept of multitasking was the hot productivity tip that led countless workers into the deep end in terms of poor quality of work, focus and overwhelm. Yes, humans can do more than one thing at a time, but study after study shows they can’t do more than one thing at a time well. Work on only one task at a time, give it your entire focus until completion and then move on to the next. Don’t juggle multiple items at once or you will find all your work crashing to the ground around you.
3. Accepting Tasks Without Question
You probably think that cheerfully accepting tasks from your superiors without question makes you an excellent employee, team player, and asset to your workplace, but when we accept work without asking at least some questions, we waste time and dilute our productivity. Whenever you are given an assignment, you should always get the most important details of the task before agreeing to complete it- if you don’t you may find yourself in deep water when you either overcommit or fail to complete the assignment properly. When you are given a task, activity or project, find out specifics about the due date, expectations (quality, format, budget, goals), and possible support if you experience a conflict (who can you go to for help or information). Most of all, ensure you that understand fully whether this task belongs to you, so that you are not being saddled with someone else’s responsibility or tasks above (or too far below) your pay grade. Failing to understand these important details before committing to work can cause you to spend too much or too little time completing the assignment, cause embarrassing delays or make you look disorganized/irresponsible in the mind of your superior if you keep having to come back to them for more and more details.
4. Doing Everything Yourself
Either out of a sense of perfectionism (“only I know how to do this right”), control (“it’s my responsibility because I’m in charge”) or guilt (“I don’t want to burden anyone else”) individuals commonly kill their productivity by failing to delegate. Most of us work in teams, have a system of family and friends and/or have the ability to delegate or outsource our work, but choose to go it alone and take on everything ourselves. This can put us in a terrible situation of feeling overwhelmed, overworked and isolated, not to mention being a complete waste of our time. Understanding what constitutes the best and highest use of our time, builds key productivity and management skills that we may lack, while simultaneously shaping us into more effective people. To start this process, identify the activities that aren’t the best use of your time and figure out how and who to delegate these tasks to, both inside and outside the office. A busy working mom may see that hiring a cleaning service (or her cousin who works part time) makes her more successful at home as well as in the boardroom or PTA meeting. A junior level sales manager may opt for a virtual assistant to handle their scheduling and finances to have more one on one time with clients and climb the corporate ladder. Likewise, an amateur writer may partner with an amateur photographer to trade copywriting for headshots, capitalizing on their talents in order to delegate work to someone better suited to the task. You may think that you have no one to delete to or no way to afford assistance that may not already exist but if you think strategically, you can delegate any productivity problem.
5. Procrastinating
Procrastination is the productivity killer that comes in many forms. By accepting perfectionism, we procrastinate. By overthinking a problem, we procrastinate. By failing to make decisions, we procrastinate. By leaving tasks unscheduled, we procrastinate. By over-planning, we procrastinate. The only way to end the habit of procrastination is through action. Do something (but not anything), make progress, advance a project, and action will beget action.
6. Drinking Too Much Water
I say it all the time, keep hydrated during your workday to stay sharp and prevent fatigue, but drinking too much can inevitably cause frequent interruptions in the form of bathroom breaks that can kill productivity and create bad work habits. To manage this, drink from a larger bottle and get into the habit of finishing it before getting up to relieve yourself. Drinking from smaller cups means more trips to the water cooler to refill, which increases the time you will spend out of your desk and the number of trips you make to the bathroom. Now, to clarify, it’s not the amount of water at fault, but our hydration habits. Water runs right through us, and if you like to sip, sip, sip throughout the day, you will be running to the bathroom just as often. The point here is to swap sips of water for gulps to absorb your recommended volume in fewer intervals.
7. Sticking to Only One Productivity Strategy
Nothing demonstrates the danger a little bit of knowledge can pose to your productivity as much as someone who is partial to a single strategy and blindly applies it to every situation. The point of productivity is to get more done with less time as often as possible, but humans do not live in a single-situation loop. Every moment of everyday we experience variety, which is why life isn’t a cake walk. We experience new situations constantly, so to say that one single strategy for productivity applies to everything is missing the whole point of being productive. Instead, we must learn about many productivity strategies, what they are best used for and when/how to execute them in our lives. To help make this information more accessible, I have recently started a new YouTube series called Work Smarter, Not Harder. You can check out my first installment of the series here to learn three popular productivity strategies and when they best apply. Keep up to date with the series by subscribing to my YouTube channel so you don’t miss an installment and opportunity to expand your knowledge base and learn how to work smarter, not harder!
Which of these common mistakes is holding you back from maximizing your productivity? Let’s share in the comments!
Are you ready to seriously jump into the halloween spirit this month? There is no better way than with an awesome playlist of spooky Halloween hits! I don’t know about you, but I have a diverse pallet when it comes to my music taste and there are so many great songs that totally embody the spirit of Halloween for me, so I have put together a fresh playlist for you to feast your ears on! Feel free to use it at an upcoming Halloween get-together or on your car ride to the pumpkin patch!
Enjoy!
If you enjoyed this playlist, I’d love to hear about it and I’d be thrilled if you would share it with your friends and family through social media so we can all enjoy some spooky October tunes while we wait for our candy covered comas to arrive!
We talk a lot about productivity and achieving more of your goals here on my blog, but have you ever stopped to ask yourself what a productive day would look like to you? The first step when you are trying to achieve any goal is to understand what the results should look like, and that goes for designing your day as well. I gave some thought to this idea and I came up with a framework that I believe is the basic anatomy of a productive day. Now, granted, this may not be a one-size fits all schedule, but I do think that we should all be making time for each of these daily activities and integrating them into our days more often to regularly establish a habit of productivity into our lives.
A productive day…
…Starts on Time: It’s hard to have a productive day after oversleeping and starting your day off on the wrong foot, so make sure you have a hard wake time for your day, even on the weekends, if you want to set yourself up for success.
…Includes a Morning Routine: Whether your morning is 6am or 6pm, you should have a simple routine established to help you get ready to start your day. Click here if you’d like to learn more about morning routines and establishing one for yourself.
…Happens in an Organized Space: For most of us, being productive requires a bit of organization. I realize that people do have different working styles, and some of us need organized spaces to work while others can work in clutter, but be aware of your work style and make sure you are starting your workday in the proper environment.
…Requires Time Spent Planning: There is no doubt that in order to have a productive day, you need to take time, first thing, to look at your plans, schedule and tasks. During this planning time, you should prioritize your top 3 activities for the day and keep a to-do list with next action items ready to go.
…Manages Time in Blocks: Depending on your work for the day, in order to create and sustain your focus, you should divide your day into time blocks of anywhere from 20 minutes to 4 hours. Assign specific work to your blocks of time and keep a timer or clock in sight to make sure you stay on task and on time.
…Makes Time for Regular Breaks: Within those time blocks, make sure to give yourself regular breaks for meals, decompression, and to stretch your legs. You should take 15 minutes off for every 2 hours of work, and 30 minutes off after 4 hours at work.
…Wraps Up Your Workday Seamlessly: At the end of your workday, take time to wrap up and recap what you have done and what you have left to do. Make a to-do list for the next day, clean your workspace and turn off any work related devices. Don’t forget to leave work at the proper designated time because after a productive day, you need to shut off and remain on time for your personal life.
…Treats Dinner as a Scheduled Event: While you were doing your daily planning or even at some point before that, you should have planned out what you are having for dinner. After a long work day it’s so easy to get lazy about your last meal of the day but doing a little bit of planning or prep ahead of time will transform dinner from a chore to a treat.
…Prioritizes Self Care: When you work hard, you also need to play hard, or in this case, you need to ensure you spend time taking care of yourself so that you are in tip-top shape to have another productive day tomorrow. Click here for some great self care ideas if you need some.
…Winds Down with an Evening Routine:Just as your morning routine helps you prepare for the day, your evening routine helps you transition from productivity to sleep. Spend time on your nightly hygiene, reviewing your day and swap screens for books an hour before bed.
…Ends with a Scheduled Bed Time: Just as it is important to start your day at a regular time, you should also end your day with a scheduled bed time to optimize the amount of sleep you will get to be refreshed and prepared for your next productive day!
I’d love to hear how you add these elements to your day and what a productive day looks like for you so make sure to leave me a comment down below!
