A lot of the content I create on my platforms is strategy based, where I’m sharing a process for how to do something specific or how to course correct your already established processes. But making new change is always difficult. I’m not blind to that fact. It’s hard for me, it’s hard for you, and most of all, when we badly want to make a change and try to put a new strategy into place, it can be discouraging if we don’t see that we are making progress. Most of us have a very bad habit of giving up before we reach our goals and I bet if you asked, quitters would say they gave up because “it wasn’t working” or “I wasn’t able to do it.” If you’ve ever given a similar excuse, I bet what you really meant to say was “I tried but I didn’t see any progress so I quit!” It’s hard to see progress, especially if you are really making progress because usually, when you are in the thick of it trying hard and actually moving the needle, you don’t notice anything different because you’re too close to the change to notice a difference. To see progress we need to step back and look at the big picture. So today I want to share with you a few different ways you can do that so you can tell if you are making progress on your goals!
3 Ways to Tell You’re Making Progress
1. Track your actions and results:this works very well with any goal or project that includes measurable objectives like weight loss or sales. You should keep track of your actions, what you are actually doing to make a change, as well as your measurable objectives. This works because when you see your actions, you become more accountable. And when you see the results, you connect the dots between how your actions made a difference. Don’t be surprised if this simple act of tracking ends up being your greatest motivator moving forward because connecting those dots can be very powerful and give you a sense of control over your goal and your life.
2. You’ve hit a roadblock: Change always brings with it a new set of challenges to overcome, and luckily for us, most people see their roadblocks clearer than their progress. So if you are working towards a goal and aren’t sure you have made progress, think about the challenges you’ve faced in the process. The presence of a challenge alone means you were making change, and if you were able to solve the problem and overcome it, you are seriously moving forward.
3. The plan keeps getting tweaked: If you think that having to change your original plan towards your goal means you have failed to make progress, think again! Just like roadblocks, alterations and adjustments are part of the path of progress. If you find that you are negotiating a lot more than you used to as you plan your life around your goal, this means big things are happening. Progress is difficult because it involves adjusting life as you know. Even if you think you set a goal or established a new routine for a minor part of your life, you’ve really started a domino affect that will shift your whole world around you, even if it’s ever so slightly.
Think about an area of your life where you are making change but don’t feel like you’ve seen any progress. Can you apply any of these insights to your situation? If you can identify measurable objectives, start tracking your goal immediately!
What Nobody Tells You About Self Care, and How to Start or Break a Habit
If you remember, my theme for the month of September has been self care and throughout this month, I shared some different topics in my blog and on YouTube to outline my experience of learning to take better care of myself and my priorities. So, I thought that for my link roundup this month, I would try to focus on self-care, habits and motivation to help you make a positive change in your life as well!
I hope you enjoyed these articles, and if you have anything you read and loved in the month of September, please let us know by sharing a link in the comments below!
As some of you may already know, this month I had the book Smarter, Faster, Better by Charles Duhigg on my reading list. I picked up this book via Audible as soon as I heard it has been released on audiobook because I was such a fan of Duhigg’s first book, The Power of Habit. For his second book, Duhigg aimed his focus on the topic of productivity and like his first book, used a selection of case studies to illustrate situations where following or ignoring certain essential productivity principles lead to triumph or disaster. The interesting this about this book, however, is that the productivity principles discussed aren’t exactly the topics you normally think of when you think productivity like list making and setting timers, they are much more scientific and psychological, and like in The Power of Habit, speak to the essence of human nature and how we can learn to control it. There were a number of principles covered in the book, some that pertained to personal productivity and others that were relevant for businesses and teams, but there were three major productivity concepts that really spoke to me and I want to share those with you now.
1. Locus of Control
Reading through the chapter on motivation, Duhigg discussed the concept of the locus of control and how to stimulate your own internal locus of control to inspire you to get things done. What I had remembered of this concept from college psych that Duhigg illustrated via a story of how the U.S. Army trains new recruits was that the locus of control is the degree to which people believe they have control over their own lives. If you have a strong internal locus of control, you see the correlation between your actions and your life and are probably naturally a more productive person. People who have an external locus of control, on the other hand, do not see how their day to day actions affect their lives and often believe that a greater power dictates there situation. If something good happens to them, it was a gift from God, if something bad happens, it was a streak of bad luck- is how the thinking goes for example. The jist is, if you feel like you have power over your life, you are more likely to achieve more than someone who feels powerless or as though someone else has the wheel in their life. Now, to get back the internal locus of control, you need to take power back and motivate yourself into action, and Duhigg explains that you can do this two ways. First, you can frame the actions of your life as choices that put you in control of the outcome. Need to work on an important presentation at work, but keep getting distracted? Give yourself a choice to make like “Work on the reports first or design the slides?” By giving yourself a specific choice to make towards the option, you are taking back the internal locus of control to motivate yourself to act. The second way you can motivate yourself is to explain to yourself why you need to do something and tie it to something you value. For example “I need to work on this presentation now because if I do a good job and win the client, I can ask my boss for a raise!” So the next time you need to motivate yourself, try stimulating your locus of control with one or both of these methods.
2. Cognitive Closure
The need for cognitive closure was a new concept to me, but one I could recognize in my own life. Essentially, to varying degrees, humans experience a need for firm answers and decision making, and some people experience this need more so than others- hello type-A over here must always have cognitive closure or she goes nuts! So, essentially, the need for cognitive closure isn’t a bad or good thing, it’s just a human thing, and what can tend to happen is that those who have a high desire for it, tend to be better workers because they get things done and finish tasks. However, and this is a big however, sometimes the need for closure can cause people to avoid taking the right path or making the right decisions because those paths or decisions may create ambiguity. Now, the way I interpreted this whole discussion for my own personal productivity is that sometimes I avoid doing things that I don’t know how to do, or close myself off to opportunities because I’m not sure I see where they are going. I’d prefer to stay on a firm path and because of that, I may make decisions that make sense but are too safe. Now, in order to get yourself out of this mindset, the best thing to do is to find a mental model. Mental models are examples that you can use to evaluate how you should be doing something. I’ve said this many times before here on my blog, but until you try something you don’t know how to do it. This is why experience is so highly valued in the workplace, not just because it means you have been in a specific situation before, but because you have a breadth of other experiences to help you model different situations that may be new to you. So, if you are setting yourself goals or trying to accomplish something new and your sense of reason is holding you back, find a mental model, an example, an anecdote, anything that will help guide you so know if you are on the right track!
3. Idea Brokering
I think by far this is my favorite concept from the book, and although I see this as more of a problem-solving technique than a true productivity strategy, I think more people need to understand and utilize it. Duhigg introduced the concept of idea brokering with a story about how West Side Story was developed into one of the best known and highly celebrated musicals of all time by some of the best minds across the genres of opera, ballet and musical theater. Essentially, idea brokering is a way of solving problems and creating innovation by taking inspiration from solutions in one area of study and applying them to a different area. We see examples of this all the time. Engineers who design vehicles that mimic the aerodynamics of birds, scientists who use viruses to create new living tissue, and designers who develop new faucet systems based off automotive valves. Idea brokers use an interdisciplinary knowledge to find creative solutions, and the way that you achieve this is by disrupting your own thought patterns and forcing yourself to look a problem from another angle. Now, most of you reading this probably aren’t worried about innovative design ideas, but you can apply this to issues in your own life when you have a problem, by forcing yourself into another perspective. Ask yourself how someone else might approach the problem, like a friend or family member. Ask someone else to look at your problem and give you feedback. Or ask yourself if you know of any situation that your current problem reminds you of. Then, compare and contrast the situations to see if you can approach solving your new problem based on how you overcame a slightly different situation.
Overall, Smarter, Faster, Better definitely lived up to high standard set by Duhigg in The Power of Habit. In both books, he approached a common subject by illustrating uncommon strategies through compelling story telling and interesting case studies. If you haven’t read either book yet, I would suggest picking them up for an eye opening experience!
As I recently shared in my weekly email newsletter (sign up here if you aren’t already) I am kind of obsessed with ASMR videos on YouTube. ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response and it is essentially that relaxing, tingling feeling you get down your spine when you hear, feel or see a relaxing trigger. What these triggers are can vary from person to person and not everyone experiences ASMR. If you are someone who gets those chills or tingles when someone brushes or plays with your hair, you are most likely susceptible to it. I am majorly susceptible to it- to the extent that it relaxes me, puts me to sleep and makes me feel euphoric. Now, it just so happens that there is a community of creators on YouTube who make videos for the express purpose of triggering the ASMR response for those who, like me, enjoy it. I’ll be honest, sometimes these videos seem a little odd, they often include lots of soft whispering and even role-play, but I have been using these videos to relax and fall asleep at night. If you have trouble sleeping or relaxing, you may want to check out some of my favorite videos, I will leave some for you here to enjoy. Just a word of advice for you, you should definitely wear headphones while watching, make sure you are in a comfortable seated or lying position, and keep an open mind. Some of the content may seem strange but it’s oddly soothing and if you are someone who experiences ASMR you will know it after one of these videos. Enjoy!
Do you experience ASMR? Let me know how you enjoyed these videos and if you have any others you want to recommend to me, leave me some links as well!
September is officially here, fall is right around the corner and from my years spent in school this time of year has always come to represent a fresh start for me in my life. As some of you may already know, I had a very busy summer buying, fixing up and moving into my first home with my husband. September is here and I have wiped my slate clean and have decided to approach the last leg of this year with a new game plan and perspective. So, today I want to share with you my 5 strategies for getting a fresh start feeling all year long. No matter what day or month it is, you too can refresh your life and create a new plan to move forward and achieve your goals and these tips are going to help guide you to fresh start success!
1. Choose a fresh start date
People consider many things a fresh start date, new years, birthday, back to school, Mondays… but you can choose any date that you prefer, the date is truly arbitrary. Try to tie this date to something significant for you, like the end of a project or the start of a new season.
2. Refresh your planner
Buy a new planner or reorganize your old one. There is a reason that many planners start up in the summer months and then run 17-18 months. Because people do tend to need a fresh start after summer. If you are looking for a new planner, I would highly suggest checking out my Charmed Life Planner, not just because it is my planner, but because I have heard from many people who have been using the Charmed Life Planner that is has really helped them to get organized. If you are a lister, or someone who likes to lay their plans all out and see everything, this planner really has a lot of awesome features that you won’t want to miss including project master lists and expense pages!
3. Clean up your space
Nothing says fresh start like a clean workspace or home. Once you have a date set for your fresh start, get your space set for a true fresh start feeling by taking some time to clean and organize your life.
4. Find a few new office supplies or accessories
I know that its a bit dangerous for me to tell a bunch of stationery lovers to buy new office supplies, but the truth is that a few new special items can really bring a sense of significance to your arbitrary refresh date. Make sure to pick up items that you actually want to use, and not just items that you want to look at and hoard. These goodies need to be your reward and to make the biggest impact you need to be using and enjoying your new things.
5. Decide on a new project and take 1 step right now
The reason many of us are looking for a fresh start is because we feel like something didn’t go well with the previous one! We weren’t being productive or we weren’t making progress on an important goal or project that was important to us. So pick a special project, it can be for work, school or home and make that the first thing you work on with your fresh start. Nothing gets you off to a good start the way a new project does so pick a project and take one step immediately to getting that project accomplished. This could mean simply writing out a project plan for the project in question, or it could mean finding an accountability buddy to help keep you in check with your progress, or if can mean getting down to work and knocking out related tasks! The important part is that you decide what you are going to do and start doing it- nothing is more motivating than that!
So, now I have some action items for you! Take out something to write on or takes notes with and I am going to ask you a few questions and I want you to write down the first thing that comes to mind. I want a gut reaction here, not a well thought out response because if you really want that refresh you need to be honest with yourself about these questions. You ready?
1. What date in the near future is the soonest you could schedule your refresh? Think about significant events in your life, perhaps obligations that are ending soon that would free up some of your time or new obligations that are starting up that you’d like to be at your best for. Write down that date and get it scheduled into your calendar!
2. What about your current planner system isn’t working? Write down any issues you are facing so you can address those head on!
3. What area of your home or office would you dread having to clean up or organize? That’s the area that you are going to need to clean up first and trust me, once you do a weight is going to lift from your shoulders!
4. What office supply or stationery item have you been coveting but haven’t purchased out of an excersize in self control? If you can afford it, I want you to buy it for yourself as soon as you are done with the mess you need to organize from the previous question!
5. What is the single goal or project you really wanted to have started or completed this year that would make you truly feel like you accomplished something important? That’s the project you need to start on first!
Good news! If you followed along with this post and engaged the way I had suggested, you have not only learned my 5 strategies for getting a fresh start feeling anytime of year, but you also have a plan with 5 action items for you to get started with to get your fresh start underway? See, it works like a charm! Now it’s your turn to tell me how you are going to refresh yourself for the coming fall. Let me know in the comments below!
The 7 Items to Track In Your Planner for Less Stress and More Productivity
I’m always on a quest to identify the best way to use my planner! There are so many options out there for how I could use my planner, but many of those options don’t align with my personal priorities. When it comes down to it, I use my planner to keep me organized, productive and to prevent me, as much as possible, from getting stressed out or overwhelmed by the tasks of daily life. Now, I’m pretty sure the vast majority of us already use our planners to list our daily to-dos and keep track of our calendars more or less, so today I wanted to share the 7 things you should track in your planner for less stress and more productivity.
Yearly Goals: Goal setting is an essential element of leading a productive and meaningful life. That’s why I created a whole workbook dedicated to the topic to help those who know they have aspirations but aren’t sure how to get started executing them. I think it is very important to keep track of your yearly goals in your planner so that the information is front and center in your life. If you don’t have your goals mapped out yet, it’s never too late to get started so check out my You Got This workbook and get to your goal setting!
Monthly & Weekly Tasks: Beyond the day to day, it’s important to keep track of the things you want to accomplish during a specific time frame. On a monthly basis I keep track of specific tasks and projects I want to work on during the month. Then from those tasks I like to assign specific items to certain weeks. Many projects and tasks take longer than a day to complete and in order to prioritize their completion assigning them to a week helps to carve out time for them to get done.
Weekly Meal Plan: Meal planning is legitimately a true time saver. I know there are many strategies I suggest that don’t necessarily help everyone to be more productive, but if you aren’t meal planning, you are wasting time in your day for sure and probably even money. You don’t have to meal plan for weeks in advance, I find that a week at a time is good for me, and you don’t even have to map out exactly when you are going to eat which meal, but instead I keep a running list of meals and choose which I am going to eat on a daily basis so that I have an element of choice. Just the act of planning out a set number of meals for the week and then buying your groceries in accordance with that, can save you money and time. If you are looking for a great way to add meal planning into your planner, check out this meal planning bundle of printable inserts from my shop!
Gratitude List: It’s also been scientifically acknowledged that people who incorporate a regular gratitude practice into their lives are happier and less stressed. Whether that means you wake up in the morning and make a quick gratitude list or spend an hour journaling what you are grateful for, it really makes no difference. The main thing is that you are practicing gratitude on a regular basis. I use these weekly gratitude list inserts that are quick to use but very impactful in my gratitude practice.
Master Project Log: Once you have set your goals as per above, you will most likely have a number of projects you want to work on throughout the year and of course different projects may pop up from time to time as well that you will need to track. I suggest having a place in your planner dedicated to tracking and breaking out those projects so you can adequately manage them throughout the year. In my planner, I use my Project Planning Bundle and the yearly goal tracker specifically to map this information out for myself over the year. It creates a roadmap for me to follow on a monthly basis for where I want to spend my time and energy.
Victories & Accomplishments: It’s very easy in life for us to become jaded and feel like we aren’t making progress. This is why I think it’s so essential that we actively track our victories and accomplishments as they occur. These don’t have to be crazy victories, small wins in our lives and just great events that inspire and empower us should really be tracked so that we can see all the good and positive that happens in our life. No one’s life is perfect but it’s easier to get yourself through the tough times if you acknowledge that every once in a while good things happen as well.
Your Daily Routines: Your routines are in essence, your life. As they say “You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” Routines can be established to help you achieve excellence in any goal you wish to achieve. Tracking them is an important step to either keeping them consistent or making an adjustment. I talk about creating daily routines in You Got This and I highly encourage you to track and establish your own positive routines in your planners so that you are reviewing them on a regular basis.
Which of these essential productivity items do you plan to add to your planner? Drop me a line in the comments below!
It’s the last week of August and I am so thrilled that September and Fall, are around the corner! So, it’s time for me to publish your monthly free planner inserts. This month, along with your monthly dashboard, I have created a Self Care September Checklist. It’s filled with 30 self care related tasks for you to try out in September. I know that for me, Fall is all about those cozy night’s in and adjusting to shorter days. I’ll be spending a good amount of time working on my rest and relaxation routine in September and I highly encourage you to take some time for yourself as well.
I also designed a new set of FREE Tech Wallpapers for you this month. I love this Black & White Marble theme and for some extra motivation I included one of my favorite little coffee cup illustrations! Remember, the #PSL is almost here!! You can download these awesome wallpapers here.
I hope you enjoy the inserts and wallpapers, and of course, I love seeing pictures of them at home in your planners, so if you download them, please snap a picture, post it to instagram and tag me @MissTrenchcoat as well as #charmedGTD so the whole community can enjoy your images as well!
Hey there business and productivity besties! I know it has been a while since I’ve had a link roundup here on the blog but I’m back today with some great links to help inspire you to get your personal development, productivity and business under control just in time for fall!
As always, I hope you enjoyed these articles and found a new great read that was able to help you answer some questions or inspire you to live a little differently. If you have any articles you read and loved lately, please share those in the comments below so we can all check it out! And if you are looking to dive deep into personal development this year, I highly suggest you check out my Charmed Life Master Class! This self-paced ecourse is designed to help you get control of your life, career and relationships through a series of guided lectures and worksheets all for an affordable price. Don’t miss out- get started today!
I cannot believe that for all the time that I have been creating productivity playlists for you, that I have not created a playlist of my favorite classical tunes. Well, this is the perfect month to share them because in case you missed my YouTube video from the other week, I am focusing on Fall prep this month and nothing helps me get down to work like classical music. It’s serious, stern and flips a mental switch in my brain that says GET TO WORK! Now, I know classical music isn’t everyones cup of tea, but I want to challenge you to expand your mind on this one and one day when you go to work, I want you to turn on this playlist and see if it doesn’t make you a little more productive and focused. I bet it does and you may even have a productivity breakthrough while listening, so give it a go.
I hope you enjoyed this months installment of my productivity playlist. If you gave this playlist a try and found it to be helpful as you worked, please let me know about it in the comments. And if you have your own classical music playlist that you rely on, please share it as well, because I think we can all use a little more focus at work!
Are you ready to hack your workday to get more done in less time and truly work smarter, not harder? If my love and study of productivity and organization is meant for anything, it’s meant to help us (me, you, everyone we know!) learn the essential strategies that make our workdays easier. So today I have compiled a list of twelve of my favorite time-saving, stress-releasing, and productivity inducing workday hacks to help you become the master of your own workflow in the office!
1. Get properly dressed: Yep, first things first! If you aren’t wear the proper clothing for work you are going to be uncomfortable, uneasy and you’ll ultimately end up working slow and miserable counting down the hours until you can return home to step into your pajamas. Although you may work in a formal business environment that requires a certain dress code, unless you are wearing a uniform, you have some say over the cut and materials of the clothing you buy, and so many brands have popped up in recent years to give women more comfortable formal office wear options.
2. Diffuse essential oils: One of the first things I do when I step into my office for a workday is create a blend of essential oils for the workday. I wrote about my essential oil secret weapon a few weeks ago, so make sure to check out that post if you want some tips from me on oils to diffuse.
3. Listen to white noise or classical music: For most of us, working silently isn’t the most productive way to work. I personally love listening to classical music while I work or turn on a sound machine app that can create some subtle white noise so that I can focus better, especially when I am working on difficult or stressful tasks.
4. Theme your workdays:Ever since I began theming my work days I have been much more efficient. Essentially, I took all my major work tasks and grouped like items together to come up with themes for each day of the week and on those days I use the theme to guide my work. Although I may need to stray from time to time for urgent issues, theming my days has kept me more accountable and helps me streamline my work.
5. Batch like items together: This goes along with theming my workdays, but whether or not you theme your days, you should always batch process your work. Jumping from task to task has been scientifically proven to be a waste of time, so when you can spend a chunk of time doing the same task over and over, you save yourself time by working more efficiently.
6. Set a timer to complete annoying tasks: Whenever I am avoiding tasks, I find the best thing to do is to set a timer to get them done! Having the deadline of a timer helps me get past my mental blocks and just do the hard work. Give it a try next time you recognize that you are avoiding certain tasks.
7. Shut your door: Shutting your door is a simple way to tell yourself and others that you are busy working. Having an open door policy in the office is nice, but when people see an open door and want to waste some time at work, they head straight for it! Likewise, when your door is open, it encourages you more often to leave your office or allow passers by to distract you from your tasks. So keep the door shut and if you are working on a particularly difficult project or task, you might want to leave a Do Not Disturb note on your door to discourage visits.
8. Make a NOT To Do List: No matter if you work in an office for a big corporation or if you work in your bedroom on your own small business, tasks come across our desks and emails that we should not waste our time on and one of the hardest parts of managing your personal workload is understanding which tasks you should not be doing. I’m a people pleaser and when I get a task, any task, I take ownership of it and strive to complete it, but through the years I’ve learned that sometimes tasks come up and they are not worth your time, even if they are assigned to you. So, as you learn about these useless tasks, keep a list of them so you know not to do them in the future. If you work for yourself it will be easy for you to delegate them to an assistant or ignore them completely, but if you don’t you may need to have a slightly difficult conversation with your boss and let them know you aren’t completing the task and give them a reasonable and well thought out explanation why the tasks is a waste. A lot of time, especially in corporate culture, tasks get attention that are worthless and our superiors keep assigning the task because that’s the way it’s always been done. Be willing to stand up for change to save yourself and your company the time and energy.
9. Use an email autoresponder and only check email twice a day: For some, this hack is NOT an option, but for those whose work is not tied to checking emails for customer service or something similar, you should give this a try. Set up an auto response email that says something like “Thank you for your email. I generally reply to all emails within 24 hours but if this is an emergency please call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX”. What this simple auto responder does is sets an expectation to anyone emailing you that they will get a response but not immediately, while also creating a process for urgent issues so that you can turn off from your email and check it when you are ready without fear of missing something important.
10. Keep your cell phone off your desk: I am always distracted by my iPhone. Not just by messages but also by the fact that I can at any time pick it up and check Instagram if I want, and I unfortunately spend too much time during my day doing this without even thinking about it. So, when I keep my phone off my desk, either on a charger on another table or in my bag, I remove the distraction. Since I use a Mac, if I get a phone call while my phone is off my desk, I can actually screen and answer the call from my laptop without having to get up, but if you are worried that you may miss important calls, devices like the Ringly or Apple Watch notify you without having to keep your phone out.
11. Keep hydrated by drinking water at set intervals: Keeping hydrated through the day is very important for mental productivity, but if you keep a bottle out and sip on it all day, you’ll end up disrupting your workflow for bathroom breaks. So, to combat this, I try to drink my fluids in bulk at regular intervals so that I’m not running back and forth from the bathroom as I work.
12. Reward yourself with activity after each 2 hour block of work: As I work, not matter how productive I am being, I always get the urge to check social media, read a blog post or watch a YouTube video, however, I have started to discipline myself to only engage in these activities after I have completed a block of work. This helps me to create a reward system that entices me to work faster and complete more tasks throughout the day. And it’s much healthier for you than taking a snack or smoke break!
I hope you enjoyed these twelve workday hacks and if you give any of them a try I want to hear about it! Tag me on Instagram @MissTrenchcoat and use #CharmedGTD in your description so me and the rest of our community can follow along with your productivity journey!
