This was a playlist I created a few weeks ago for my at-home CEO Retreat where I gave myself a full day to work on some high level business strategy and messaging for my business.
Of course, important CEO level work for your business requires the right tunes to keep you focused on inspired, and that is how the CEO Vibes Playlist was born!
I chose a variety of my favorite songs for this playlist. Tunes that really inspire and elevate my mindset. Music that puts me into alignment with my ideas and abundance. Many of these songs speak to me on a very spiritual level as well, but of course, I had to throw in some good pump you up style hip-hop and rap as well!
You’ve likely heard me mention one of the essential pieces of my Functional Planning Process- the Braindump- many times!
For me, a braindump is the best way to get all your big and little thoughts, plans, dreams and ideas out of your head and onto paper so you can get organized, make a plan and take swift action towards your goals. But, it’s not always as easy as it sounds to write out the thoughts in your head and get them organized.
That is why I created this new video productivity tool to help guide you through the process.
Imagine sitting down at your desk in the morning with your planner open to a fresh blank spread and your favorite pen in hand, ready to make your daily plan. You know you have tons of thoughts and ideas you want to take action on but staring at that blank page, your mind goes blank and you have no clue what to plan for the day.
Wouldn’t it feel so much better and be so much easier to organize and map out your plans if all those thoughts were out of your head and on a sheet of paper you could be reference as you planned for the day?
With the help of a braindump, you can unpack your brain and get it organized to make better, more efficient plans.
In this video I am going to explain what a braindump is, the tools I use and the process I follow each time I sit down to perform one. Then, I will guide you through a series of triggers that you can use to help jog your memory and get more of your brain onto paper.
Use this video as a tool to help you block off time for a braindump and to help trigger your memory so that you braindump better!
The more you practice the braindump, the better you will get at finding the important thoughts hidden in there, and each time you may find that you actually have less and less to unpack so the entire process becomes quicker and more efficient.
On top of that, you are going to feel a difference. Writing down things we have been trying to remember is a major stress release and will immediately put your mind at ease.
WARNING:You may find that after performing a braindump you actually feel motivated to take action, so be prepared to get productive once your braindump session is over!
So far, my community has been loving this new video productivity tool! Here are some recent comments:
“This was great! We always think we will remember stuff, but đ¤Śââď¸. I believe it was David Allen that said the mind is for thinking things not holding things. Thanks for the prompts!” â Karen .c.h
“I’m here for this!” â Lindsey Torres
“Oddly enough for a stay at home retired lady, this video helped me alot!” â LadyDewinter
“This was awesome! Thank you” â Auntie
It always makes me feel so good to see that a tool I developed like this is helpful and applicable to my community as well. So, if you haven’t yet tried the new Guided Braindump Session for yourself, definitely check it out, and leave me a comment to let me know the results you were able to get!
I love working from home, but I have to admit, the single thing I have struggled with the most as an online business owner is the loneliness. For as much as co-workers can be a distraction, I often miss the sense of having someone working alongside me. If you work from home, youâve likely experienced this yourself, and unless you are an introvert, you may struggle to get yourself motivated to work without the presence of a co-worker.
This is why I created a new video productivity tool to help mitigate this issue for us.
Imagine having me as your personal office buddy and co-worker, silently sitting by your side working away.
Wouldnât that be awesome?!
Thanks to the power of the internet and video, I can be your virtual co-worker in this 3 Hour Work with Me!
In this video you can work alongside me and listen to a great track of relaxing ambient music with brain power frequencies to help you focus and do your best work.
Use this video as a tool to help you block off time for work and get down to business.
In the video you will see me do some planning and then work on business tasks at the computer. During this session I wrote and scheduled two blog posts, an email, posted to Instagram and performed my weekly accountability for my Productivity Master Mind, all within my 3 hour work session.
You can achieve much in a three hour block of time if you have a clear plan of tasks, the focus to stay on task, and a co-worker whoâs silent productivity keeps you motivated to keep going with your work.
So far, the response to this video from my community has been stellar!
âI loved this! I felt like I had someone working with me and keeping me company!â – D G
âThis is great. We need a series of them to replay later on. đâ – Julie Crowley
âThis is lovely!!! Thank you for filming this!â – Happy Halloween
âLove the music you chose for this. Thanks for sharing.â – The Ambient Sound
I am beyond pleased that so many of you have watched the video already and are planning to use it as a tool to get work done on a regular basis. You can definitely expect to see more of these types of videos from me with different lengths and music choices to appease a variety of productivity needs and tastes.
Let me know in the comments what work you were able to get done in your session and consider scheduling a 3 hour block to work with me on a regular basis.
Today I want to set the record straight on an often controversial and misunderstood aspect of productivity; multi-tasking!
As a society, we get a lot of mixed messages on multi-tasking. The American #hustle culture projects a narrative that your productivity is measured by the number of tasks you can check off your to do list in a day, and that busy is the ultimate sign of success.
Everyday I see images on television and social media that glorify doing multiple tasks at one time, apparently a sign that you are using your time efficiently?
I see posts on Instagram about how you can sleep when youâre dead and how humorous it is that career professionals in their 20s and 30s have no time for their social lives.
Blowing off your friends and family to sleep because youâre burnt out from work is a right of passage.
Having to drink a bottle of wine or take prescription sleep aids in order to get rest at night is the accepted norm.
But despite all the social signals that working non stop and doubling or tripling up on tasks is the way to go if you want to look like a successful human, productivity research is very clear that when you try to do more than one thing at a time, you are going to do both of those things poorly. In fact, studies show multi-tasking decreases productivity up to 40%.
Now, if the tasks you are working on are not very important and donât require any skill or level of precision, then by all means, multi-task away.
Iâm all for listening to your favorite podcast episodes while you fold the laundry or do the dishes.
I very often listen to a book on tape or catch up on YouTube videos when Iâm in the bath.
There are some things you can do adequately at the same time.
For instance, I use essential oils and listen to a guided meditation when Iâm trying to fall asleep at night. Itâs a wonderful way to stack healthy sleep habits to ensure a restful nightâs slumber.
But when it comes to tasks that do matter. Tasks for work or business, attending meetings or calls, and even relaxing or spending time with loved ones, you really should focus on the task at hand if you want to see and feel results.
Iâve learned from much trial and error that I canât listen to a non-fiction book while Iâm working or else I wonât do much work or I wonât remember what Iâve learned from the book. I canât have it both ways, I can only focus on one important thing at a time if I want to do it right.
I canât attend a Zoom meeting and try to do anything more than take notes if I actually want to absorb the information from the call. And even in this case, while I’m taking notes I often miss new information that is being mentioned.
Multi-tasking just doesnât work on the important things because humans need to focus in order to learn or create.
Sure, you can work on multiple tasks a day, but you canât work on multiple tasks at one time.
So, I advocate for focus. For doing one thing at a time, giving it your full attention, and doing the thing very well.
When you do this, focus on one thing at a time, at first you might experience a bit of fear because all your attention and pressure are on one task.
Some of you Iâd bet have been multi-tasking not simply to get more done in a day, but to actually keep you from going all in on certain work.
Multi-tasking relieves the pressure of perfectionism for some people because you know deep down inside that you just want to rush through certain tasks and get them over with. Multi-tasking can be a type of distraction for us, and a boundary that keeps us from doing our best work at the same time.
Done is better than perfect, right?
Well, it depends on the context.
You can do two things at once, check the box on them and move on to the next thing without even stopping to evaluate if the work was necessary or impactful.
So many of us check the box on tasks with the expectation that it is going to move the needle on an objective or goal, but we give up because we donât see the fruits of our labor. Perhaps, if we had focused on one thing at a time and did our best with each, we would have seen the impact we were expecting.
This brings to mind the example of working out alone versus working out with a trainer. Working out alone of course benefits our health, but itâs been shown that working out with a trainer gives greater results because the trainer is there to ensure you are holding proper form and putting in a full effort for your time. When we work out alone, sure, some of us may be disciplined enough to remain in proper form or push ourselves to the limit each workout, but truthfully, most of us are just trying to get thru the experience rather than doing it right. We have a belief that just finishing is enough, and when we donât see the results we expected after weeks of effort, we give up.
What if we just put in the full effort and gave the task our full focus to begin with?
Well, then we would start seeing results that would likely blow us away.
Wouldnât that be a nice feeling for once?
So, from now on, letâs hold ourselves accountable for doing one thing at a time when it comes to tasks that are important or are tied to our goals and objectives.
Itâs fine to multi-task in small ways on mindless tasks that donât have a significant effect on our lives, but when you do, take note of whether you got all you expected from your experience, and if you feel unfulfilled you know not to multi-task on that item again in the future.
Working from home is a concept I am all too familiar with. Even before quarantine and before I left my job to go full-time for my own business, I was a home based employee.
Working from home has a certain allure that many office goers are often curious about and sometimes envious of, but trust me, working from home is no cake walk! I’m often asked about how I stay productive when I work from home because to be completely honest, working from home can be a total productivity killer. Unlike working in a structured office setting, home based workers are faced with many different obstacles that often cause them to be less productive. This may not translate to all at-home workers, but I know I have experienced challenges working from home and I know others who have as well. The way I see it, there are three main issues that home based workers face.
Isolation: Working from home often times means working alone and this issue often caused me a lot of grief even when I did work for a Fortune 50 company and technically had co-workers. When I worked in an office I often felt like my co-workers were a major distraction to me because they would pop in and out of my office all the time, but when I transitioned to working from home I realized that those interruptions actually forced me to take a break from my work every so often. You see, when you work from home you don’t have the same pressures and excuses to get work done that you do when you work in an office. There is no “Oh, I really need to finish up this report quickly before my co-worker stops by to chat about our project.” Although many of us dilly dally when we work in an office, we also have some institutional pressures that actually help us get our work done!
Lack of Accountability: Depending on the type of work you do and whether you work from a home for a company or for yourself, you may feel a lack of accountability looming over your head to keep you productive. This is something I felt as a home based employee and something I struggle with now that I work for myself. When your supervisors or co-workers aren’t watching, you feel like you can slow down your pace, engage in more distracting behavior (like turning on the TV or doing the laundry) that can waste much of your time when you should be working.
Distractions: As much as a formal office setting has its own unique set of distractions, nothing is more distracting that working from home. Seriously, your bed is never more than a few steps away from you at all times which is a very tempting trap I often fall into! Working from home gives you a lot of freedom, many of us think that if we work from home we can get all our work done and clean the house and make dinner as well, but in my experience that isn’t the case. Unless you are highly disciplined it’s going to be hard for you to get your full 8 hours of work in and then a bunch of extra personal items as well. Other than the time you get back from your commute, you really don’t get anymore hours in a day when you are a home based worker!
So, what can we do about this very common issues that at home workers face?
I have a few tips that I use to keep myself productive and I suggest you put these into practice for your own home/work balance!
Create a defined office space: It’s very important as a home based worker to have a defined office space. Your bed cannot be your office! Get a desk and a chair, set yourself up an area of your bedroom or home to be your office. I am lucky enough to have a dedicated room in my home that I use as my office space and I feel drastically more productive when I work from it. Make sure to add personality and decor to your office or workspace as well by adding inspirational artwork to your walls, keeping a supply of stationery and office supplies on hand and of course, having all the necessary office gadgets you need to get your work done like a printer, fax machine etc. Now, although you may have a defined office space, I also find it helpful from time to time to get yourself out of your space and work from another location. In non-covid times, that would mean take your laptop and some paperwork and head over to a local cafe or library to get some work done at a remote location. With covid, however, I think we need to get a little more creative. I have some alternate spots in my home that I use as my occasional office (including my bed) and I know for a change of scenery some people have taken to working inside their cars from a more scenic location near their homes. So, even in social distancing, we can still switch it up when need be.
Engage in a morning routine: For a long time I woke up, got out of bed and went straight to work in my office. Since I didn’t have to get ready to go into the office, I thought there was no reason for me to establish a morning routine, but I find that having a morning routine and getting dressed and ready in the morning is a major boost to my productivity. Although no one sees me when I work from home except my family, I find that I actually get more done on the days where I actually wake up, put on a cute but comfortable outfit and do my hair and makeup just a bit! The ritual of getting ready establishes a sense of accountability for me that really helps me to stay focused and productive during the day.
Connect with other remote workers: To combat the isolation that comes from being a remote worker, I highly recommend connecting with other remote workers to create a support system. These workers could be other home based employees as your company, or friends and family members that also work from home. I think it’s a great practice to have an instant messaging application open on your computer and connected with these individuals so that throughout the day you have people to talk to. You can even schedule lunch dates to meet up with a friend during your lunch hour or have a Skype date during lunch time with another virtual co-worker!
Another great way to stay connected with other at-home workers is by joining an accountability group like the Productivity + Planning Mastermind. We chat daily via Slack, have regular accountability check-ins and I host two live calls a month. It’s like having some virtual co-workers and friends at the same time!
Set a consistent work schedule: Another issue I have is that since I work from home, I end up working at all hours of the day and night. Usually I do this when I haven’t felt particularly productive all day and feel like I need to make up for my laziness by working well into the night to complete a project or tasks, but it is a terrible practice that I highly suggest avoiding. To combat this, I think it’s important to set a work schedule for yourself. Set your start time, breaks, lunch and end time for the day and try to stick to it. It will be hard at first, but if you can set yourself alarms to remind you to start and stop working that may help you build the habit.
Define an end of day routine: Like your morning routine when you get up to go to work, I realized that as an at home worker part of the puzzle I was missing was also an end of day routine. When I worked in an office I had this end of day routine where I would stop working on my projects, organize any in-progress information for the next day, clean up my workspace, and then shut down my computer before I left. As an at home worker, I think it’s very important to establish an end of day routine like this that works for your own situation. It will help you prepare your mind to shut off from work for the day, and leave your space ready for you to pick up and get back at it again in the morning!
I hope these tips gave you some inspiration and ideas for how you can be more productive when working from home.
Being a home based worker isn’t always as easy and care free as you might think so if you are an office based worker that is considering transitioning to home based, I highly suggest giving this some thought before making the leap and establishing good habits from day one that will make your transition easier!
Of course, let me know if any of these tips helped you or if you have any more tips to share with the community!
Today, I want to share 5 Productive Work From Home Lunch Break Ideas with you all.
We are about to commemorate one year in our global pandemic lockdown, and at this point, most of us have become much more skilled at working from home. If you were one of the many employees who shifted to a work from home life-style for the first time, I know the last year for you hasn’t been easy. I can only imagine the adjustment you had to go through and I know many of you still don’t feel as productive as usual working from home.
As someone who has worked from home for years running my own business, I know I certainly went through a transition like this myself. The biggest challenge I struggled with, that I think many of you can relate to, was taking breaks. When you work in an office, it’s a little easier to convince yourself to take a break I think because you feel like you are in a work environment and so taking 30 minutes to an hour in the middle of the day for your lunch break to relax and perhaps take care of your own personal work seems more acceptable. But when you work from home, at least for me, you can feel like you don’t need to take a break because you are already home. But then of course, lack of clear break time exhausts us mentally, and makes it even easier for us to work overtime.
Something that has helped me establish more Work Life Balance since working for myself is the idea of taking a productive lunch break.
Yes, being at home steps away from my kitchen means I have easy access to food and snacks, so maybe I’m not always hungry during my lunch break, so I have found other productive things to do during my lunch break that make me feel like I am using it wisely, while also using it to decompress and take a true break from work.
Here are my 5 Productive Work From Home Lunch Break Ideas!
1. Listen to a 15-30 minute guided meditation
Nothing helps me reset my productivity quite like a guided meditation. For those who are new to the practice of meditating, using a guided track makes it easier to relax and focus because you are paying attention to the directions you are being given. If you struggle to meditate on your own, try a guided track and see if you enjoy that. Not only does meditating have a wonderful ability to re-energize our minds but truthfully, a guided meditation track is also something you can do while you are eating your lunch or doing other productive activities during your break. Don’t think you always have to be sitting down quietly with your eyes closed to be meditating, because there are many different ways to put our minds in a meditative state. Maybe you just don’t want to be driving or doing anything too complicated or dangerous while listening to the track, however!
2. Read or listen to a book on tape
Members of my community often ask me how they can fit in new habits they are interested in like reading, and I think using your break time as a dedicated time for something like reading is a great idea. Reading or listening to a book on tape is a great way to relax and rest your mind, shifting your focus away from work. So, if you want to start reading more regularly, try doing so as part of your work from home lunch break!
3. Watch an inspirational or entertaining YouTube Video
I have spoken before about how I enjoy using incentives like watching a YouTube video as a reward for being productive at work and avoid procrastination. You could certainly use this as a lunch break strategy where you get a mid-day break to do something fun you enjoy like watching a Video. Now, I do think it’s best for these videos to either be inspirational or entertaining because if you can get a jolt of motivation or some laughter in your day, that is going to be a boost to your productivity!
4. Add some new inspiration to your vision board
For me, my vision board isn’t just something I create at the start of the year and stick to, it’s a living breathing work of inspiration that I like to currently update. So, spending some time searching for images online or quotes you can print out and add to your vision board is a great, relaxing and inspiring way to spend a lunch break.
5. Write out affirmations
If you have some affirmations you are trying to use to reprogram your mind, spending a little time during your lunch break writing them each out several times is a easy bit of mindset work you can do to be productive. I like to write my affirmations out 3 x 3, so three affirmations written out three times. Do whatever works for you, but make sure while you are writing out the affirmations, that you feel the feelings of that affirmation being your truth. That is the best way to get those affirmations plugged into our brain quickly!
So, I hope you enjoyed these 5 Productive Work From Home Lunch Break Ideas. I would love to hear which idea you are going to start implementing so please leave me a comment and tell me about it!
If you have been following me for a while, you have likely heard me talk about one of my major productivity and planning strategies, the Top 3 List.
The Top 3 List is a list of 3 prioritized daily tasks that you need to focus on for the day. Many women in my community come to me, asking how they can get a handle on their never ending to-do list, how they can find focus to ensure they are completing the most important tasks, and how they can make the time to work on their own personal goals alongside tasks for work, home or family life. The Top 3 list is a productivity and planning strategy that I believe addresses all three of those situations. This strategy is so impactful, in fact, that I intentionally design a Daily Top 3 List into all of my Functional Planning Inserts.
Itâs a basic fact of life that for most of us in a day, to borrow a line from Elton John, âthere is more to do than can ever be done.â Most of us have never ending, ever growing to do lists and when you try to organize your day by your to-do list alone, you will find that tasks are an infinite source of work that can easily drain your energy and take over the precious time you have in a day.
If you are working off this never ending list each and everyday, I can confidently say, I know that there are things you are NOT getting done off that list. And I would bet that some of the things you push off for the next day end up being priority tasks that really should have been completed today.
So, by taking the focus off your complete to-do list and instead pulling just three tasks from it to prioritize for the day, you will begin to see that by choosing those three tasks strategically, you will ensure you are always getting the most important work on your list done.
There is also a fundamental principle of productivity known as the Pareto Principle or 80/20 Rule. It states that just 20% of our actions create 80% of our results. That means that 20% of the things we do in a day are leading to the majority of our outcomes. So, truly, there are some tasks that are just higher impact for our days than others, and the Top 3 list gives us an opportunity each day to zero in on those few tasks that will truly yield the most results for us.
So, it would benefit all of us to start using the Daily Top 3 List as a jumping off point for our daily work. By no means does the Top 3 List mean you ONLY complete three things each day, instead these are just the tasks that really need to be prioritized.
Sounds easy, right? Choose three tasks every day and get them done, simple enough!
Well, not quite.
I will say that although this strategy is simple in theory, itâs not as easy as it seems in practice because it requires us to be very good at prioritizing. Itâs not enough to choose any three tasks, this strategy only works when we choose the right 3 tasks.
I consider the ability to prioritize our tasks a mental muscle that we need to flex in order to develop it to its potential.
When you get started setting your Daily Top 3, I promise you, you are going to make some mistakes. You will list out tasks that arenât actually priorities, you will think something is a priority but then realize your error half way through the day, and you are going to accidentally put projects on your Top 3 instead of tasks (very common.)
But, the more you use this strategy, day in and day out, you are going to improve. You will start setting a better Top 3 List and itâs going to bring you to a completely new level of productivity, focus and achievement when you start getting done the important tasks and letting go of the non-essentials.
So, to help you create a better Top 3 List, I have a few tips or prompts for you to consider when you sit down at your planner each day.
Tip #1:If you could only do 3 things today, which would make the day feel like a success? These might be tasks you are afraid to tackle but know you will feel so good when they are complete. Or these are tasks with impending due dates, or that need to be done before something else that is also important can be accomplished.
Tip #2:Choose tasks that arenât part of the daily routine you always do. You donât need to prioritize things that are everyday no-brainers for you because you will likely have some form of self-discipline that kicks in to ensure you get those things done anyway.
Tip #3:Choose 3 individual tasks NOT projects. A project is a collection of multiple steps or tasks that need to be accomplished, and if you put a project on your top 3, itâs going to take much more time and effort for you to complete and will undermine the effectiveness of this strategy.
I hope this post and these tips helps you to start using this simple but powerful planning and productivity strategy in your own life daily. If you are using a planner or inserts that do not give you the dedicated space to list out your Top 3 each day, I highly recommend you check out my Master Plan System of inserts. As I mentioned earlier, all of the Functional Planning Inserts I design, including those in the Master Plan System include a dedicated space for this essential planning and productivity strategy because it truly is a game changer that will upgrade the way you work each day.
Remember, for the month of February I have a discount code FEB2021 for 20% OFF all the planning inserts and tools in TheCharmedShop.com!
A few weeks ago, one of my master mind sisters in the Productivity + Planning Master Mind asked for my opinion on an image she had seen on Instagram. I will post the image here for you to read, but essentially, it was a tweet from the Author Shailja Patel explaining her belief that the concept âWe all have the same 24 hoursâ is nonsense due to income inequality. I thought this was an interesting item to comment on and I provided the following feedback to the group. After our conversation, it was suggested that my response was so poignant that I should share it in a post for my wider community. The following was my response, I have reformatted it to flow better in this post:
This is where I agree with this post- there are people who are systematically underserved in our world, for which doing everyday things takes much more time and effort.
People who cannot afford a car or ride share services, and have to take public transport places.
People who live in areas where grocery stores are further from their homes, so they rely on corner stores where food is marked up in price.
People who cannot afford childcare and donât have a reliable system of friends or family around them to help with that, so they have to take less desirable jobs with more flexible work schedules and often lower pay.
This is a real issue and it makes life a struggle for them.
Communities of color suffer from this the most.
But I still donât love this post, because it is comparing those communities on one extreme of the productivity spectrum to those on the other, and itâs leaving out âthe middle classâ.
I like to use the phrase âwe all have the same 24 hours in a dayâ because on a basic level, itâs true and there are examples of people from every point on the privilege (or non-privilege) scale that do buckle down, do the work, stay focused and become a success (whatever that means for them).
There are plenty of people who come from families of wealth who blow their money, are completely unproductive and end up on the streets as well.
Thatâs what I donât like about the post. Itâs comparing two extremes and almost giving people with enough resources a built in excuse as to why they donât have to achieve their goals if they have some barrier that they judge in their way.
When it comes to the âmiddle classâ many of us have enough resources at our disposal to move towards our goals and dreams, if we choose to see them and take advantage of them, and yet, plenty of us arenât reaching our potential.
What it comes down to for me is mindset.
I know that until systems are devised to help the underserved, itâs always going to be more difficult for a majority of people in those situations to move out of those circumstances, but if you look at this from a mindset perspective, if one person in a bad situation decides they are going to do whatever it takes to go after their dreams, then I know they will make it.
The same thing is true of a middle class mother, the same thing is true of a billionaires daughter.
The only difference between them to me, is that itâs much easier for someone who has endless resources at their disposal to believe they can achieve what they want and go after it.
The middle class mother has less resources, but still plenty of opportunity if she would see it.
The poor high school drop out has even less resources and opportunity, but can still make any dream happen if they are willing to shift their mindset to believe and do the work.
One of the most common productivity conundrums I see is âI know what I need to do, I have made the plan and I have the time, but when the time comes, I donât do what I know I should do to achieve my goal. How do I fix this?â
The answer is mindset.
In that situation, if you know what you want to achieve and have a plan and even have some time to move it forward, if you are NOT taking action, itâs because of something in your mindset. A limiting belief. And you will never do the work, no matter how good the plan is or how much time you give yourself, until you remove that block and shift your mindset.
The factor I think we all often forget when it comes to achieving goals is that, multiple people can have the same goal and take completely different routes to achieve it. Thatâs what having the same 24 hours in a day means to me. Not that we are all going to execute the same strategy to reach the goal, or that we all need to be on level playing ground to make our goals happen. Instead, itâs understanding that we all have our unique place in the world where we are right now, and still we can all reach the same destination if we choose to take action and believe we are capable and worthy of our objective.
Until we acknowledge that mindset is the deciding factor in success, we are always going to be focused on the wrong elements, leaving more people of means reaching their potential than those with less, and a heck of a lot of people with âenoughâ believing they arenât enough.
So, what do you think? Leave me a comment below and share your thoughts.
We are getting close to the one year mark of our world-wide shelter in place orders and I don’t know about you, but I have been needing a change in my home office situation.
So, instead of working from my office at a desk- I kid you not- I have reverted back to working from my bed a few days a week and I have been really loving it.
Of course, for the sake of your productivity and mental health, working from your bed is probably not the best choice for an ongoing daily habit, but I will say, it’s kind of fun and great for those days when you need to get stuff done behind the computer screen and really want to have grace with yourself.
This setup might not be for everyone, but if you have the right kind of work to do and the right mindset around this, it really can work.
It all started for me about a week ago when the shine of the New Year wore off (as it always does) and I was feeling very caged into my current routine. Wake up, get ready, sit in office, do work… was getting to be too monotonous for me. BUT I had work to do and a business to run, so out of sheer laziness I grabbed my laptop and brought it right back to bed with me.
My initial goal was simply to indulge my laziness while getting a few essential tasks completed. I told myself “finish your top three and you can be lazy and lie in bed the rest of the day guilt-free.” So, I sat in bed with my laptop and unexpectedly completed my tasks in almost no time at all. Propped up by pillows and still wearing the oversized t-shirt I had slept in, all the mental resistance to my work faded away and I found clarity. It felt so good and so freeing to just give myself permission to stay in bed to work, and so I worked from my bed most of that week. It was the grace I needed that week to keep myself feeling sane and in control.
So, I’ve taken to calling this home office setup Business In Bed- highly imaginative, I know! But I put together a little roundup of tools that made my Business In Bed experience even more convenient for me and I wanted to share the inspiration with you all!
I hope this post gave you some inspiration for your new favorite work space! Let me know in the comments how you have been switching it up as you shelter in place and work from home.
If you have been curious about journaling, today I have some great information to share with you. In this post, I will explain:
Why you should start journaling
Strategies to consider for journaling
Tools to use when beginning your practice
Building the habit of daily (or regular) journaling
Why you should start journaling
There are plenty of reasons why someone would want to journal, and if you are reading this I assume you are trying to get some inspiration for yourself or you already know why you want to start in some form. I think itâs very important when you start a practice and regular habit like journaling that you know what you intend to get out of the experience. When you have that personal reason why or your intention for it set, it makes it much easier for you to decide the strategy you want to use, stick to the practice and remain accountable to it.
Documented Benefits of Journaling
Mental clarity
Improve your Productivity
Reduced Stress and anxiety
Increased Happiness
Identify and overcome limiting beliefs
Reprogram your mindset
Self-therapy and reflection for self-awareness
Manifestation of goals
Okay, now that you know why you want to journal, letâs discuss the common strategies that you can use to do so. I have seven to share with you and I want to make it clear that you can choose one or more of these types to use at once. I myself often switch between these different strategies of journaling often or I tend to do more than one in a single journaling session.Â
Strategies to consider for journaling
Brain-dump – write down all the things your holding in your mind to organize and prioritize them.
Stream of consciousness writing – just writing out all your thoughts feelings emotions to release your thoughts and self reflect. See morning pages from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
Gratitude journaling – list out gratitude, good to set your mindset as it’s documented to make you 10% happier.
Journal prompts – guided journaling for self reflection, great for people who get overwhelmed at the thought of having to fill a blank page.
Affirmations – repeatedly writing out affirmations. Stick to 1-3 as to not overwhelm yourself.
Scripting – writing out how you want your day to go for the purpose of manifesting it.
Future writing – journaling as yourself but at a future date in time after some goal or achievement has been met and chronical everything that happened to bring you to that point
Tools to use when beginning your practice
For the most part you can get started journaling with just some blank note paper or even a note taking app on your phone or computer. There is some data that supports writing by hand rather than typing but that is really for specific benefits of stress reduction. So, what you intend to get out of your journaling is key to know when choosing the tools to use.
As an example, a notebook like the Stalogy Editor’s Series gives you a years worth of undated pages to really do any of the journaling strategies we discussed already.
For myself, personally, I get a little intimidated by a completely blank page with no structure or guidance so over the years as Iâve been journaling for various reasons, Iâve designed different inserts for journaling to accompany my planner.
High Vibe Bible inserts are designed for a loosely guided gratitude and manifestation journaling experience
I designed a number of guided journaling workbooks for my Empire Building students and Productivity Master Mind Members with prompts intended to help them in specific areas of productivity, mindset and business
Most recently I designed a day on two page planning and journaling insert based on my previous video 5 Daily Prompts and Affirmations for Making a Plan that Comes True. Iâve been loving this insert even though itâs a little more than Iâd normally use in my planner Iâve been enjoying the daily page to supplement my weekly master planner spread.
Building the habit of daily (or regular) journaling
The final piece of the journaling equation is to actually build the habit. Now, itâs up to you to decide if you need journaling to be a daily practice, a weekly practice or just something you do sporadically when you need it. This links back to your why, and ultimately is your choice. You canât mess up journaling and there are no rules that say you have to journal a specific amount of times or at a specific time of day to get benefit from it.
Is journaling a habit that the more you do, the more you improve… of course! But I want to remind you not to turn the idealization of a perfect journaling practice that is going to change your life forever, into an expectation that you struggle to meet and then end up beating yourself up about. As you get started with journaling, Iâd advise you to invest in the tools that make you excited, and then set a reasonable schedule for journaling. Some people prefer journaling in the morning, some in the evening. I aim for the morning but when I forget I have no problem doing a midday reset or even a bed time journaling session.
Start slow, maybe one day a week. And then after a few weeks, build up to two days and so on. There is no reason to overwhelm yourself! Use journaling as a tool for your self improvement. And remember the affirmation I gave you last week what I decide gets to be the path for me this is definitely true of journaling!
Watch the video
I hope this information has been helpful for you in determining how to begin your own journaling practice. In the comments I would love to hear about which strategies you are interested in trying for yourself!
