Why some days you're productive and other days you crash and burn

Do you struggle with staying productive consistently?

I work with a lot of clients who know how to be productive, avoid procrastination, and the tips and tricks they need to use to get things done. But they still struggle some days with their productivity. Why is that? 

There is something else going on that a lot of books and teachings don’t talk about, because it’s connected to a different world of study of why some days you’re productive and some days you crash and burn.

There are some days that you feel pretty good, feeling like you are riding this wave of emotion, thinking “I feel great and I’m doing fine.” But sometimes something happens and you get triggered. This trigger leads to a reaction from your body. This can be something like a boss saying something, or having a request come in. It could also be related to your family. All types of things can be triggers, either big or small. This trigger can cause you to go up into hyperarousal. This can be you getting anxious, or jittery, as this is going into your sympathetic nervous system.

Sometimes when people are up in this state, they can be productive, but it’s usually an intense productivity. And depending on the person, you could be up in that state for minutes, hours, or days. But eventually you will crash and come back down into the parasympathetic nervous system, or hypoarousal. This is where the feeling of “crash and burn” comes into play. 

What does “crash and burn” look like?

“Crash and burn” can look like different things for different people, but it is usually an apathetic state where you don’t feel like doing anything. You might not feel like getting out of bed, you might not feel like tackling your to-do list, even though you put it together the day before when you felt fine.

It can be confusing to you to find yourself in this “crash and burn” state, especially when you were so productive the day before, and it can elicit a lot of emotions. This can range from yelling at themselves to having negative conversations in their head, and then doing whatever they can to get out of that state. But the problem with that, and why it can sometimes feel like a rollercoaster, is they shoot themselves up too far back into hyperarousal, and repeat the process again.

How to maintain your productivity

What we want to do for our bodies is to keep them in what is called “the window of tolerance.” Everybody's window of tolerance is a little bit different, and there are patterns that you can recognize in yourself that will let you know where your window of tolerance is.

For example, you might have a cup of coffee or some type of caffeine that takes you up towards the top of your window of tolerance, but instead of continuing beyond that by drinking more caffeine, you’ll regulate yourself to stay inside that window. There is work to do on yourself so that you are able to regulate or parent yourself, so you are not riding the waves up and down.

Windows of tolerance can change based on circumstances

If you are going through a lot of experiences, sometimes it feels like the window of tolerance shrinks and anything could set you off into the waves of emotion. The window is not a permanent fixture, but instead can change based on circumstances in your life. The window changes, how you respond changes, and even hormones can play a part in the fluctuations. 

So instead of trying to put activities or actions into your life or changing around your to-do list, try incorporating these practices and learn how to keep yourself in your window of tolerance. Because once you know what it looks like and sounds like, you can show your body you are safe and you can understand your body’s reactions.

How to simply plan your days to reach your goals

What are some of your daily, weekly, and monthly goals?  What thoughts come to mind when creating a plan to reach these goals?  Let's talk about the nitty gritty of planning, your schedule, and tracking. When helping my clients plan each day we focus on four simple steps: 

1. We write down what we say we're going to do. 

2. We do the actual thing. 

3. We allow the urges that come up.

4. We then repeat that process.

The fourth step is probably the most important because it takes CONSISTENCY. 

Repeating the above steps day to day, and experimenting with what works and what doesn't.  My clients have tried several different planning methods that simply didn’t work.  Many have brought me their own schedules they whipped together, they've tried creating spreadsheets, or they just weren’t taking any steps towards trying to plan their days.  

I knew I needed to help them get organized in some way, so I put together a weekly schedule worksheet that I give my clients, and that you can also download for free in my online trainings.  I also have a daily time tracker that has been very beneficial for me and those I work with!

So what’s so great about the daily time tracker? 

It’s all about your planned result and your actual result.  When we're planning our day, we're not just putting down “writing time”, right? We don’t say to ourselves “I'm just going to write that paper I'm working on between 6:00 AM and 8:00 AM.” 

This is a planned result.  The point is it's not just writing time, and it's not just what we're going to do during that time. It is what we are going to achieve. What are we actually going to accomplish?

For example, I wrote 500 words or I posted that piece or I sent those emails. That's the plan result. The reason I put it in two columns on the worksheet is so that you can track your actual results. And this is the part where we can see what actually happened. 

You might say that you plan to do something at 8:00 AM over on this column, but we want to see what you actually did from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM. 

Sometimes my clients will say, “I'm going to answer emails during that time, and then I'm going to answer the emails for my students”. Then they’ve spiraled into a rabbit hole, and ended up watching multiple YouTube videos or scrolling endlessly through social media. And then before they know it, it's almost 10:00 AM and they only have minutes until the next meeting. When we talk about actual results, we would mark that down. We would put on the worksheet: I went down the social media rabbit hole.

If that's true, what happened in those moments?  What urge did we have to get distracted with something else, instead of doing the tasks that we said we were going to do?  It’s time to figure this out! 

Remember, sometimes you need to focus on the daily piece, and other times you need to step back and look at the bigger picture, or monthly goal. 

What are we talking about here? It’s all of those layers I work on with my clients.  The four steps.  You can follow these steps and do them yourself, BUT I'm more than happy to talk about this process with you!  The accountability and cheerleading that you get from me is why my clients decide to hire me.  We all need support and someone we know will push us to achieve our goals!  

Are you interested in learning more about other topics I help coach my clients in?  Make sure you're on my email list if you're not already, and you can receive weekly emails with my expert advice on how you can better manage your time as a busy professor!  Believe me, you will not be disappointed! 

I'll tell you why you aren't using your time wisely

What current circumstances are you dealing with?  What work project are you working on?  Are your kids running around screaming?  Have you cooked dinner?  Have you taken the time to clean around the house? Do you have any other obligations that consume any free time that you potentially could have?  With all of this in mind, you’re most likely thinking “I don’t have enough time for everything.”  

The thought “I don’t have enough time” is extremely common. 

As humans, we’ve all thought this probably several times a week, or even several times a day...  How do you feel when that thought comes to mind?  Stressed?  Overwhelmed?  Anxious?  The emotions can vary, but most of these emotions eventually lead you to try and avoid whatever it is that needs to be done.  

So what do you do when you’re avoiding tasks you need to complete? 

Are you scrolling through social media?  Watching a TV series?  Wandering around in the kitchen?  Or even hiding in your room?  Avoiding tasks also creates problems with spending too much of our time in indecision.  As we’re scrolling on our phones we might consider downloading new apps or just scroll endlessly through our social media feed.  It’s usually after we’re done scrolling that we realize we’ve wasted so much of our time and usually a lot more time was wasted than we had originally thought.  This can only mean one thing...the reason we wasted the time that we do have is because we started thinking to ourselves that we don’t have the time to do what we need to. 

Now imagine this: Sarah has seven children, with a newborn. She’s the only one at home taking care of them, and has hardly slept the last few days (because newborn). 

You probably think, there is no way for her to get anything done. She’s too busy! 

But this is where our thoughts are super important.

Because instead of thinking “I don’t have time to do anything,” she starts thinking “I’m going to make the most out of my time today. I’m going to be productive with whatever time I’m given.” 

When you have a scarcity mindset around time, that’s when things start to go off the rails and you enter a never-ending spiral of doom. But if you think that whatever time you are given to be productive, you will be productive, then you leave that spiral of doom. You begin to realize that you have the time, it’s all about how you choose to spend that time.

Now, I like to call myself a time ninja, because I’ve mastered this skill and never tell myself I don’t have enough time.  I always tell myself I have enough time to finish everything I need to for that day.  Of course I have enough time!  And the real game changer is reminding yourself how grateful you are for the time that you do have each day, and that completely changes how you feel about your time and what you decide to do with it.  I have seen amazing results from putting this into practice, and I know you can achieve these results too.  

This is where having a life coach can help you.  As a certified weight and life coach myself, I can help you bridge your thoughts to make them believable for you, so that you too can experience this process of shifting your mindset and thoughts.  You’ll see yourself beginning to also think these thoughts, from there you’ll notice the change and start to feel better, and then you can really start to take action and make true changes that will make a positive impact on your habits, choices, and life.  This is what we can do together, and what I can help you with!

Avoiding a Day Off Because of What Happens on the Other End?

Do these thoughts come into your head when you start thinking about taking a break or vacation?

• I’m just going to be overwhelmed with work when I get back.

• When I return, I’m going to be struggling to keep up.

• If I don’t take the break or vacation, I can’t get overwhelmed because I’m not falling behind.

If so, we’re going to talk about this today. A lot of my professor clients are part of the “Overworking Club,” as I call it. And I know, because I spent a lot of time in that club. Now that I know on the other end how to deal with it, I am helping others. I've got three tips for you about how to solve this issue in your life and to take the days off and the vacation that you want. 

List out why you want to take a break

Simple as that. On a piece of paper, list out why you want to take a break. By writing it on paper, we are making it very concrete for your brain. Tell me what you would do with five hours in a row in your week for yourself. Not for work, not email, not even family responsibilities. For whatever you want to do.

What would it be? What would you do? And how would you feel during that time?

That is what is going to give you energy. That is what is going to re-energize you.

Whatever it is you want to do, write it down.

Define what the break actually means

It is so easy to replace work with work.

For example, you take a day off from work and being away from your computer, and then you transfer that energy into housework, like folding the laundry.

The break we are talking about here isn’t a new to-do list at home. So when we define what the break actually is, we’re telling our brain that what we’re supposed to do is *insert your ideal break or vacation here.* And then we’re not going to feel guilty on the other end of it. Which leads us to the third step…

Corral your brain on the other end of the break

This is the part that drives you crazy. Your brain will say, after a break, you know, we really should have been in our email. Or we could have totally gotten more work done.

But instead of believing those thoughts, you’re going to remind your brain why you were taking your break and what you were supposed to do (basically, not work).

And when you remind your brain that you feel better after the break and more energized, then your brain realizes that yes, the break was actually good for you. You have more energy, you took time for yourself, and you don’t feel all of the overwhelm and anxiety during the break.

These three tips will change how you approach taking breaks and help you to wrap your mind around the mindset issues that you have with taking one. 

I would love to know what you're going to do with your break and how you're going to spend it and how you're going to feel on the other end. Send me a message and tell me the details because it's going to be amazing and you deserve it!

How to Make Myself Work During Designated Times

In today's video I want to present to you a scenario that is probably pretty familiar and in this scenario we're going to talk about ways to break past the barriers that we run into when we're working on it.

I want you to imagine that you have something important you need to do like writing a research report, finishing your dissertation, starting your dissertation, writing a report for work – any kind of activity that's got that you know is going to require large amounts of your time and it's difficult to make it happen in 10-minute bursts.

You know you need a stretch of time.

So think of that activity that you might have on your plate and often a lot of people struggle with making the time to find that block of time where they might be able to work on that, but today’s scenario is about you actually found the time.

You made a schedule something like Tuesday, Thursday afternoon you're going to commit to this paper that you have to write and make it happen and you can't wait to get there.

But then Tuesday afternoon rolls around and you realize, “Oh, here I am at my designated time and I actually don't want to do this” and I'm going to procrastinate, look at that Facebook post, look at that Instagram picture, and there are a lot more other exciting things to do like, maybe I should just clean the house actually, go talk to a colleague or do anything other than what I'm supposed to be doing right now during this designated time.

So this happens a lot across a wide variety of domains and I find it happens to me sometimes too, but a couple of the strategies I wanted to talk to you today are about how to avoid those moments.

1. Eliminate distractions

So, the first thing I like to do if I have that time, I actually use Tuesday and Thursday mornings right now on my schedule because I know that I work best in the mornings, so I can commit to that kind of time.

Let’s say it's 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning and one of the first things I have to do for myself is to make sure that I shut down all the distractions. This helps if I can close my door. Nobody's going to come into my office or I'm actually at home working – whatever it might be. No distractions. I see a lot of people with cell phones up like, “Oh look, somebody sent me a notification.” I've got the cell phone put away. I've installed the Freedom app on my computer, so that I can shut down all of the Internet and all the distractions that come with that – so Freedom or the StayFocused app.

So nothing is going to get in my way. I can't look at my e-mail. I can't look at anything distracting. That gets my whole environment ready to be able to work on the thing I need to work on. Now even if something is tucked in your email, I'm still going grab all those documents or whatever I need so I don't have to go searching for all the things. I've got it already loaded. So eliminating distractions is the first step.

2. Set a timer

Then the next thing I do is make sure that if it's something I'm really dreading like I cannot even handle the thought of writing the words for that piece or whatever might be, I make sure I set a timer to just get started because if I know something takes me three hours to do – I need a good three hour stretch of time to make progress on this project.

That still seems really daunting and all of us it's like, “Well, I have a lot of time to work on this” and times slips away from me. But instead, I set a timer, I say, “Alright. It’s go time. I have to work on this. The timer is set. I have to spend the next 20 minutes working on this.” And of course the trick to that is it spurs me to keep working. Once I'm in the groove, it doesn't seem that painful usually.

Setting the timer is the Pomodoro Technique and if you haven't heard of that, make sure you look it up. But it's one of those simple techniques that really helps and when you get out of the habit and then you start doing them again, you remember like, “Oh yes. This is a really helpful technique.” So Pomodoro Technique, we said avoiding distractions, getting yourself ready, setting a timer so that you launch into the activity.

I'd also say with that making sure you do something easy first that isn't as complicated and you've broken down your steps to be able to say like –if your overall goal is to finish that paper you can break it down into smaller groups and say, “Okay, I know I need to write this paragraph” and “I know I need to do this part on the analysis” or “I know I need to create this table.” Little details and starting with an easy one can also help with those timer settings.

3. Know why you’re doing it

And then the third thing I remind you or give you a tip on are about actually writing down the reasons why you're doing this. So things like finishing your dissertation seem like “Well yeah, I need to do this, so I can finish my PhD.” Well, that's kind of obvious, but actually writing down the reasons about why is this important.

Do I actually want to do this? Because sometimes we have all these barriers, so like actually making the time happen, when we have the time we don't want to do it. But if we really get to the root of it, sometimes we just don't want to do it at all. I don't actually want to write this paper, it doesn't actually matter if it happens and that's why I've been procrastinating for the past six months.

So remembering why and starting to list those reasons and put them somewhere where you can see them as you work to say, “This research paper is really important for me to read. Even if only one graduate student reads this paper some day when it's published, that's going to be meaningful to me because I feel like I really contributed to literature here. This is important for my scientific endeavor.” All of these different things that are important to you and kind of the reason why you’ve even gotten into this situation in the first place.

And then, if it doesn't seem like there are any good reasons and you really don't want to do it but you still feel like you have to, I always like the phrase that Jenny Blake uses when it's something really difficult she says, “What will bring me joy in this task? How can I do this joyfully and with ease?” Is there any way that I could make this task enjoyable or kind of have a place of joy for it because maybe there's something little in here that writing this report will help the students in the future or getting this finished and completed is going to be really meaningful, some tiny little piece of joy so that it doesn't have to feel so painful.

So those are three tips of avoiding distraction and making sure you set a timer and remembering your reasons why you got into this project at the beginning.

Stop procrastinating. Get that accountability partner and stop procrastinating. Stop this video and get back to work on that project that you're excited about.

If you need a little guidance to get back on track, get access to my tips for reclaiming your time with the form below!

Why you have to get serious about delegation

So you need to be convinced about the importance of delegation?

What would be possible if you could delegate 20% of what’s currently on your plate, personally and professionally? Find out in my friend Jenny Blake’s new course Delegation Ninja! Get $100 off with code [CAITLIN]: http://pivotmethod.com/delegate

Delegation and success

Delegation is one of those important topics because any time you talk to somebody who's successful and you ask “How do you do it all?” Well, usually their first response back is, “I don't do it all.” Right? They choose what to work on and they delegate the rest. That's why I want you to tap into delegation today, so let's do one small activity.

I want you to think about something that you hate doing, something on your plate – either work or home, something that you hate doing and despise.

You don't look forward to it all but you feel like I have to do this. Okay, that one task, write that down put it below and the comments so you can share and see that we all have similar tasks we don't like to do. Take that task and I want you to think about how you can delegate it in two ways.

Your time is valuable

I want you to think about the time it takes you to do it and the value for that. So, the time that it takes. You can do this in a couple ways. You can think about what's your hourly rate right for things you do, things people pay you to do. Even if you're making something like $10 an hour if it takes you five hours to do a task, you're already talking about $50 worth of your time. There's a very ratio aspect to that of time for money, right? But there's also value.

So when you outsource or you delegate something to somebody else, there’s a really inherent joy in being able to delegate it and you feel really good when you know you're not the one that has to do it and everybody has experienced this in their lives.

When you go out to eat at a restaurant, when you are not the one making the meal and you have this ambiance of the restaurant and the silver plate comes to you and you're like, “Oh, this tastes so good. This was a great experience.” When you break it down of “I could have made this at home for $5” or “I spent the $25 to enjoy the eating out experience,” there's inherent value that goes with that instead of just the cost breakdown.

Think about both your time and your value – the joy you're going to experience when you delegate that thing that you really hate on your list.

Figuring out what to delegate

And so, if you're stuck on “I don't know how to delegate this,” there’s the do-it-yourself option, trying to figure it out. I help clients one-on-one with finding the time and breaking down steps to make sure that you're figuring out what you need to delegate and how to do it.

But there's also a middle option that I want to share with you today.

My friend, Jenny Blake, has an awesome course called “Delegation Ninja” and she is a true delegation ninja, a bestselling author, speaker and career coach.

She has this course and in it, she's going to teach you how to save between two and five hours a week of your time which is amazing. She shows you all of her systems. I'm super proud to be an affiliate of this course (use code CAITLIN). You'll save a hundred dollars by signing up that way and you will quickly earn back the money that you're going to spend on this course by being able to save that time, right? What is your time worth?

I really want to continue the conversation about delegating with you because it’s one of my favorites!

Tell me below in the comments what you want to delegate!

How to Set Aside Shame so You Can be Productive

Know what your next steps are, but can't seem to get past feeling ashamed? You're not alone. Check out this week's video.

At first, you might think, “What does this have to do with productivity?” But actually, I find that a lot of my clients and students get paralyzed by shame and don't know how to move past it, so that they can take those next steps.

Shame in school, career, and family life

There can kind of be a wall here of “I know what the next steps are, but I'm not ready for it yet because I'm feeling too much shame.” This can appear in a lot of different domains. We're all dealing with shame in different ways – one of the first things I recognize. But in school, perhaps it looks like, “I'm not going to look into those graduate programs” or “I don't want to find out more information about that because I actually don't think I'm good enough to take those next steps.” “There are a lot of people who are better than me out there.” “I'm not good enough.” “I feel ashamed that I'm older” – perhaps on going back to school.

It sounds very similar in the career domain when we say, “I’m in this job and when I look around at everybody else around me, they're much more productive and successful. I feel ashamed that I'm not there too.”

In family domain, if you feel parental guilt and shame about, “I don't think I'm being a good enough parent.” “Why do all these other moms seem to have it figured out and I can barely pull together in a day?” Those issues and all of these different domains we're dealing with on a regular basis.

Working through shame

To relate it to productivity, I want to say if you know what your next steps are, there are two tips to working through that shame, quick tips. We'll talk afterwards about longer term delving deeper into shame. But two quick tips for you today would be:

1. Make sure that you can recognize the shame.

First, sometimes people don't see that they're saying a shame-filled statement. Recognizing when you say these things to yourself would be the first thing.

2. Share it with someone

And the second thing then is to share it with someone. Maybe it’s a trusted friend, a spouse or even somebody you met in an online community that you would feel safe saying, “I feel ashamed about” and fill in the blank. And the reaction – this is why it needs to be somebody you trust or somebody that has a lot in common with you, the reaction is going to probably be “me too” or “I felt that shame before, absolutely.” And that's so important because when we recognize that other people are dealing with shame or we get that “need to” feeling, we say, “I'm so glad that I'm not the only one dealing with this.” That's one of the keys to this that we're not alone in dealing with this.

Those are two quick tips, but if you're interested in delving deeper into shame there are two resources I want to give you today because I'm studying this myself, trying to understand more about it, you could study this for a lifetime because we're all dealing with different levels of shame. I think you'd be surprised.

We all deal with shame

Think about the person you admire most — they too deal with shame. Two people -- Tara Brach is a clinician and meditation instructor who's written several books about dealing with acceptance and self-compassion and shame. She has a lot of great resources. And then Brene Brown as well is known as the shame researcher. She has dedicated her research career to understanding shame and vulnerability. Both are excellent professionals that I admire and turn to when I'm looking for resources about shame.

I hope my two tips have helped you today with thinking about it related to productivity. I'd love to hear from you today that you shared your statement with someone and that you're looking forward to your next steps to being productive on whatever path you're on. I’ll see you next time.

Tell me below how you're implementing these steps!

How to Deal with Feeling Guilty About Delegating Tasks

Do you feel guilty when you try to delegate around the house? Watch this video for some inspiration on how to approach it from a healthy perspective.

We’ve been talking a lot about purposeful productivity and what to do when we’re overwhelmed with our to-do list and how to break things down, in general, to make it more manageable in our everyday lives. One of the things that keep coming up is to delegate tasks and to come up with the things that we don’t have to be the one person that does it every single time, in our relationships, in our family lives, at work – all kinds of examples.

But a really great point that one of the people in our community brought up, thank you Maeve, she brought up “How do I deal with the guilt associated with delegation?” And so, her examples were things like, “I feel guilty when I give this task to another person because I feel like I could be doing it or I should be the one doing it.” For all of us, we’ve all been there first of all. This is the important thing to know. Maeve’s definitely not alone. To think about the things that are happening behind this and then to apply it to our lives is where we’re going to go with it.

Identify mental blocks and societal scripts

An example in my own life would be grocery shopping and in my life, my husband and I recently switched roles on this and so I used to be the one that did most of the grocery shopping and he has recently in the past couple of months been the main one to go grocery shopping for us. I had all these mental thoughts about I should be the one to do this because I have more time. I also had a mental block behind maybe I'm better at it like, “I think I'm better at this grocery shopping thing. I should be the one to do it.”

Then, there are societal blocks or the societal scripts that we know a lot about in psychology and human development about scripts to say things like “Who does the grocery shopping in households?” And a lot of times in the commercials it looks like mom does grocery shopping or the woman in the household does grocery shopping. And then we have these roles, right? Like stereotypical roles. They don’t always follow gender lines but follow a variety of scripts.

And so, I want to challenge you today to think about what are the mental blocks I have behind this task that I want to delegate.

Recognize the positive effects of delegating

I thought about grocery shopping, "I'm better at it. I should be the one to do it because I have more time and I’ll feel guilty if I do hand it over." But instead, what happened as we made this transition, I realized when he was the one to go grocery shopping, he actually spends less money than I do which is really helpful for our budget and so actually he probably is better at it right now.

I also come at it from a positive place of how it helps me. I have more time to do a different type of task because he goes grocery shopping for us. I'm kind of coming to grips with that for whatever the task might be in your head of do you feel guilt because you're feeling like “I should be more productive with my time?” Like, if I just sat at home and said “He’s out grocery shopping and I should be the one doing that and I feel really bad that I'm not being productive right now.” That’s just negative thinking, a negative thought loop that’s getting stuck in my head over and over.

Talk to the people you delegate to

It’s also having that conversation with the other person to say “I feel guilty that this is happening. What do you think?” Often times, we’re really surprised at what people have to say back to us, right? We find that maybe he says something like “You know, I kinda like doing the grocery shopping” or “I enjoy being able to get out and about in the store.” And we’re like, “Uh, that’s kind of one of my worst nightmares.” There are all these kinds of different ways that we react to tasks and so unless we ask the person or tell them “I'm feeling guilty about this.” They may actually be able to say back to us like, “Oh, you do? Why do you feel guilty?” And so, having that conversation can help clear up a lot of issues. They may say like “I really don’t mind doing this for you because of these reasons…” So, that’s something to think about – our mental blocks that are happening and then having the conversation with the person.

Can you relate? Tell us below in the comments!

No Dusting Required: Reasons to Digitally Spring Clean

When's the last time you thought about a digital spring clean? Check out this video for tips or read the transcript below.

Spring cleaning is a hot topic right now. The latest Real Simple magazine has spring cleaning all over and everybody's excited for the fresh start and the second quarter of the year and new goals. But with spring cleaning, I have no interest in telling you about how to dust your blinds –important – but I really don't know how to talk about that.

What I do know how talk about would be digital spring cleaning, which can really be helpful for both work and home life, being productive, and feeling self-improvement. It seems minor and it seems not important sometimes, but we’re like “What's that? Why would I bother?” But the increased time that you save and then feeling non-cluttered can really help.

For digital spring cleaning, I like to go through and make sure on my computer that things are running efficiently.

And so, when is the last time that you thought about checking your virus software and checking that you have the latest versions of things installed. A lot of people don't worry about this until it's too late because they run into a problem like, the computer decided to die on them and they don't know why. Part of that is from digital spring cleaning or any time you do it – any time of year technically, but this idea is that we're cleaning up our digital files and computers. That would be one thing, to make sure virus protection is in order.

1. Uninstall programs you don’t use

Are there any programs on your computer or that you're no longer using? Did they show up on your startup screen and slow down your computer actually and you constantly find yourself closing out of it? For a long time, I had Spotify but I wasn't using it, but it would show up and I kept closing it. Well, about just uninstall that and save myself the time. So, try that.

2. Clean up browser extensions

What's happening on the computer and your home screen, but then also, browser extensions would be important. I'll tend to gather browser extensions especially as they relate to productivity or time management and like, “Ooh, I like this.” I'll try it and sometimes they stick and sometimes they don't for what I'm using or it comes and goes. Maybe I'll use something for a couple of months and then I'll move onto the next thing, so it just depends. That's actually a hack to productivity because a lot of times people think you have to find the one method that works, but for a lot of people including myself, I find that I try different things and see what sticks over time.

So, cleaning up browser extensions, deleting some of those, and finding new ones if you're stuck on something. If you're struggling with something like, “I know I need to do better with organizing my digital receipts, but how do I do that?” Just type it into Google, taking the time to type in “how do I deal with receipts” and maybe you'll find that new browser extension that you enjoy.

3. Declutter your inbox

Then the other thing would be email, so what does your email inbox looks like right now and can you do some cleaning up there? Going through e-mails that are no longer needed and for me a lifesaver recently has been that unroll.me and there are a couple of different versions of this and the one I use is free. But unroll.me gathers all of my subscriptions from e-mail into one email. I get one daily report that says, “Here’s the 400 emails that you would have gotten today if they weren't all condensed into one.” And yes, Gmail’s promotional tag helps organize this but this makes it even easier in one email. That has helped me with digital cleaning and saving time in the long run and also money because I'm not opening those e-mails to be able to spend more money on the latest and greatest or a new swimsuit for summer, which is on the horizon.

4. Organize your desktop

The other thing I see are folders on people's desktops. How are you organizing the files you're saving? Maybe you have a new set of files that you're working on but they're all just getting crammed into one folder. Can you streamline that process and add a short shortcut to your desktop to make sure that you have easy access to it instead of it being buried down into multiple folders? That would be something to think about. The overall message here is even though it seems like it takes time to be able to digitally spring clean, it actually saves time when you set aside time to be able to streamline these processes, delete what's not working for you, clean up what is, find new things that might work for you.

Another way to do that would be to ask people to see what they're doing on their screens and what's syncing up from their phone to their laptop to the cloud.

What's working and what's not working and what can you adopt for this spring to make things more efficient in your life? Keep me posted. I'd love to hear what you're using and what's working for your digital spring cleaning this spring.

Overwhelmed by Your To-Do List? Do This Right Now

Feeling like you have too much to do and don't know what to do next? This video breaks down the steps for you.

In today's video, I wanted to talk to you about what to do when you're completely overwhelmed with your to-do list. I see this happen with everyone from my college students, they're really in the thick of it right now with busy to-do lists, and my clients to struggle with “I have all these things to do and I don't know where to start.” Since a lot of people struggle with this, I thought it would be a great topic for today. That's why I say, “What do you need to do if you're feeling overwhelmed right now?” Here's what you can do right now about your list.

Write down your to-do list

The first thing would be, do you have your list? Do you actually have it written down? Because a lot of times I find that people have a mental to do list. They haven't written it down on paper or kept it in an app on their phone, instead it just keeps circling around and around and "I have to do this and I have to pay that bill, I have to pay that bill." You say it mentally in your head but you don't have it somewhere on paper or written down, so that you could actually see it and know that it's there. It keeps popping up for you. Make sure you have that list. I'm sure a lot of you have long lists in front of you and so that's where the overwhelm is coming from. But sometimes I find if you haven't written it down, it then seem like, “Oh, this might be more manageable than I thought because I see it on paper.” It can help. If you're there, start with that. Start with writing it down.

The Eisenhower Box

Then, if you have it already written down and you followed that step, we want to break it up into categories. This is a method that was made famous by Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. president, and it's called the Eisenhower Box. It's breaking down your to-do list into tasks into quadrants and so the quadrants are broken up by urgent, not urgent and important or not important. Okay. So, you have tasks that are urgent and important. On your long list, what do you have to do today?

1. What is urgent and important?

   What is something that is so urgent and important it must be taken care of? This is usually having to meet a deadline today or by the end of the week for your boss for example. Those are urgent and important – must get done. Alright. Let's put those things on your to-do list. Let's put those up to the top. For a lot of people, I find that the list of urgent and important is lengthy, right? That they're constantly living in this world, “I'm only doing the things on my to-do list that are both urgent and important.” So, let's look at what else is on the list.

2. What is important but not urgent?

   Do you have things that might be not urgent but you feel like they're important? These might be things on your list like, “I know I want to exercise” or “I know I want to call my sister” and they're really important to you, but you know that if you don't get to them, the world will not end today. It's not urgent, and so, can you schedule that in? Can you decide – that’s what they say in this method – can you decide on when you will exactly do that thing? So, put a date on it. Put a time even too especially for something like exercise and can you start to build that in. We've been talking in past videos about how habits and new habits are fragile, but let's stick to what we have right now. I'm focusing on, “Okay, that a list I know I want to get to and here's what I'm going to make that happen in the future.”

3. What is urgent but not important?

   The other quadrants on our list here would be things that are urgent, but they're not actually important. We've made them out to be “I must do this right now” and it could be delegated to somebody else. And so, when things are urgent and not important, we want to delegate as much as we can and so this looks different for everybody. But, do you have to be the one that makes dinner tonight? Do you have to be the one that picks up the kids tonight? All kinds of examples around that. Do you have to be the one that does this task for your business? At work, do you absolutely have to be the one that does it? So, that's part of delegating so that it also gets off your plate. Imagine that crossing things off our to-do list so that it is on somebody else's plate.

4. What is not urgent or important?

   And then, what’s our last quadrant, it's things that are not urgent and not important. This is a hard one to recognize, but these are things like watching television for example, if it's not important to you. For a lot of people, it's just something they do to fill the time or all kinds of little things that we do. Do I really need to spend that much time on social media or do I have to go and do that? If it's not urgent and not important, we actually want to delete it, and again, take it off our to-do list. So, we're focused on those urgent and important things and things that are important but not urgent.

Again, to review, Eisenhower's Box has four quadrants:

Things that are urgent, not urgent, against things that are important, not important. All of your tasks, all of the things on your to-do list today are going to fit into those four quadrants. When you break it down that way, it helps prevent some of the overwhelm because we're deleting things off of our list, we're recognizing what has to be done today and we're able to start to think about “You know it is really more important for me to call my brother or sister. How am I going to start to get that into my schedule?”

Now I'd love to hear from you. Share your thoughts and questions below!

How to Get Started on Improving Your Habits

We all have habits we want to improve.

Often our habits overlap too. We may have eating habits, exercise habits, cleaning and organizing habits that we want to start. Gretchen Rubin calls this list of common habits the "essential seven" because so many people want to work on them.

But how do we get started on changing our behavior?

That's the topic of this week's video. Check it out below.

I'm excited to talk to you today about how to get started to improve your habits and this is a really common technique, but something that gets overlooked too often and something I even forget to do myself sometimes.

Monitor what you’re doing now

When you want to improve a habit you want to change your behavior, one of the first things we want to know is what are you currently doing? And that means, are you tracking or monitoring your current behavior? I see this a lot with clients when they say, “I want to take control of my time” or “I want to change my schedule.” And I say, “Well, what does today look like?” “What did yesterday look like?” “What are you doing tomorrow?” And all of those moments seemed to be lost. They're not sure and maybe they can get a little bit of it, but without tracking, writing it down or putting it in their phone, they struggle to see where the time has really gone. It's such a powerful step to see all this in person when you can see it on paper, see it on your phone, in a document.

Change your behavior based on what you see

Some ways that this – this has really helped me two ways specifically even here in 2017, one would be that I knew I wanted to know where my extra money was going, that extra income of things I could spend whatever I want on.

But I resisted apps on my phone about it like, “I'm not gonna use that app. I'm just not feeling it out.” But my planner, my paper planner this year actually has a spot to track that extra money. And so, I was just able to write down every day here's what I spent and I get into that routine. Sure enough, all of that financial advice they say about lattes add up, yeah, they really do. And so, I was able to see not only do they add up, I can see exactly where they add up for me specifically, so things like that. That's one way I use the power of tracking in the past couple of months.

Watch good habits snowball

The other way would be from trying to brush my dog's teeth. I have two dogs, Calvin and Rosie, and the vet of course recommends brushing their teeth every day and I thought I probably only brush their teeth maybe once a month when I think about it, which is pretty bad I suppose. But I hadn't thought about this and I said, “Okay. I'm going to track when I brush their teeth.” And I have something on the side of my fridge where I can use a little dry erase marker. And I said, “Okay, I'm going to track.”

And I got excited to get the momentum going of wanting to check off all seven days of the week and then it snowballed of course, right? Because I want all seven days, I want the gold star so to speak – gold star junkie if we haven't met – literally, I give them out to my students – so, I wanted to check it off and then I could start to see the benefits. After a couple of weeks of brushing my dog's teeth every day, I could see that this really is helpful to them and I could make it part of my routine. But it was only through tracking and monitoring that I was able to enact those two behaviors.

So I want to ask you today, what is something that you want to work on in your life – a habit and how can you track it?

Is it on paper? Is it on your phone? Is it a recommitment to tracking that you've tried to track before but haven't been able to do it? What might it be?

I look forward to hearing from you about what you're tracking or monitoring and this new thing that you want to change.

Share your thoughts in the comments!

How to be Productive When Planning Your Next Trip

Do you ever find yourself frazzled and frantic when getting ready to travel?

I used to feel that way until I started taking control of my plans and being productive about it. This week I wanted to share a quick video where I share three tips you can use as you plan your next trip.

I just came back from a trip, but I'm getting ready to go on another trip, and so I realized that trips can be a big time suck for a lot of people and get people off their usual schedule. Some of the things I do to stay productive and when I asked people on Instagram what they would do, these were some of the suggestions.

1. Create a regular packing list

First would be to make sure you have a regular packing list because often we start to decide what we have to pack and we're not sure of the list of items that we need.How many clothes should I pack and what's the weather going to be like at this new place? Do I have that item and buying items last minute for packing. But, having your go-to list in a document on Evernote or Google Drive to be able to say, “Here's my list of what I need to pack and I'm going to stick to it.” It limits having to overthink about it or having to always repack and decide again for the next trip depending on how much time you have, so consider packing list as the first thing.

2. Make a to-do list for before and after your trip

The second thing is to then think about your to-do list before you go on your trip. There are lots of things I want to do all of the time, right? But as the trip approaches, I start to think about what's realistic for me to complete before I go on this trip. I do a front and back piece of paper. I like my paper lists and I say, “Here is everything that has to happen before I go on this trip and it has to be truly must happen.”

And then there could also be a list of things I would like to get done, but probably may not get done. And then on the back, what will be here are things that absolutely must get done when I return home from this trip.

That helps me balance out the anxiety of feeling, “I didn't get everything done that I wanted to get done before I leave.” Knowing it has to get done for the items on your to-do list, so that's the second thing. So, a packing list and your to-do list before and after your trip.

3. Give yourself time before and after your trip

And then, the third thing I would say is I really make sure now that I protect my time before and after a trip. And so what I mean is, if I'm leaving on Friday for a trip, I make it a point to not do anything the Thursday night before that trip and even though I want to go to my regular social event, hang out with friends, spend time doing a regular activity or going out and about, instead I say, “No. I know I'm going to need this rest time before I drive or before I get on the airplane.” And that helps with those last-minute things especially – even just the rest before getting on a plane or driving in a car. I have extra time to do that and I'm not feeling anxious before my trip.

I've also started playing on the other end of a lot of people do this the day of recovery, so knowing that as soon as I get back, is there anything I could do to make sure I don't have five meetings or extra commitments to take care of right after a trip. It's not always possible, but if you can help it or build in an extra day into your weekend, coming home on Saturday instead of Sunday, that type of thing can help.

Another rule I made for myself which keeps me on track for productivity would be to not travel two weekends in a row if I can help it because I know I need that time to rest and recharge at my own home before I go on to the next trip. That has been a really effective way to help balance out the month, so that I don't end up with four weekends gone in a month and then no time to just be able to rest.

Again, those three things were: Make sure you have an ongoing regular go-to packing list that you use, have a to-do list before and after your trip so it helps keep all the things we want to do manageable, and then protect your time both before and after a trip.

Those are just three tips, but I'd like to hear what else you do to help be productive either while you travel or when you're getting ready to travel. I'll see you next time. Thanks.

So which tip will you use next time you travel? Tell me in the comments or share it on social media!

How to Make Actionable Steps Work in Your Daily Life

Do you have trouble sticking to your plans and to-do lists?

You're not alone. A lot of people know the nuts and bolts of time management and productivity. They know what they "want" to be doing or that they want more time in their day. But it seems really hard to execute the plan. Or they start out really well, for a week...and then it all falls apart. 

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you know I'm all about being productive for a purpose. So I always start with helping people figure out the purpose behind wanting to "accomplish more" or "get more things done." Do you know why you want an extra hour in your day? After gaining clarity on your "reasons why," then it's time to figure out how to take actionable steps.

After gaining clarity on your purpose, then it's about figuring out where to start.

Often when I'm helping clients or students figure out where to begin with steps, they need to start with tracking. It sounds too obvious almost. But seriously, ask yourself these questions:

• How much time did I spend surfing the internet when I wanted to be working yesterday?

• How much time am I actually commuting?

• Exactly how much time did I sleep last night?

• What did I eat for lunch yesterday?

These are the kinds of questions people have vague answers to usually, but can't point. So I recommend tracking. Hour by hour, track your time and where it goes. I love tracking and somehow I still managed to not realize how much time I was spending on Facebook last month. I had turned off my StayFocusd browser extension and thought I wasn't spending "that much time." Oh I was spending lots of time. Almost an hour a day (broken up into tiny moments, but it all added up quickly). StayFocusd is back on and it reminds me when I'm getting close to my daily limit. You'd be surprised at how much awareness comes from tracking, even from just a day.

After tracking and gaining awareness, it's about pinpointing something small.

Time to get a tiny snowball shaped and formed. Something to get the momentum started. Eventually it will turn into an avalanche, but for now, form one small snowball. What is one place you are "wasting time" in your day? And what can you do about it?

• Can you go to sleep 15 minutes earlier (replacing browsing updates)?

• Can you delete an app that keeps distracting you?

• Do you have to be the one completing the action? In other words, can you outsource something small?

• When are you most able to focus? And can the task that needs the most work move to that time slot?

• Have you thought about actually scheduling "down time" instead of crashing into it from exhaustion?

Just try one thing. For at least a week. Be consistent about it and see what kind of results you get. Does it help? Does it not help? You're on a mission to conduct mini-experiments here. Some things may not work out and that's okay because they are tiny and can be changed.

Along the way, most people benefit from some type of accountability.

Whether or not you need accountability on each of your goals depends on a lot of things. One of my favorite resources for this issue is from Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies. I'm an upholder, so I keep myself accountable for most of my own goals. But a lot of people are obligers and need the extra support from a friend, a colleague, a coach, or someone else on a regular basis. If you're not familiar with her tendencies, be sure to check them out. Knowing your own tendency helps you know what works best in for you.

"Don't compare your start to someone else's middle."

A classic line that several people as a reminder when working on goals. As you start to get the ball rolling on taking action and asking someone to help keep you accountable, you might start to look around. And you might start to notice that lots of other people are "doing it better" than you are. They seem to have this productivity thing all figured out. They seem to manage their time really well. Be careful of the social comparison - it's a slippery slope. Stop and remind yourself that it probably took them months if not years to get to that point. You're beginning today. They are somewhere in the middle. Encourage yourself by talking to others who are in the exact same boat with progress.

When the ball is rolling along steadily, shift to the bigger picture.

After gaining momentum for several weeks or months, try to step back and see the bigger picture. Are tasks on your list becoming "less urgent" thanks to your new steps? I'm always working with people to move out of the "important, urgent" part of the Eisenhower box. When everything is both important and urgent, it can be overwhelming to make any progress. Reducing the amount of things in that one section can help you focus on the rest of the tasks you want to accomplish. 

So tell me, what's the next small step you want to start to take action? Leave a comment below!

Why do you Want an Extra Hour in Your Day?

Almost everyone says yes to, "Do you want an extra hour in your day?"

Yes, please. I'll take an extra hour today, tomorrow, and the next day. We can all agree we like the idea of an extra hour in our day. That's why we seek out all the productivity and accountability advice we can stand. We follow people who are talking about productivity and try to learn tricks from the super organized giants out there.

We can also easily dream up what we would do with that extra hour.

Everyone has ideas of what they would do if they had extra time and a lot of them sound like this:

• I would spend more time with my family.

• I would get more sleep (how you can benefit from adjusting your sleep habits).

• I would spend it getting organized for the next day.

• I would watch an episode of my favorite show (This Is Us, anyone?).

• I would spend time on my hobbies again, the ones I keep pushing aside.

But why do you really want to do these things?

One of the big things that is missing from all these productivity conversations is purpose. Most of what I read about productivity says they'll help you find that extra hour...so you can do more work or just MORE, MORE, MORE. Why do we keep saying we need more of everything? (Tweet this thought!)

Let's shift the conversation and talk about WHY we want to be more productive.

When you stop to think about why you want that extra hour, does it get at your core values? For example, if you want to spend more time with family or friends, is it because that's what you value most in your life?

Or is the thought of why you want the extra hour based more on "what you should be doing" or "what others want you to be doing?" These are the types of reasons that make us say we want something - but then we don't follow through. We just flippantly say, "Oh yeah, I wish I had more time," without really thinking about it and delving in. Or we say, "Yeah, I wish I could be like that, all productive and super energized," but we don't really mean it.

Doing the work of figuring out your "why" does take time.

I know, it sounds counterintuitive. And it isn't a magic bullet like some other people talk about when it comes to productivity. But committing yourself to writing down your reasons is important. Having the space to breathe and ponder "why" is one of the first steps to gaining momentum on maximizing productivity. All of those hacks and tricks out there start to fall into place when you get crystal clear on why you want to be more productive. My worksheet on reclaiming your time starts to tap into these issues, so check it out.

So tell me, do you know some of the reasons why you truly want to become more productive?

Is It Time to Reorganize Your Productivity Toolbox?

We all have systems for staying productive.

I'm a big fan of my paper and pen planner. Sticky notes are my friend (both on my laptop and the physical kind). When I'm trying to stick to a new routine, I make a daily tickmark system so I can keep the momentum going. Maybe you send yourself voice memos or keep everything in a Google calendar that sends you reminders on your phone.

All of these are systems within our productivity toolbox. Tools we use on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis.

But have you ever stopped to reorganize your productivity toolbox?

Sure, you've stopped using a tool before. But you have you deliberately thought about it? One of my "secrets" to staying productive and successful is to reevaluate my systems on a periodic basis. About once a month, I look to see if the tools I'm using are still serving their purpose.

For example, I just switched paper planners with the new year. Last year I used a Planner Pad, which was really helpful for organizing my week and listing daily tasks. This year I got hooked on  Ruth Soukup's Living Well Planner. I love the monthly planning charts and narrowing down "three must do items" every day. I made that intentional switch to a new paper planner.

But then I also stopped to think - how else do I want to track my daily tasks? I've already written about why mental to-do lists hinder progress. I needed a new way dump those mental tasks. So I went searching for a new tool.

I landed on Do.List - a free app for my iPhone. It's insanely simple by keeping track of today, tomorrow, and later tasks. When I check something off my list, a little stick figure dances. Such a simple reinforcer!

It's working for me right now, but I know I might need to move on in a few months.

Productivity isn't all about landing on the "perfect" tool or the absolute best method for everyone. Everyone is different. That's why I'm always searching for new tools and tips to put in my toolbox and share with my students and clients.

Tell us in the comments your current favorite productivity tool!

How to Get Started on Your Next Steps

Feeling some motivation to get started on a big goal, but don't know where to start?

You're not alone this time of year. Millions of people are making new year's resolutions and trying to figure out where to begin. It's really easy to throw around big lists of goals at the beginning of the year.

Maybe some of these resolutions or goals are on your list:

• I want to get organized.

• I want to switch jobs or careers.

• I want to workout consistently.

• I want to travel more often.

• I want to go back to school to finish that degree.

All of these types of big statements feel big and difficult to start.

Let's take the example of switching careers. If you say, "I really want to change my job." My first questions would be centered around helping you to define that goal more clearly. Why do you want to change your job? When do you want to change your job - by the end of the year or in the next month?

Asking questions about your goals helps you find clarity.

Really thinking about you want that goal or resolution to stick helps it become more important and meaningful for you. Sometimes I give up on a goal because halfway to "the finish line," I realize I didn't really want to accomplish that goal at all. Stopping to think about the goal in the first place would have helped me know why I was working towards it.

Detailed questions also help make our goals SMART. Have you heard about SMART goals yet? Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. Instead of, "I want to change jobs this year," turn it into, "I want to transition into a job that pays me "X amount of money" by June 1st." The statement is no longer vague or unclear. Maybe it isn't more money that you want, but a more fulfilling career. That's why you need to the do the clarity step first to create the SMART goal.

After gaining clarity and making a SMART goal, break it down into tiny steps.

When you make a really big goal, it can quickly start to feel overwhelming. "How in the world am I going to accomplish THAT by THAT date?!" With our job example, it can seem impossible. But that's where we want to just take the next step forward to start to gain momentum.

Six months from now may feel really far away, but what about one month from now? What about next week?

What's one easy, manageable thing you can do in the next week to get closer to that goal?

Is it telling a trusted friend about your goal? I wrote about how to find someone who can help scaffold your development here.

Is it putting it on a big piece of paper to tape to your fridge so you'll see it every day? I know what you're thinking. "Oh that's WAY too easy." That's the point. It's easy. It gets you going and creates some momentum. Once you tackle a tiny step, you can create another tiny step. And keep going from there. Week by week gets easier and before you know it, you're making progress on the goal a month later, two months later, etc. 

Need more inspiration for goal setting? One of my favorite resources is the author James Clear, who has a whole page of articles dedicated to goal setting.

So where are you in the goal setting process? Making a goal, gaining clarity, or working on your tiny steps?

Tell me below in the comments or send me an email so I can help follow up!

How to Get Yourself Across the Finish Line

It's that time of year when everyone is hustling and bustling around.

My students are exhausted and just trying to make it through the end of the semester. The holidays still seem far enough away, but wait - we're already several days into the last month of the year. The finish line to the end of the year is in sight, but it feels so far away. We're all in that kind of in-between stage of adding things to the to-do list when there is already plenty on it to complete. What do you do when you can see the finish line, but it still feels far away?

Remember what the finish line actually represents.

Is the finish line the end of the semester to you? The end of the year? What is the line and how do you want to feel when you cross that line? Sure, time will march on and that date will come no matter what you do. But do you want to crawl across the finish line or feel strong at the end? I can't help the running analogies - I've been back in my running groove lately. After having a rough finish at a race this fall, my new goal is always to feel strong at the end, even if it means not making a new personal record time. What's your goal? What do you envision for that date or time that is in sight?

Make a list of everything in between you and that finish line.

I know not everyone is a list maker. But often, my students and clients come into my office, talking about how much they have to get done before the end of the week or the semester. They have so much going on and so much to do. So I ask them to list it out on paper. And more often than not, the list isn't as long as they had imagined it in their heads. Mental to do lists are dangerous for us to carry around. Get it all down on paper or in an app so you can actually see it.

Even when the list is long, are there things on the list that are "wishes" versus "must complete?" I'm guilty of making lists that are never accomplishable within 24 hours from time to time. I gently remind myself, "Well, most of these tasks were wishes to complete, not set in stone." Remove the wishes from the list and focus on what must get done when the finish line is in sight. Everything else is a bonus.

Take time to stay in the present moment.

Mindfulness meditation has become even more important for me this year. When I start to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of end-of-year activities, I stop. Remind myself to take a deep breath. Marvel in the fact that I have this chance, this present moment. Think about how I have survived many of these types of chaotic times and I will go through more in the future. This is just one. I can be present and be in the moment during these times, even when the finish line is so close.

Build in downtime after the finish line.

Sometimes when we're getting ready to cross the finish line, we move the line. We say, "Oh okay this is the end of the semester, but now I'm working on the end of the year." Wait, what? Why move the finish line on yourself? Enjoy getting ready to cross it and build in some downtime surrounding the finish line. I really believe in the importance of taking a true day of rest. So before making the next finish line for yourself, enjoy that you have crossed one.

What other strategies do you use to cross the finish lines of your life? Tell me below in the comments!

Why Your Mental To-Do List Prevents Progress

What lists do you have circling around in your brain right now?

Do you have something you keep trying to remember to get at the grocery store? Or a bill you need to pay before the end of the month? Does your brain keep reminding you to text that friend and then you forget? All of these are examples of mental to do lists.

Keeping mental to-do lists is exhausting.

All the big researchers that study decision making discuss this idea of "cognitive fatigue." You're wearing yourself out when you have to "keep remembering" things over and over again. Think about it. Let's say you want to remember to pay your credit card bill by the end of the month and it is only the 15th. On the 16th, a thought pops up while you're driving, "Don't forget to pay your bill!" But then you say, "Oh I'm driving. I'll have to remember that later." Two days go by. You're watching a movie and think, "Oh! I have to pay that credit card bill by the end of the month." But you don't do anything about it. You just let it keep popping up at seemingly random times.

But why "think" about these things at all?

Yes, of course, you have to pay your bill. But do you have to think about it 100 times before it is actually due? No. You're just wearing yourself out and distracting yourself when you keep mental to-do lists.

So what do I do? I write everything down - old-fashioned pen and paper style. Some of you are rolling your eyes and thinking, "Oh no - not another to-do list fanatic."

And some of you are saying, "I already have written to-do lists!" But hear me out.

Sure, you have a written or electronic to-do list. But does it have absolutely everything on it? I mean everything. If I have a thought about something I need to do - it goes in my planner. No matter how big or little the item. By putting it down on paper, I don't have to think about it again. I don't have to spend mental energy "remembering" to do something. I'm saving my brain from cognitive fatigue.

Writing everything down on an actual to-do list also gives perspective.

Last week I had a student in my office who told me she had "a million things to do" by Friday. She felt completely overwhelmed and stressed out. Totally understandable - we all get like this from time to time! I gave her a piece of paper and had her write down everything she had to get done by Friday. It took her a few minutes. She had three things on the list. Not a million. I didn't have to say anything - she said it herself.

"Okay, I see what you're doing here. The list isn't as long as I thought it was."

Success! Those are the  best moments for me - when a student or client comes to their own conclusion. Instead of feeling the weight of "a million things" that were actually three, but taking up so much space in her mental capacity, she was able to tackle each one separately and accomplish her goals.

Want to read more about decision making and cognitive fatigue? I highly recommend Dr. Cal Newport's book, "Deep Work." Or start with blog posts by James Clear. Lots of great advice and tips in their writings. And try it this week - mind dump everything on paper or electronically. Does it help?

Tell us in the comments below what works for you!

The Importance of Taking a True Day of Rest

We are currently on fall break at my university. As students were taking midterm exams and getting ready for break, I heard a lot of statements like, "I'm going to get a TON of work done over break," or "I can look up jobs during fall break, when I have more free time." While it is great to set goals and things we want to do during break, sometimes it is a little much.

We often overestimate what we can accomplish in a short amount of time.

When we have a whole day in front of us, with no classes or appointments or other commitments, it can seem like we should just "go, go, go" and get everything done. But productivity does not come that easily, especially after pushing ourselves really hard for awhile. My students that say, "I'll be able to do that once break gets here," forget the keyword in the sentence. Break. Breaks shouldn't be the time to push even harder.

Breaks should be used as opportunities to rest and rejuvenate.

Whether it is a week-long break, a holiday weekend, or just a Saturday afternoon you reserve for yourself, taking a break is just as important as the time you schedule to get things done. It seems counterintuitive, but taking a day of rest can actually better prepare you for the days where you need to work hard. You'll have more energy and motivation after a rest day.

Use these strategies to create rest periods and days.

Have you been convinced that rest is important yet? Sometimes it is tricky to actually create a rest day or period of time. I like to use these strategies:

• Block off a chunk of time in your calendar. Aim for an entire day, but do what you can. Do not let anyone else schedule that time with you. Make up another 'commitment' to tell people if they are going to scoff at the idea of a rest day. But reserve the time and keep it firm. That will make it more likely you will stick to it.

• Schedule rest time after a really stressful day or time. There's a reason why our fall break at school is right after midterms. Do you have a big presentation at work that you need to schedule a rest day after? Or know you'll need to catch up on rest after traveling for a weekend? I try to build these days in around stressful times, to help balance out my weeks.

• Think about what will make your scheduled time truly restful. If laying on the couch all day has absolutely no appeal to you and sounds more stressful than actually doing something...well - that's not a rest day for you. Maybe your rest involves watching a relaxing television show, eating some of your favorite foods, or spending time resting outside. Figure out what rest actually looks like for you so you have something to look forward to on rest days.

• Unplug. Actually unplug. I know, I know. It seems obvious. But we so rarely do it. Do not let emails or text messages or random Snapchats get into your rest time. Let it go. It will still be waiting for you when you return.

• After a rest time period or day, reflect on why it was successful. Did you get caught up on sleep? Did you feel like you could actually relax? What was it that made the time restful? Save this information for yourself so you know how to make the next rest day even better.

Another reason to take a rest day is to avoid guilt.

After fall break, I'll start to hear the usual statements from students. "I just didn't get everything done that I wanted to over break." "I ended up just sleeping the entire time instead of getting anything done." "I had big plans, but they all disappeared once I went home."

Yep, it's understandable. When we put too much on our plate and then don't get it done, we feel a cycle of guilt and regret. And no one needs to come back from a break feeling that way. Instead, know that you are intentionally and purposefully taking a break. When I come back from break, I plan to say, "I'm really glad I took the time to rest." We'll need it for the months ahead.

So what's your favorite way to rest and relax?

Tell me below in the comments or feel free to connect with me! I would love to hear your favorite strategies.

How You Can Benefit from Adjusting Your Sleep Habits

Sleep seems like an obvious piece of our lives, yet so many of us abuse it.

I often get asked questions like, "How are you so productive?" or "Where do you find the time to get everything done?" While there are many answers, the main answer is sleep. I get enough sleep every night and I feel well-rested most of the time. People usually dismiss me quickly as if that is too obvious. I think sometimes they would rather hear me say I drink some magical potion instead of talking about sleep.

I consider myself "reformed" on my sleep behaviors.

I like talking about the power of sleep so much because I have been on both sides of the sleep continuum. I used to say things like, "I can sleep when I die," or "Maybe I don't need as much sleep as everyone else." I would stay up around the clock during college, trying to get more done and to be more successful. But it didn't really work for me. I started to forget large chunks of memories and I wasn't retaining new information. I was gaining weight and feeling stressed out all the time. I didn't know why I felt so tired all the time...which sounds like an obvious statement, but we so undervalue sleep in our society, we actually wonder why we're exhausted when we haven't slept well for months or even years. I changed my behaviors in my mid-twenties and really embraced my sleep "revolution" after graduate school.

Side note - I have never had a medical condition related to sleep. If you struggle with narcolepsy or chronic insomnia, please talk to your doctor. I am not providing medical advice here, just my own examples of what has worked, backed up by research in the field.

Rules I follow about sleep:

• My bed time is 10pm and I wake up at 6am. Every day. Exceptions are rare.

• I start to get ready to fall asleep at 9pm. This includes regular routines such as brushing my teeth, not looking at screens (phones or computers), and generally relaxing.

• Limited caffeine after 12pm. A cup of coffee at 4pm would probably keep me up all night at this point. I stick to coffee and caffeine in the morning.

It took me several months to establish these rules for myself.

Getting one night of really good sleep is not revolutionary. But 300 nights in a row? That changed my life. I do not need my alarm clock in the morning - my body just wakes up at 6am. My 20-year-old self would have been completely baffled that this was possible for me. Persistence and dedication to my rules have really paid off for me. I have a lot more energy, which results in having the energy to exercise, which helped me lose weight and make better food decisions...the benefits all stack on top of each other. For me, I know it started with changing my sleep habits.

Small adjustments are the key to successful sleep habits.

If you are someone who is currently struggling with sleep, trying to follow my rules isn't going to work for you. Those rules took me time. You have your own pattern that you need to find. So I recommend small adjustments at first.

Examples of small adjustments:

• Track your sleep behaviors. Maybe you currently say, "I try to go bed by 12am." But some nights that drifts into 2am and other nights it is 11pm. Do you really know when you're going to sleep? Track it. Fitbits or a simple log next to your bed are helpful for tracking.

• Add an extra half hour to your regular sleep time. Sometimes I hear my students try to make really big goals like, "I usually go to bed at 2am, but I'm going to go to bed at 11pm now!" Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's going to be really hard to stick to on a regular basis. But what if you say, "I'm going to go to bed at 1:30am for three days in a row." Start small.

• Download an app that decreases the blue light coming from your screens. I like F.lux, but there are many options out there. Use it for a few weeks to see if it helps.

• Limit your screen time before bedtime. Keeping your cell phone under your pillow should probably be the first thing to go. Set it aside. I wrote about not having a smartphone at all in a different blog post - it helps my sleep habits.

These are just some small examples. I can't emphasize how important sleep is to me enough. I shout it from the rooftops almost any chance I get! If you want to learn more about the science and research behind sleep, I highly recommend this post by James Clear. The National Sleep Foundation also has several articles about sleep. Understanding how sleep works, making small adjustments, and building on those good habits have been my secret to successful sleep.

What about you? Are you currently struggling with sleep? Or have you found some helpful tips? Share them below in the comments!