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? I help my clients plan each day for success, but what does that actually look like? Let's talk about the nitty gritty of planning, your schedule, and tracking.
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:
We write down what we say we're going to do.
We do the actual thing.
We allow the urges that come up.
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!
How to Really Focus on Your Work
Have a lot of tasks on your plate, but can't get focused on them? Read this post to really understand what you can do to focus on your work.
Have you ever had a ton of stuff to do on your task list, but can't seem to get any of it actually done?
It's a common feeling. I feel it myself from time to time. I have these big projects I want to spend more time on, but distractions and other smaller projects keep getting in the way. Or maybe you're a student and you have a big test coming up, but you keep procrastinating instead of studying for it.
Sometimes we need to really, truly focus on our work.
We start to realize that we need no distractions. Maybe you have tried some of these techniques before:
Going to a coffee shop to work instead of your office or home.
Hiding your cell phone for a stretch of time.
Disconnecting your WiFi or enabling an app like Freedom to deter online activity.
Asking your colleagues or roommates to "leave you alone" for a stretch of time while you work.
Having a work or study session with a friend to keep you accountable.
All of these techniques can be really helpful. But why?
Cal Newport calls it the skill of "deep work." When we allow ourselves to focus and spend time really engaging in deep work, we get more done. We're more productive and creative. We feel accomplishment from our work sessions, instead of wondering where all of our time went. I have had several recent session of deep work and I am amazed at what I can accomplish during them.
It makes perfect sense to focus on our tasks, but our world has become so distracting.
It can take awhile to work yourself up to big sessions of deep work. I recommend trying the Pomodoro Technique to get yourself started. Spend 25 minutes completely undistracted on your task. Whatever you need to do to get rid of those distractions (see the list above). You can build up your time in increments. Soon you'll be spending 90 minutes engaged in deep work.
So what has helped you focus on deep work before? What can you commit to right now for focusing?
Tell us below in the comments so we can share ideas!
Why It's Difficult to be Around People who are on a Clear Path
Do you have people in your life who seem to know exactly what they are doing, why, and how to make it happen? But you don't? You're not alone. Check out this post.
It can be really difficult to be around people who know exactly what they are doing with their lives.
When you ask for advice or talk about your own path, they make a lot of vague statements:
"You just have to find your passion!"
"You'll figure it out in time."
"Everything happens for a reason."
"Just believe in yourself."
Ever heard those cliches before? They are everywhere. And the people that say them intend all the best.
But when you're struggling to find your path, hearing cliches is difficult.
Instead, I like to delve into learning more about other people and their stories. I'd rather hear the details of your story than ask for direct advice. Especially because most people don't know how to give direct advice - they give cliches instead. But they do know how to tell their own story. And we can learn from it.
Think about someone famous that you admire.
Where did they start? Did they always have success? What was their journey? For example, one of my favorite 'famous' people is Gretchen Rubin. She is well known now for her books and podcast about happiness, but before that - she was a lawyer. And she was someone who I started following right after she wrote her first book about happiness. Before she was a household name and inspiring millions. I have watched her journey and can admire her passion and focus. Because she shares so many personal stories in her writing, I feel like I know she hasn't always had a 'clear path' and linear focus. But it's only through reading her material that I've learned this about her.
We don't always have the chance to really learn more about 'famous people.'
So let's think about the unsung heroes in our every day lives that are on a clear path with passion and focus. Maybe it is a friend, a coworker, or a relative.
This week, try asking the people in your life some specific questions about their journey and see where the conversation takes you:
Tell me about a time you struggled at work.
What would you say are your top three priorities in life?
What's the best thing that has happened to you in the past year?
What's the worst thing that has happened to you in the past year?
Where do you want to be in five years (or ten years, etc) from now?
Through these conversations, it just might be easier to relate and learn something from their path that can help your own.
Asking deeper questions just might help prevent you from hearing a standard cliche.
Want to take the next step toward achieving your personal and professional goals? Check out the top five books I recommend to level up your life! Just leave your details below.