Get Stuff Done Challenge: Day 5 Sizing up your day & learning which things to let go

By now you've adopted (or started to adopt) 3 major points in productivity;

Categorize (Day 2)
Prioritize (Day 1)
Schedule (Day 2)

Finally, if you haven't sized up your day and found your most productive time or productive pockets, consider that. Some people are most productive in the morning, when they are alone, when they are with others, when the kids are napping, when the weather is dreary, before bed....it's really up to you to recognize these cues and harness the little time pockets. Just remember, there is a difference between being busy and being productive. Focus on attacking your priorities first; getting those top few things done in any crazy day is major success. You are not responsible for everything.

No doubt there were things on the list that weren't done this week. That's okay. Sometimes we put too much for a daily list and end up rolling with the same list for days, chipping away a little each day. Totally fine. You didn't lose your list or your mind, right? Maybe those things didn't need to be done right now. Or maybe they weren't your priorities.

But about the things you want to do that you're not getting done.....

We all have those, right?

That's what I want to chat about with you now. What's your long-er term vision for yourself? What are you working toward? Vision gives purpose. Purpose leads to happiness and satisfaction. Happiness and satisfaction are really all we need, right?

HOW DO I DECIDE WHAT'S IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW & WHAT TO LET GO?

Growth categories. They vary by the author that's talking about them, but they're an integral part of guiding your current purpose and priorities.

Take a look at the growth areas list below and rate yourself 1-10 on each one. Take some white space to reflect and do it alone. Rate yourself 1-10 on each area, one being worst and ten being best.

___ Physical health & body

___ Mental wellbeing

___ Environment

___ Hobbies/joy/restoration

___ Romance

___ Friends and family

___ Finances

___ Purpose or career

___ Spirituality

___ Personal development

After you've rated yourself, consider an area of two where you scored yourself lower. Is that something meritable to address right now? If so, create some reasonable goals. Then reverse engineer them using some of the strategies we've gathered from this little challenge. Big goal>chop it up into small, manageable pieces>action items that can be done in 20 minutes per day. Analyze and figure out some small steps you can do to improve this bigger area. Consider these big purpose or growth area goals somewhat longer term (I suggest 3 months). This is how you focus on what's important and what can be let go right now.

Let me give you an example: last year I rated my career or purpose as something I wanted to work on improving. As a result, I began to give myself permission not to feel like my home had to be cleaned every day. The stress from that pressure went away because I gave myself permission to focus more on things I cared about and less about things I didn't feel were going to make me a better person at that time.

You can't focus on EVERYTHING at once! But you will be happier if you focus more completely on things you do want to change, but need a PUSH to figure out how to change them. Figure out one little tiny thing you can do each day to move you closer to that big goal.

FOCUS ON THE ONE THING.

I often talk to people about fitness & nutrition goals. They typically tell me their end goal, which is often related to being at a certain weight. Without reverse engineering how to get there, that ONE THING they can do each day, it's going to be difficult to accomplish!

On this same note, if you're already on target to reach a certain goal, it doesn't really need to be the ONE THING. For example, last year about this time, I began exercising regularly for the first time since, um, forever. Seems a little contradictive for a dietitian, I know, but I'm all about the food. Anyway, when it was time to create goals for growth, it wasn't most beneficial to create a new goal for physical health if I was already on target for reaching goals based on the habits I'd gained through practice. However, if you started, stopped and abandoned goals related to a particular growth area, then this is a fabulous way to get focused on what you really want.

Make sense? If not, here's a whole book about the ONE THING and laser focus.

That's it! There's several strategies from these last few days together that can help give you momentum and action in your day and improve your growth and satisfaction at the end of each day. It's a compound effect. Prioritizing little actions. You can do it! And when you get off track, just start with your brain dump. Make a list, break it down. Rinse & repeat and don't stress. Jump over little molehills and everything will be just fine.

Hope to see you around soon! As always, I'm happy to have you book a discovery call/chit chat at www.diyrd.com.

If you want, please reply and tell me your biggest takeaway from this challenge as well as any ideas for changes or improvements!

P.S. I know that sometimes these lists can vary from work to home and if you're a purely digital person, I want to give you a simple resource that might fit: Workflowy. It's an app and a desktop platform where you can have big bullets and subbullets and expand or contract the lists. You can tag things to categorize and easily copy and paste to a word processor without losing any formatting.

Here's an example from their site in case you're curious.