Are you saying…I know WHAT gets in my way. I know what I WANT. I know WHY. Now…HOW will I do it?
That’s right, it’s the H in the W+W+W+H = Woo Hoo! Process…Where you can now really fly.
I join again with SUE WEST to provide this podcast in our series…the HOW click HOW no 1 or read on…
So many people want a quick fix; an answer to a “problem” about getting more organized and/or getting more out of their life BEFORE they’ve gone through the process. They want the HOW first….the proverbial cart before the horse.
So much needs to be fast, fast, fast. But as a favorite author, researcher and speaker, Brene Brown tells it well in her book “The Gifts of Imperfection:”
When we skip the hard stuff, it just doesn’t work.
We don’t change. We don’t grow and we don’t move forward without the work.
My work is about the things that get in the way. I’m not about the ‘how to’ because in my experience I’ve never seen any evidence of ‘how to’ working without talking about the things that get in the way.
So, own your story. Tell it. There is freedom, relief and more when we do.
Again, Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection
We will be sharing our “best practices” for the HOW over this and subsequent podcasts. Here’s the first one: the time inventory. Some students have referred to this practice as a time diary. To do this, record your time each day. Record it as you are actually working (or playing!) Do not wait until the end of the day, or the next day, and say “what did I do?” You will lose precious minutes and hours. Over a series of days and weeks, you will begin to see patterns. It does not matter if you record it on a piece of paper or electronically; only that you do it consistently and in a timely manner.
Perhaps you intend to get up at 6am, exercise, eat breakfast then get going with your day by 8:30 am. But, time and time again, it’s 9:00 am or later and you have not eaten, have not showered, and you are just catching up with “a few emails” first.
Once you actually begin to record your day you will see that you may wake up at 6, but stay in bed routinely until 6:30. Then you may quickly check facebook and you are not having that first cup of coffee until 7 am. By then you may figure you’d better exercise and when you return it’s 8 am and you want to answer an email quickly. As 9 am approaches you are “fighting fires”, are still in your lycra, have not showered or eaten. This knowledge empowers you to change the pattern.
That’s enough fieldwork and practice for our listeners this time. The first step is always noticing. Seeing where exactly the issues are, because if you don’t diagnose the problem correctly, you’ll try something and it won’t even be the solution to the right problem! So step back and just observe yourself this week.
This is a good start to opening our HOW bucket. We’ll continue with practical strategies to get you started in taking back your time and life in the coming podcasts.
If this topic struck a chord with you, we know you’ll get much more benefit from our Design Your Days workshop. We offer public workshops periodically; check out our facebook page for the latest ones.