Month: October 2023

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Productivity productivity in the workplace

How bad do you really want relief and productivity?

I know you have a busy life. How badly do you really want relief and productivity? Now, those are not necessarily the same, but they kind of are the same. I hear, “I want relief and I want to be productive”. Relief and stress relief from that relentless To-Do list, and relief from being busy all the time. 

Here’s the truth. You’re too busy for that. You’re too busy to do things needed so that you get the relief you desire. There’s a pretty cool book that I’ve been made aware of lately called The Art of Reflection – a whole entire book dedicated to a powerful strategy: to stop, sit back, and observe. Then, change course a little at a time.

Why is it important to REFLECT when you are seeking to be more productive and have stress relief?

  1. An object in motion stays in motion.  Ah, yes. AND…is it the right motion? When there’s no rest, it’s no good. So the object in motion stays in motion when it’s not in rest, it’s no good. And you know what happens? The  cortisol stresses us out. It motivates us, sure, but it also stresses us out when there’s too much cortisol because we haven’t stopped to reflect. 
  2. Your energy is finite…sort of.
    1. There are four energy systems in our body. The first is the energy hog. That’s the sympathetic nervous system: fight, flight or freeze. When we’re busy all the time we’re feeling productive, but we’re not really that productive.  The sympathetic nervous system is taking up all the space (dopamine, anyone?) and it’s not leaving space for the other three nervous systems in our body. 
    2. The immune system. When you have too much stress, you might get sick.  This sickness is not just related to germs, it’s also because your energy is taken up by the energy hog. 
    3. The cell replenishment system that keeps us young-ish. My mother used to always say that we made her get gray; that we stressed her out.
    4. The energy system. You actually need to have an energy reserve so that your body can create more energy. 

That is why the art of reflection, and taking a step back is so important. It’s because an object in motion, stays in motion and because there’s only four systems in your body, and when they’re all taken up by sympathetic, no bueno. 

OK Great. You may now ask, what can be done?

Well, you can read the book. I haven’t read that book, so I’ll give you my solution. I have a couple of forms, a morning form and an evening form which bookend the day. 

In the morning you ask yourself “What am I going to do today?” Now, do not do a hundred things!  There’s very small amounts that you are allowed to put on the form because we don’t want the giant to-do list that never ends and only gets added to! 

In the evening these forms help us to reflect, for example “Oh, wow, that didn’t work out so well. What will I do differently?” or “Rock on. I did it. I did it. Yay. I said I’d do this and I did it all right?” Rinse and repeat. How many times have you gone out and bought organizing folders or organizing bins, but then your house still miraculously doesn’t get organized and cleaned? 

In conclusion, now you have the WHY and the WHAT.

Why do this (you need to watch your energy!)

What can you do? Reflect!

Now, the HOW. How will you actually act on this? I can help!

  • Come to your FREE community called UnscatterMe – a confidential, smallish online group to share wins and strategies
  • Come to my free training and coaching every month called Wisdom Warriors.  The next Wisdom Warriors is November 6th, and it’s from 12pm to 1pm Eastern Time. 

What do YOU want for YOU?

I don’t want you to feel like you just don’t have any time for yourself, as then you become sick and you get gray prematurely. If we don’t take some time and reflect and make those conscious choices sooner or later, the universe hits you with a two by four. You get sick. You wind up with bad situations. Then you feel worse. 

It’s time to turn this around. Before it is too late and there is so much more to do, getting out of the hole.

Come to Wisdom Warriors 11/6. 

Comment below:  what you are cutting out this week??

I am here for you.

Categories
Growth Organization Planning prioritize procrastination productivity in the workplace Time strategies

What is the secret to getting IMPORTANT tasks done vs. procrastinating?

Let’s look at 2 familiar scenarios and how to harness your brain

Today, this beautiful fall day, our topic is less sexy than the fall colors:  time and tasks. This cake slice lives on the third layer of the Productivity Success Cake -in the productivity layer. It’s  important because there are sometimes false ideas that to do a task, you just write down ‘Jones Project’ and you get ‘Jones Project’ done in your to-do list. NOT TRUE!

I am going to show you two different methods to do this. Pay close attention.

Method One: “Okay, today I want to do the Jones Project. I want to exercise, I want to make client outreach calls, and I want to figure out my health insurance”.  I would say that this isn’t bad because you’re actually doing something to plan your day.

However, a better way to do all this is to dial it down to specifics….see below.

Method Two:

  • 6.00am, get up
  • 6.00am – 6.15am Coffee and stretch
  • 6.15am to 6.45am Shower and dress 
  • 6.45am to 7.00am Breakfast
  • 7.00am to 7.20am Drop off son
  • 7.20am to 7.45am Meditate and set intentions
  • 8.00am Jones Project

Notice I didn’t add, “check my email.”

Pro tips:

Within the Jones Project, start a new list. “Jones Project” is not a task. It’s a project. There are many situations like Jones. Maybe it’s a client proposal, maybe it’s a letter or letters you have to send out – it’s more than just a simple ‘pick up the phone and call somebody’ and you already know who you’re going to call. For each PROJECT, there are multiple steps. Those multiple steps come with their own unknowns and their fears behind the unknowns, and that’s what causes procrastination.

In Method Two, notice that I’m adding the preparation to my day. You may want to add things like affirmations and whatever you want to do to get ready for your day. Once you look at your PROJECT, start with an outline. Scope of work? Timeline? Gather materials? Each one of these is its own little list. 

Ask yourself, “to start the Jones Project, what do I need for that?” Stuck? Many times just gathering the materials will help you get going. I have worked a lot with salespeople who might, for example, want to call four prospects or four clients every single day, but it just never gets done.  What I suggest is to pre-think about that list of people that you are going to be calling, the phone numbers and all the information so that when you get down to doing the task, you’ve already got the list, it’s already set up. You don’t have to wonder “Who am I going to call?”.  Lets face it, nobody wants to pick up the phone anymore. 

To sum up, planning ahead with steps may not feel sexy, but it sure helps to remove procrastination. How about you?

Please let me know, what was your best takeaway? 

What will you move forward on today? 

Categories
More time in my day Planning Positive Thinking procrastination Productivity Time strategies

5 ways to ‘Get it Done’ without beating yourself up again

 Goldilocks decision making = gold

You want to get it done, but you just can’t get started. You beat yourself up.

What’s behind this beating yourself up…again? What’s behind this knowing that you’ve got stuff to do, but just feeling completely overwhelmed and just not doing any of it?

Recently, I was in Arizona, and I watched my son experience this exact thing. He knew he had to open his mail, he knew he had to pay his parking tickets, he knew he had to deal with a lot of rather mundane and boring tasks like figuring out “paid time off” and “dealing with insurance” and “looking at doing another job” etc.  Perhaps you’re an entrepreneur and struggles to make the connections., You’ve got to reach out to podcast guests, you’ve got to create your content, and your newslette,….you’ve got to invite clients into your world. But you just feel stuck and you can’t get there. 

This article is for you.

Before we dive into the five tips, ask yourself what’s really going on. 

Usually it’s actually a self-esteem issue. We feel some version of “not good enough.” We look at the past as evidence of what is to come. We do this rather than instead of accepting the past and deciding that this time, we’re going to take different steps and have a different outcome.

OK. Let’s get to the 5 Ways to get it Done!

  1. Celebrate success. So many of us shy away from this critical practice Come to my free monthly Wisdom Warriors, and let us all celebrate your successes with you. The first thing we do on those calls is to celebrate our successes. In my private groups, and in my private one to one high end coaching, again, the first thing we do is we celebrate. 

Usually when people come for coaching, it’s not because everything is going well. It’s just the opposite – everything is not going well. So, when I ask for a celebration, it’s counterintuitive. People have a hard time remembering what went well. You can always celebrate showing up. You can celebrate how pretty the trees are starting to get. You could celebrate anything. Celebrating rewires the brain, and success breeds success. It’s biological; changing the neurons in your mind. Even what may feel to be the tiniest of successes such as getting out of bed in the morning, high fiving yourself in the mirror like Mel Robbins does. That’s something to celebrate. 

  1. Remove your “shoulds” or “you’re supposed to’s.” We do it all the time. We think it’s going to work.  It doesn’t work at all, actually. Try this instead: rather than feeling glum about having to do the laundry, think about how nice those clothes will smell when they come out of the dryer. If you don’t want to deal with your finances, think about how nice it’ll be to have  to have that bill paid.  That’s a way to get started; to get out of your own way.  
  1. Tap into your creativity. If you don’t like to do “something” and you consider yourself to be a creative person, try  tapping into your creativity.  Last week I was trying to help my son to do a lot of “boring” tasks. He’s 21 and there’s a lot of “life tasks” that he just can’t get himself to do. I served as a body double. He said, “Mom, it’s amazing. When you’re just sitting here, I can just go ahead and do it”. His other strategy was to put on his headphones. This was his creative solution. He’s a highly sensitive person, quite distracted by other people’s conversations and his own thoughts.  Maybe you, too, share this characteristic.   Having somebody present really works, and you can do this on zoom as well. 
  1. Give yourself permission to delegate. One person’s passion can be another person’s “non passion!” Get creative. If you have someone close to you who is really good with numbers (and you are not), but you are really good at organizing and getting things done (and that other is not) then work together to get stuff done.  Turn boring tasks into games. For example, grocery shopping. Turn it into a game. See if you can get in and out in 30 minutes.  If you do it in less, reward yourself with a latte!  
  1. Try even if you believe you will fail.  Perhaps you create a schedule at times,  then  don’t follow the schedule, before you even have a chance to try the schedule. Why? Maybe you believe you’re not good at schedules and don’t want to fail. Because you don’t want to fail, you try to save yourself and not even try.

Let’s not do that. Let’s make the task smaller, and smaller, and smaller…

Tell me, which is your favorite tip? What small steps are you going to take? Hit reply and let me know!

Remember: the first Monday of the month is  Wisdom Warriors, which is my free group, so please come along. It’s at 12pm Eastern.  It’s just all love…not some salesy webinar.. So, bring your friends and have some fun with it.  Free, powerful coaching and community. A gem!

Too shy for zoom? Come to your own private Facebook group and share the love that way. Be in community!

Want to work with me privately? Let’s have a conversation!  I hate to see you stuck. Stuck sucks. We don’t want that. 

Here’s to getting it done, de-stuckifying, and being with like minded others.

Cheers!

Carol

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