Author: Carol Williams

And what to do about it…in these challenging times.

Welcome to lesson two out of three of ‘Managing your time as a distracted entrepreneur’. 

The first lesson helps you take your big idea, dream, or goal and utilize the  productivity success cake (a whole e-book!) framework to achieve it. You have seen this lesson.

NOW, the second lesson we’re going to talk about diving deeper into what’s behind the Cake Process. 

• Why is this so important- right NOW??
• What kinds of problems does the cake-process solve -so that you can have the life and business that you actually want to have?.

NEXT, lesson three is the live lesson on Tuesday September 5th 11am to 1pm EST, and you’re going to want to sign up for that. That’s where it all comes together.

For the purposes of this article, we will stick with highlights only. To get the full benefit you will want to download and read the full .pdf. 

So….it really * IS * hard to say no, stay motivated, and get it all done.

I know for me, motivation lately has been really hard. There just have been a lot of things in my life. I’ve got aging parents with major issues. I’ve got teenager issues. Home and car stuff.  And a new relationship. My whole life feels like a fall swirl. The economy’s being weird, and people seem to be kind of funky and non-committal.  It hasn’t been the same in my business as it has been before. That can feel strange and uncomfortable. So if any of this resonates with you, stay with me. We will get through these times together. I have been through a lot of difficult times and I have always emerged stronger and wiser. You will, too. Stay with me.

How about YOU??

Here are some reasons you may find yourself becoming un-grounded and scattered.

• Inflation;
• Housing shortages;
• Prices, escalating prices;
• Job shifts;
• Covid has returned.

When I say job shifts I mean, you go to a restaurant and it’s not open on a Tuesday or a Wednesday because nobody wants to work there anymore. That’s where we are in 2023.  There’s things that are going on in the world. So that’s why I’m offering these lessons right NOW…about 100 days before this year comes to an end.

In fact, there is an anxiety explosion and a fun deficit. And COVID..just when we thought it was done, so it just kind of keeps coming up and slapping us in the face. It’s crazy. 

It’s really causing a new level of anxiety. Our cortisol, that stress, that thing that kicks us into gear, just keeps coming and we are experiencing too much cortisol. With that, our sympathetic nervous system goes into overload. 

When our sympathetic nervous system goes into overload, we start to jump around and we might be jumping around from thing to thing. 

When we’re jumping around from thing to thing, guess what? We get scattered. 

THAT is what the cortisol and the craziness of stuff that’s going on right now externally and internally has to do with you and your time management. 

However…there’s great news. There are things that you can do about it. 

Here are the steps… 1) reassess, 2) prioritize, and 3) consciously decide.

How do I reassess?

Let’s go behind the scenes. Go deep within yourself and ask,

•  “What’s going on in my life and what do I want?”
•  “What do I want in my life to be different?” 

Within that question, the productivity success cake process is invaluable.

The above is a great taste of lesson 2, so…download it now.

Then…come along Tuesday 9/5 to the Live Lesson 3 where we tie it all together.

Now, you can do it on your own, but let’s get real.  People don’t often do the things that they maybe “should.” When you can do it with other people and you can really get clear on your priorities and really get clear on your time management, your cortisol levels are going to go back down. You’re going to be able to think clearly. You’re going to be able to focus, and that scatter is going to be greatly diminished.

So- that’s just a little peek into your second lesson. Comment below and tell me: what’s going on for you and your life that you really want to shift? I want to know.

Just imagine,  at the end of this year, ringing in the new year saying, “I’m so glad that I took that time management workshop! It went so much deeper than I ever imagined.”

Get your seat while you can. I have 3 places left.

Want time for FUN without guilt? Read this.

Before I get started on today’s topic, please help me help you with a 3 minute, 2 question survey about managing your time as a distracted entrepreneur HERE please and thank you.

And now, onto our topic:

What is a  deliberate checklist? It’s an effective way for you to take actions now to generate the results you desire quickly…without as much effort. 

Where did this topic come from?

Well, I was speaking to a client this week who said to me,“I would like to be more deliberate. I would like to work when I’m working, and I would like to carve out time to just have fun without the guilt.” This desire is music to my ears. It had me think about last week’s message, which was all about how having fun is not bad for you, so I’m grateful to hear that this has landed on ears that are listening. 

So here it is: your 3 part checklist to act deliberately.  It may not be exactly what you might be thinking!

• Slow down. Now, this is quite counterintuitive. Typically, when we want to do more, we speed up. And while there are absolutely times to speed up, there’s many times where what we need to do is slow down. Speeding up often creates the scatter that we’re trying to resolve. When we slow down we can hear the voice within. That voice within is very wise, and I find the slower I go, the wiser I get. The calmness then creates space for a deliberate action (or many deliberate actions) that matter versus “doing for the sake of doing”. Slowing down creates space for deliberateness from the inside out. 
• Create rituals. One of my clients doesn’t call the cornerstone habits that serve us our “routines”. This client calls them rituals. Rituals sound almost royal. For example, maybe you  have a ritual in the morning where you water my plants, and I take five minutes to meditate. That’s a beautiful ritual. 

Maybe your ritual is that you get up, you have a beautiful glass of water and you stretch. It doesn’t have to take long to have a ritual. Rituals are a really important tenet of the Discover Your Greatness through the Productivity Success Cake system group program. In that program,  I provide proprietary forms that I have people fill in. I call it “book-ending”. I invite you to have the morning be very intentional and deliberate, and in the evening, take a look, “how did I do?” (without blame or shame!) What went well; what didn’t go as well? And what will I do differently? Again, without any blame and without any shame. Your rituals really help with that iterative process.

• *Slowly* add Habits. A common pitfall that I see people make is trying to do too much and trying to do it all at once.  An even worse pitfall is not deciding, (which, by the way, is number one in our Success Path to go from scattered and stuck to focused and confident.) The first part is Decide, then Discern, Discover, Practice, and Celebrate. When the decision isn’t made and the habits are too many, it creates this complete scatter. 

So…decide, then build those habits slowly. For example, once I wanted to add PT exercises to my life, and kept forgetting. Then I added them easily. Here is how. My ritual: I get up right after I have my beverage and stretch.  I stretch anyhow, so, I added my physical therapy exercises on top of the stretch. This is a “habit stacker” tactic. Once that habit gets established and it becomes something you don’t think about any longer, you can then add another habit. Will it take a week? Will it take three weeks? Will it take a month? Will it take five weeks? Will it take six weeks? You be the judge of that. Just don’t try to do everything all at once.

• BONUS: Don’t kill yourself with “well, if I do this and I really want to do that, and maybe I’ll do this and maybe I’ll do that”. Keeping your options open is such a scatterbrained approach because your energy leaks, you forget what you were going to do, you can’t stay still and you can’t just focus in and zero in on just that one thing….

So let’s review actions to take now to generate results fast. 

1. slow down. 

2. create rituals. 

3. build your habits slowly.

Finally…mark your calendar for the 7th of August for our next Wisdom Warriors “How to plan ahead when your mind “squirrels” and still savor in the “now.” As always, it’s 12pm to 1pm eastern and totally free of charge.

Until next week,

Carol