Author: Carol Williams

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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

Categories
Boundaries multitasking Planning Positive Thinking

4 steps to focus after life gets in the way

Weather crisis? Health crisis? Name your crisis.

Today, the topic is how to refocus after a crisis.

Small or large, life will always get in the way of your big plans; it’s just the way it is. 

In the last workshop that I did (Time management for the distracted entrepreneur), we talked about four things that will distract us. Those were: extreme weather, cash crunch, too much to do, but belt tightening, or some combination of these things. 

Recently, I’ve had one of my community members cite that they had major damage to their home (this is the extreme weather which we are all experiencing right now!) As a result, this can  have a lot of impact on our homes. This entrepreneur had to leave their home, which had an impact on their business – and I do not want your business to go down the toilet because of extreme weather! So let’s discuss steps that you can take when not if life gets in the way. 

  1. Completely accept what is happening. Be in agreement with what’s going on. Too often, we’re in disagreement with what is happening. When we ONLY wish it weren’t happening, we’re not in agreement with it.  We’re then unable to take the next step as we’re so busy being in denial. 
  1. Get quiet. Go inward and really ask yourself what you deeply want. This is, of course, after the “fire has been put out” (so to speak, or the flood or whatever is going on!) You need to deal with the crisis as it presents itself, and it doesn’t have to last forever. When you do that, think about three months out, six months out, what do you want your life, your business, your situation to be like? 
  1. Work backwards. Watch out for this pitfall, though: don’t believe that you must have the whole plan mapped out before you start.
  1. Start. Begin with one step. For example, this community member that I was working with was asking “How do I focus 9because of what’s happened)?” I asked “well, what has helped you focus in the past?” This person said “Well, usually sitting down and getting a daily plan together.” I agreed! 

Dear reader, I think you might want to try it, too. Try this! After you do your morning routine (you wake up, stretch, shower, have your coffee, etc), ask yourself:

  • What are my priorities today? 
  • What might get in the way? 
  • What is my one priority out of everything? 
  • And how does that relate to that thing that I said I wanted in three or six months? 

That’s just to get you started. With those four steps, I believe that you can emerge from whatever your crisis is. 

For more information and next best steps:

  • Download the free guide to help you get through all the steps: decide, discern, discover, practice, and celebrate. 
  • Come to my next free gathering on Zoom (the Wisdom Warriors). That’s going to be at 12pm EST on Monday October 2nd.
  • Join my UnscatterMe community on Facebook and we can have conversations about this. 
  • Set up a complimentary phone call with me to find out what your personal challenges are and what roadmap you might be able to go on. 

None of these things will cost you any money. 

You can certainly ask me about how I could help you in a more accelerated way for faster results that are tailored exactly to you. Just hit replay, and I’ll be happy to talk to you about that. In the meantime, please use these free resources to get yourself unstuck from the crises that inevitably will happen because they do. 

Have a great day.

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

How to give your time to the projects that will bring income…and still stay creative

Boredom got you? Here is your solution

One of my community members has reached out to me about managing your time so that you have the best income within the time that you have. 

They write, “I have a problem with giving my time to the projects that will bring me the income now”.  What I’m hearing:  this person knows that they need to change their time management, such that they are being very deliberate about how they spend their time, so that they have the best income for the smallest amount of time. This person is a parent and has a lot of responsibilities outside of their business.

As a reminder, time management falls in the 3rd layer of the Productivity Success Cake, (the Productivity layer), above health and environment. Therefore, before we do anything on our time management, we want to make sure that our health is in a “good enough” place, (doesn’t have to be perfect), and that our environment is in a “good enough” place (doesn’t have to be perfect!). You can complete the Productivity Success Cake quiz here, completely free, and see where you rate (for your own purposes) on that cake. 

Now, when we dug a little deeper and the writer went into more detail about this issue, they said that they had tried different things, but that they believed what was getting in the way was:

believing that ‘everything is valuable’

The person writing in with this issue knows that time needs to get slotted to a certain kind of work (where money comes), and yet this belief ‘everything is valuable’ is preventing it. And if this is valuable, then it all has to get done. What I know about having everything needing to be done at the same time, is this is a recipe for overwhelm. When we’re in overwhelm we don’t do anything. We become stuck; we become stagnant.  In flight or freeze, that’s freeze – what we don’t want to do. So going back to the beginning, we don’t want to believe that everything is important. When we believe that everything is important and therefore needs to get done, we don’t do anything. 

Here’s where prioritization becomes really important. 

Then there are some other things that this person wrote to me.  This person found that what they know to make money (albeit inconsistent), it felt boring, repetitive, & unfulfilling. This person was thinking, ‘building my business requires many things working together in a set routine, but I can’t make myself do the same thing every day. I get bored and gravitate towards tasks that feed my creativity’.  What it takes to create that momentum and build on that momentum is known, and yet there’s this yearning, this boredom, this lack of dopamine, this lack of creativity.

Behind this, there might be a belief that it’s all or nothing. Here is what it may sound like: “either I do these boring things and I make money, or I have fun and I’m creative and I don’t make the kind of money I want to”. So do you see how these beliefs start to really impact what’s going on? 

Now let’s address ‘inconsistent income’. Money was coming in, but it felt inconsistent. When the inconsistent money came in, this person realized, “hang on, I need to do some automation to get more consistency.”  That automation was probably pretty boring. So now we’re back to the real problem: “It’s boring to make money. I really want to be creative”. 

Well, I have some really beautiful news for you. It does not HAVE to be that way.

The way I teach things and the way I run my own world, my own life and my own business is that fun, joy, and creativity are not mutually exclusive to earning an amazing living. Not just a good living, but an amazing living. These things can and will and do (and actually I believe must) coexist. Joy and income are not opposite sides of the spectrum. 

I recommend that your first step to get to a joyous place and really dial in to be able to earn the income you deserve is to download your Unscatter My Life guide. What you’ll find is that there’s a roadmap.

The Roadmap: Decide, Discern, Discover, Practice, and Celebrate. The person who wrote in with their conundrum is in the “Decide” step, because the decision must be made. “Do I really want this? Why do I really want this? What do I have to gain? What do I have to lose?” Lack of decision slowly kills us and will completely put a cap on greatness. We can only operate in that kind of a situation for so long. 

So- say this person decides “You know what? I’m done with this crap. I’m going to go ahead and do these steps”. The step after Decide is Discern and that’s where we really dig in to what we love, what we’re good at, what the world needs, and what we can get paid for. 

Before we ever get to that Productivity Success Cake (which is Discover), we really dial in on the Discern step. When we’re so deeply discerning, then that serves as our north star. The problem is not being able to focus on the things that make us money, as that’s the presenting problem. The real issue is some beliefs that are behind here, and therefore actions that then support those beliefs (i.e.  when I make money, it has to be boring. It has to be the same thing all the time, and it has to be unfun). guarantee you that you’ll stay in that loop until you die. So we don’t want that. We want you to turn that around, make a big decision, a big bold decision. 

Download the guide, do the exercises and make your decision, and from there you can go into the discernment. 

That was a lot. I can’t wait to support you. Once you download that guide, there’s a place where you can have a free call with me so that you get your own roadmap and should you decide to take that step now, you’ll be on the road to deeply discerning and therefore acting in your own best interest. And that’s why I exist in the world. So I will hopefully see you on that call. It will blow your mind and change things for the better. What do you have to lose?

Categories
Accountability Goal Setting Mastermind Groups Organization Planning Positive Thinking Time strategies

What are you committed to?

We are in love with our roadblocks, even when we say we are not.

The truth about commitment:

We love to talk about how we want to lose weight. We love to talk about ‘someday’. “I would like to get around to it, but not right now” or “I’m really busy doing …..” 

Finally, you may say, “That’s it. I’m going to do this thing. I really want my next one hundred days/the end of the year to look different. I really do. I cannot stand tolerating this negative cash flow. I cannot stand tolerating the organizational state of my office. I cannot stand tolerating negative people in my life that I just can’t seem to stop being with, and I can’t figure it out.  I go into those negative spirals. Something must be done!” 

If that’s you, you may be saying “Okay, I know Carol’s offering a program that can really whip me into shape. I know it’d be SO good for me. I’d get the result I say I want. I know it’s starting soon. I think I want to do it. Then you ask yourself, “WAIT, what happens if I say yes? Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, I’ll have to commit to it. Well, I can’t commit too much. What if something comes up? Then I’ll fail, like all those other times. I’m about an 8 out of 10, and that’s pretty committed.  I don’t give 10’s. That’s safe.” 

That’s where you’re wrong. Until you commit 100%, you are, my friend, doomed.

Here’s what happens:

  • In that 8 out of 10 commitment – that -2 will not allow you to succeed.
  • In a  9 out of 10 commitment, that -1 will not allow you to succeed.
  • Even in a 9.5 out of 10 commitment, that 0.5 will go in sneakily and *pull you down in ways that you’re not even conscious of*!

We are RULED by our subconscious. Our subconscious wants to keep us SAFE and that means not Doing Something New. Even if it’s Proven.

So- to say ‘yes’ to something new, maybe that’s Discover Your Greatness, which starts Tuesday Sept 12th, you need to TRICK your subconscious while she is not looking.  To do this, 

  1. take a deep breath
  2. imagine yourself Dec 31 with a clean office and financial abundance
  3. imagine lots of good people around you; no more negative nellies. A fun atmosphere and getting things done effortlessly with loads of support.

Then, RUN. 

You can join this cohort until midnight Eastern on Sunday (that’s assuming there are seats left!). 

Anyway, let’s go into “Okay, that’s it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to plunk my money down and I’m going to say yes to ME!”. 

Watch out for this pitfall: Don’t make the mistake of wanting something NEW- yet wanting NOTHING to change. 

It’s kind of like when you go on a healthy eating plan and you think “Well, wait a minute, I get to just have my candy bars every day. Oh wait, I don’t get to have my candy bars every day. I don’t want that healthy eating plan. I just want to lose the weight”. 

It’s the same thing with this opportunity. Yes, you’re going to have to do things differently, and I promise it will be fun and it works. 

A sneak peek of what is in store for those lucky enough to get in on time:

One of the key tenets of Discover Your Greatness…..is the proprietary DESIRE TEMPLATE forms.  – You set yourself up at the beginning of your workday for a Day of Success. You can also do it the night before. You can do it digitally, or print it.   

The first question is: ‘What is your purpose?’ It’s really important to know what your purpose is because if you don’t know why you’re doing it, guess what y’all, you won’t do it. The procrastination starts before you even begin the list! So we eliminate that problem right away.

The next item on the template is … ‘One thing I must do today, no matter what’.  Now -notice I didn’t say “What are the 25 things you want to do today?” You want to dial it down. Does this mean you won’t get any more than one thing done? No. You will get more than one thing done, I promise you. 

However, you will get that one thing done plus a lot more -because this is what gets you started and keeps you focused, which are two of the biggest problems. Procrastination is one of the biggest issues. Then of course, I know you’re going to have a little carry over from yesterday as that’s usually how it goes. 

The final questions on the template…

Identify your most important things: two of them. 

We then ask: what might get in the way? Hint:  get really specific. 

Finally, what will you do to fireproof it? In other words, put measures in place to be sure you don’t fall short of your intention/plan. 

Once you fill it out, you can print it, and save/send to me. I comment on this and watch your progress and help you along, both live and through my private client portal. 

And that’s just the beginning. It’s just *one* of the game changing resources you will use in the group.

There’s also an end of day form,, which is also very important where we debrief what we went on. You learn TONS with this form. 

Over time, by doing this, miracles happen – because the tiniest little change, little by little, bit by bit, piece by piece, layer by layer in the Productivity Success Cake, immense change happens. 

In Discover Your Greatness, we’ve got 14 weeks together. The nice part about that is it’s not like six months, it’s not like 12 months. It’s not like $20,000, it’s like $2,000. It’s not that much money and what you can get in the end, it’s crazy-good.

Game changing goodness. For example, 

people have:

  • Double or tripled their income 
  • Finally started the business that they’ve been trying to start for 14 years
  • One person had a backlog for a year of work, and finally they are not adding to the backlog anymore, and they are showing up differently with their team. This person is showing up as a bigger and better and more confident leader. 

And that’s what happens. The confidence happens, and the hidden fears that hold us back melt away. 

I’m so excited because I’ve got five people already registered and ready to go, and I’ve got three more openings at the time of writing this. On Tuesday September 12, we’re going to be getting started, and I can’t wait to see if you’re going to be one of those people to march forward together in unison toward Dec 31.

Oh, one more thing!

Did I tell you about the prizes? I also have prizes and giveaways because as we do this work together, we have fun. When you have fun, you get it done. Do you want to have some fun and get it done and finally do the darn thing that you said you were going to be doing for years that you just refuse to do? Well, don’t let this be the thing that scares you to death, so that you keep defining yourself as somebody who does it all themselves all the time. Because you know what? That doesn’t work. If it worked, you would’ve done it by now. You know that.I cannot wait to see who fills those final three seats and says yes to discovering their greatness.

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