Category: Productivity

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procrastination Productivity Uncategorised

From procrastination to productivity: Unleash your inner Wisdom Warrior

Discover practical strategies to break free from procrastination and thrive

Do you find yourself procrastinating? 

Is this something that you would like to change? 

Most people that I speak with, the answer to both of those things is, yes, I do procrastinate and I would like to change that. 

Here is a simple exercise that probably you hadn’t thought about. Very simple, and I love simplicity because when things are simple, then they get done. 

  1. Pull out a piece of paper and follow along with me. If not now, save this video and come back to it. The first thing to do with your piece of paper is make a T chart. We’re going to be taking a look at our energy.

Our energy is directly related to our time and how we choose to spend it, which is directly related to procrastinating or not procrastinating.

  1. On the top of the whiteboard (page), write the word “energy”. On the left side of your T chart, put a plus. Those are things that give you energy on this side. On the right, put a minus. Those are the things that take away your energy. When you think of these things, do not confine yourself to “work” things. 

If you are a solopreneur like myself, you may be thinking of things like, “oh God, I hate sales.” That might drain you of energy. How we do anything is how we do everything. 

So if your mother drains you of energy, write her down. If your sister drains you of energy, write her down.  You don’t judge. 

Now, what gives you energy? Maybe when you can just watch a movie and relax, that gives you energy. What else? Running? Sleeping late?  There’s no judgment to any of this, and you write it all down.

  1. Next, circle one thing that takes away your energy and get really specific about it. For example, let’s just say your mother takes away your energy. Well, what about your mother that takes away your energy? Consider this story. Maybe when  you go to visit her for Sunday dinner, you feel like a little kid again. You feel yourself getting into some old patterns that make you feel “less than” and you don’t like it. And you go to sleep with kind of a pit in your stomach. 

There’s power in writing this down. That’s the step of Acceptance before a Solution. Acth out for the pitfall of NOT writing “it” down because you do not have a SOLUTION. 

Say you visit mom on Sunday, and you wake up Monday morning and you aren’t yourself, BUT you still want to see your mom. Now you can consider solutions. Perhaps you find a day to go out for lunch. That way, you’re not at her house anymore. We don’t have those memories. We don’t have those old patterns as much that would creep up. 

When going out for lunch, it’s a finite amount of time. It’s on neutral ground, and you still have the rest of the workday.  You’ll have more energy potentially over the weekend. 

By Sunday night or Monday morning, you go to plan your week, you HAVE MORE ENERGY! There’s time management for you. You hopefully have filled your weekend with energy filling activities and doing that. Guess what will give you that more energy? All of these things will help you love yourself more. 

February 14 was Valentine’s Day…the day we remember how much love affects our lives.

I received a beautiful message this morning from a dear friend of mine saying how much she valued me and my unconditional acceptance of her wherever she was in her journey. I realized that that’s my superpower. What is YOURS?

As I think through some of my more special clients, it’s when we get so deep in our relationship where they can begin to unconditionally love themselves. I have a deep belief in them. I have a deep belief in you. It’s just that only some of you are meant to be in my circle. Will you be next?

In conclusion, when you want to stop procrastinating as much, slow down and take a look at what’s happening in your energy field, what’s giving you energy, what’s taking away your energy, and work on each one very slowly. There are many more steps and further, deep inquiry in this process. And this is a really, really great beginning!

Don’t forget that the first Monday of March Wisdom Warriors, we are going to be talking about procrastination and how to eliminate it. We have a different topic every month.  Come for yourself and be surprised and delighted with our amazing free community. 

You will be able to lean on one another and when you want to take the next step, I hope to have room for you in my programs. So as you’re doing this, ask yourself, am I ready for a revelation? Am I done messing around? If you are, please talk to me, because on the other side, it’s amazing and I’d love for you to be with me, and I’d love for you to be with you for a change. Thank you. We’ll see you on March 4th.

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Planning Productivity

Breaking Free Together: Unleashing your productivity potential this December!

Habits to get you through the holidays….YOUR way

Feeling stuck? The struggle is real—I get it. The desire for an amazing business, the intention to be productive, but the inertia seems insurmountable. Procrastination, fear, and anxiety tag along like unwelcome companions, and suddenly, December is knocking at the door.

But fear not, my friends! We’re breaking free, together. It’s time to ditch the perfectionism that keeps us paralyzed. Those self-deprecating lies we tell ourselves? No more. “I’ve never done it consistently before, so why bother?”—let’s discard that notion.

If you resonate with this struggle (and I’ve heard from some of you who do), what you need are some wins. You’re tired of those nagging voices holding you back, right? Well, here’s the game plan—however, you choose to execute it.

Mark your calendars for Monday, December 4th. I’m hosting a ‘Habits to Get You Through the Holidays’ special Wisdom Warriors session at 12 pm noon Eastern time, and guess what? It’s free.

We’re diving into holiday survival habits because, let’s face it, the holidays can be overwhelming. I’ve been there. I’ve got my set of habits that work, and I’m eager to share them with you. Afterward, we’ll open the floor for discussion—what’s been working for you?

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I’ve conquered my fears, ditched the white-knuckling, and embraced proactivity. Believe it or not, I’ve even started saying ‘no’ to things, much to the surprise of my family.

Are you ready for a change? Picture waking up on January 1st with a resounding “YES!” That’s the goal.

So, join me on December 4th at 12 noon Eastern. Share in the discussion—what’s the one thing you wish you could change this month? Let’s bring it in and make December a month of victories.

Categories
Goal Setting Organization Planning Productivity productivity in the workplace Time strategies

15 ways to make sure your goal is not lost in chaos

It’s not too late to have more peace than you think in 2023.

Not even two months left in 2023! Lately, this has been hitting me right over the top of my head: “I want to finish 2023 strong so that I’m ready for the new year.” What better time as we welcome fall, and we are being grateful here in this month of gratitude, Thanksgiving, than to really take a look at where we are in our lives. 

As we get ready to turn the page for 2024, what do we really want and why? 

I’m going to take you through the tried, true, and iterative process of my signature system, the Productivity Success Cake, that has helped so many people become more focused, organized, and productive; and to get out of their own way and finally have the peace and prosperity they really want. So here, as a reminder, here’s what it looks like.

That’s the Productivity Success Cake system. Living the life that you really want is better than baking a cake & is calorie free. 

I invite you to take your pencil or pen out and write the answers to these questions, and then send these to me in an email (carol@unscatterme.com) and let me know what your ‘ahas’ were and I can help you create a perfect plan for you.

We’re going to go through each and every piece in the Productivity Success Cake, and I’m going to invite you to rate yourself. We’re going to start at the bottom of the Success Cake, and, before we begin, let’s discover what the  Productivity Success Cake is and why I did it the way I did it. 

I have been in business since 2009, and when I began my business (I began it as a professional organizer and productivity consultant and trainer), I realized that when people weren’t as organized and productive as they thought they would love to be, there were usually some underlying reasons. To tie the most common reasons together, in early 2020 I created the Productivity Success Cake system. I organized these by layer: the first layer is Health, the second is Environment. Then (and only then), if our Health and our Environment is strong enough we can layer on Productivity.  After that (and  there’s more because there’s always more!) and better sharpening the saw and it should all be wrapped up with your purpose.The Productivity Success Cake is a framework system. Although ‘system’ and ‘recipe’ does have something to do with it, it’s mostly just fun and it’s a beautiful visual way to see where you are and what you want, and it gives you that happiness and joy.

Follow along and rate yourself! 

You can also do this on my website HERE.

FIRST: Health layer. 

  1. STATEMENT: Food piece: The statement is “The food I eat supports my body in a perfect way”. Score 1 is very false and to score 10 is very true. So just pick where you rate yourself against that statement.
  2. STATEMENT:  Exercise piece: The statement is “I exercise to the degree that has me feeling good, energetic and supports my health and fitness needs fully”. Score 1 is very false and 10 is very true. 
  3. STATEMENT: Meditation piece: “I meditate, pray, or spend time alone in silence on a regular basis.” Score 1 is very false, 10 is very true. 
  4. STATEMENT: Sleep piece: “I get at least seven hours of sleep per night. I wake up feeling rested and rejuvenated.”  Score 1 is very false, 10 is very true.
  5. STATEMENT: Medication piece: “I take my prescribed medication and or supplements and vitamins to create an ideal container for my mind and body to soar.” Score 1 is very false, 10 is very true. 

NEXT: Environment Layer. 

  1. STATEMENT: Physical environment piece: “My physical environment supports my thinking, clarity, inspiration, and productivity.” Score 1 is very false and 10 is very true. 
  2. STATEMENT: Goals piece: “The goals I have are one very motivational and meaningful to me, and two, crystal clear and succinct.” 1 is very false and 10 is very true. 
  3. STATEMENT: Circles Of Support piece: “I have a circle of support:  close family, friends, clubs, groups, church, etc.” How do you feel about having a  circle of support? 1 is very false and 10 is very true.
  4. STATEMENT: Light your light piece:  “I light my light. I am clear about my purpose in the world.  Whether it’s work for pay through volunteering in a club or with a solo endeavor, MY environment and activities support me in keeping my candle lit from within.” Score 1 is very false, 10 is very true. 

NEXT: Productivity layer.

  1. STATEMENT: Power Focus piece: “I have a system to limit the scope of my task or project.” (For example, your system could be do / delegate / drop). “I can stay focused and then take breaks. I do not overcommit and then get exhausted on a regular basis.”  Score 1 is very false, 10 is very true. 
  2. STATEMENT: Remembering to remember piece: “I have systems and external support so that I remember to remember most of the time I am not feeling like I am always dropping the ball.  I am following through.”  Score 1 is very false, 10 is very true. 
  3. STATEMENT: Procrastination piece: “I have procrastination under control.” Score 1 is very false, 10 is very true
  4. STATEMENT: Time and tasks: “I have a system from managing my time and energy and priorities that works for me. I get things done as I’d like to do them. I feel very good, really good. What gets done and to the quality which it does. I set appointments, I show up on time and I am fully present. My time management feels clear and peaceful to me and supports my larger goals and purpose”. 1 is very false and 10 is very true.  
  5. STATEMENT: Accountability Layer:  I rely upon trusted partners to keep me accountable externally so that I do not have to rely solely on my internal regulator and staying on track and being accountable to my goals and priorities”. 1 is very false and 10 is very true. 
  6. FROSTING: Calorie free “why” frosting. Think about it and write to me at carol@unscatterme.com or direct message me what your icing is.  What’s your purpose that holds all your layers together? What is your purpose for building and baking your cake? What comments do you have about where you are right now in this process, or any aha’s that came to you during this time of layer of evaluation?

Here’s the thing. We’re looking for “quick and easy” things just like losing weight. With intermittent fasting you may be able to lose 20 pounds in two weeks,  but whatever you do, it takes mindfulness, evaluation, step-by-step, a plan and accountability. Maybe that’s not sexy, but it sure as heck can be fun!  That’s why I created and have people implement the Productivity Success Cake framework. It works because it’s fun, and because it’s visual – and the people that I serve are fun, crazy artists, creators, visual, and they love being a little kooky just like me, and it Just Works. 

So I invite you to let me know what you have taken away from this. 

What were your biggest ‘ahas’ in doing this?

Categories
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
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
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?

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