Is my day shorter than everyone else’s?

Do you sometimes wonder if the time thief stole hours from your day?

How is it that others seem to breeze through the day, appear happy with their over achievements, exude perfectly calm and happy tones in their voices of an evening and some even tell us of the relaxing time they had with partners or children after dinner before bed.

Tip 1: You will not be able to alter what you do in a day if you don’t first audit what you do for approximately a week and actually know where you spend your time.

Create no more than 6 categories of where you spend your time and record in a journal before going to bed each night put the time against each. AND write next to each day what you were grateful for in that day and why.

Suggestion; 1. Sleep 2. My Care (eat, self-care, exercise) 3. Care for the home / family / friends 4. Work 5. Travel 6. Hobby 7. Work on things that have a direct influence on my goals in life (meditation, journaling + taking actions for your future).

Tip 2: If a situation changes with your environment, state of mind or mood STOP and rethink your day ahead and shift things around.  Don’t get dinner ready at 5.30pm just because that is the time you do it every day.  Be prepared to move your day around if it means being kinder to yourself.  Example:  We have more time at home at present.  Pre prepare your dinner for the evening while you are getting breakfast in the morning – you will find you will save yourself time.  Get a really good set of blue tooth ear pieces, load zoom on your hand held device, listen to work calls – conference calls on mute and no camera while you fold the washing (obviously choose which calls are appropriate to multi task ) .  Listen to audio that teaches you something new that helps you get closer to your goals in life while you multitask.

This is the thing.

People who inspire us, people we observe and go – shit, they really kick goals out of the park and appear to have so much energy, love and feeling for what they do in life and outwardly appear so energized. 

 

Those people have the same 24-hour period in a day we have.

Tip 3: Stop looking at what others are doing and comparing what you are NOT doing. Even though this article started with that view – cause we all usually start with that!

Focus on you, what does your ideal day or week look like. What is your ideal ‘mood variants’ throughout the week. For me, I like to get up early and see the change from night to morning and have that time to myself to journal, reflect, think about my day that was and the day that is coming. Whom I will interact with, what they need, what I need and how will I adjust my day to suit my needs.

You are the only one you should compare against! Get the most out of your day for YOUR needs.

1. Schedule Everything! (I use ASANA for my goals and tasks to achieve them); explore ALL the features of google calendar and MSTeams features – find quickly what works for you.

2. Do you procrastinate? 2 min rule. Whatever it is you are putting off. Just spend 2 min on it a day and make a START! (I will write a book one day!) Write in a journal 2 min a day the structure – the end of the story. Make a start.

3. Attention management how you change your attitude to manage your time. Take this change seriously.

4. Must Do, Should Do – prioritise. Could Do, Would Do – lower priority

Tip 4:  Working from home!

a) Embrace the chaos – go easy on yourself

b) Create a space for YOU away from your work – or throw a sheet over the workspace at the end of your work time

c) Set boundaries – work time, other things, stop – start.  Figure out what best works for you for productivity.  Communicate that to your team.

d) If you have kids – experiment and be flexible to find a groove that works.  Be strict with bedtime and sleep.  Research what good sleep does for a child’s brain and it will be a motivator to get them into bed at a reasonable time.  Good sleep makes a significant difference in our brains.  Prepare lunches and snacks in the morning for the day.  Pack a lunch box!  Put a rewards chart on the fridge – make the rewards realistic daily achievements (small steps).  COMMUNICATE.

e) Have a weekly or twice weekly family or house forum.  Ask open questions.  What do you like about being part of this family/home?  Is there anything we could be doing differently, better or stop doing?  LISTEN.

f) Communicate, communicate, communicate.  If you have a partner, have a 2 to 5 min ‘check in’ each morning and night on how you each are feeling and support one another.  Don’t immediately go into solution mode.  Just listen and be aware.

Lastly, find ways to AUTOMATE.  How many of us are in the business of efficiencies, transformation, speed to value, process improvements!  AND teaching our kids how to efficiently go about their day!

You know the common saying about a landscape gardener has a messy back yard, a builder always has a half finished home.  Well don’t make the same mistake for YOU.  If you are efficient in some areas of your life and not others – make a change.

Apply transformation techniques – audit what is the root cause of the issue, articulate clearly where you wish to be and how you will feel when you achieve that, assess the gap from today’s reality to the future – put actions in place to achieve your tomorrow.

Have a wonderful day people.

Ferne Eliz King

Love Life Love YOUR Life