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9 things to keep in mind as you go about your day

9 things to keep in mind as you go about your day

9 things to keep in mind as you go about your day

 

Tip One: Focus on what you do with your time, not what others do – do not compare !  Your mind will never let you win !

Tip Two: Keep a rough diary for a week or minimum of three days to know what you do with your time, and then decide what / where you will change

Tip Three: create your own one pager personalised diary to track where you want to / should spend your time each day.  Hand write this for a week, then digitise it on computer or device

Tip Four: do something every day to take a step towards your imaginable future.   EVERY day to take a step , take an action

Tip Five: do not reward yourself throughout your day, do not say .. after the next task i will reward myself and go to the fridge!! do not reward yourself until the end of the day.. and ONLY reward yourself if you actually achieve your goals for the day

Tip Six: Working longer hours does not create productivity;  a good balance of sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, exercise, happy activities and striving for something larger than ourselves and mixing in some work creates productivity – schedule in your day journalling, sleep, eating times, meditation, exercise, something to put a smile on your face .. THEN work time – with regular breaks.

Tip Seven: find ways to automate and consolidate!  digital transformation …

Tip Eight: break your weekly time schedule into problems you are solving for, this quite often alters the tasks and the priorities you give them … figure out what are your biggest three problems causing you stress or worry, then plan the actions to resolve or mitigate as a priority.

Tip Nine: only spend 20 minutes maximum a day ‘surfing’ social media.  Dont look at your phone or computer before you are ‘ready’ for the day.  Dont look at your phone or devices for the hour before going to bed.

I have my ups and downs of being at home, I try to be careful of the language I use.  I am not ‘stuck at home’, I am ‘safe at home’.  I am not ‘floundering and figuring out how to get through a day’  I am ‘flourishing at figuring new and altered ways to find my new comfort’  …
BUT …
what the heck is happening to my time management?

I am saving hours of travel not having to get myself and my daughter to where we need to be each day. But somehow, I seem to have LESS time. Somehow, I have started to fall behind on all my to-do lists.

Before COVID-19 hit I was working part time at the office and part time at home as well as running an on line business as well as winding up a tiny house design and build company, managing a house, a child, a parent who lives independantly with us …  I was managing it all brilliantly.

When the restrictions began, I was quietly looking forward to having so much extra time on my hands each day, my house will be spotless, our dinner will be extravagant, I will be producing some of my best work and I will still have time leftover to focus on my other ventures. Sure my 6 year old will be home, but my mother lives on the property and she will be able to help with home schooling, besides I will be saving myself an hour a day just from not having to do the school runs and nearly 2.5 hours a day with work travel .. there is 3.5 hours saved right there!

Day one, somehow it was lunchtime… I had given up on home schooling for the day (No judgement, I’m sure I am not the only one.. being a teacher is tough!), I had half an unloaded dishwasher, I had no idea what we were doing for dinner, and besides from checking some emails I had only done about 10 minutes of work!! Oh, and the house was far from spotless thanks to my 6 year old hurricane getting around the place.

Where did the morning go?? What do I have to show for it?? And about 1pm I started role playing the conversation that was going to occur when my partner got home about how much I had (not) got done in the day!

Ok, Ferne, not the best start, sit down and have some lunch, call in your mum for some ‘Nanna Duties’ then get stuck into it… No distractions! But then the phone rings (I didn’t answer her last call; I’ll have a quick 10 minute chat…who was i kidding … 40mins later I’m back into it). But then the washing machine sings, but I am ignoring it… (or am I? It wont take long to hang out, and I need time to think through my response to this problem anyway).. And then it is 9:30pm, we had meat and veg for dinner, the house is quiet (but not clean), I am the only one awake, and I will be for the next few hours at least while I get this work done.. And I promise myself that tomorrow I will be more organised, more disciplined, no excuse!! Yet, I continued doing the same thing every day that week.

Clearly what I was doing wasn’t working for me and I had to change my strategy. The truth is I have never been in this situation before, so I needed to come up with a unique approach. Yes, discipline is part of it, but it is not the whole solution. The bottom line is at home we are distracted by our personal to-do lists because everything that we would not give a second thought about in the office is now at our fingertips at home (and there is no shame in wanting to get ahead so there is more time for leisure at the end of the day).

So here is what I realised…

If I start my ‘tasks’ at the time I usually leave for work and finish ‘tasks’ at the time I would arrive home I am giving myself easily an extra two hours of ‘to do’ time.

I spend 5 minutes in the morning creating a list of all my chores and all my tasks for work, and the time that it will take to complete them- rechecking each morning what i need to carry over from the day prior and readjust for the week, or what i did in advance of expectation.

I prioritise tasks and plan the day so I do a task for work – and make sure I do the tasks I dont like FIRST , followed by a 5 minute ‘break’ where I will do a house chore.

I am working faster to try and keep up with my daily schedule. When things go back to “something different than today” I will continue to beat the clock to do my housework as I now realise I waste way too much time dawdling on mundane tasks that I could do quickly and free up time for myself.   Every time I save 5 minutes I spend that extra 5 min journalling or doing something for ME !

Ferne Eliz King

About Ferne

Ferne is globally recognised and called upon for quickly accelerating complex change to achieve business strategies.  Translating strategies to actionable plans, prioritisation of those actions, engagement from the right people, bringing business architecture to life or your life plan if individual and in many cases driving the change as a program director.  The bottom line is Ferne accelerates businesses or individuals to achieve outcomes and enabling that is her passion.

What's the consequence if you take no action?

“If you do the same thing today as yesterday, your tomorrow will be the same as today”.  Ferne Eliz King

Want To Learn More?

Book a free 15 min call and see how Ferne can help you accelerate your aspirations for you or your business.

Is my day shorter than everyone elses?

Is my day shorter than everyone elses?

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

About Ferne

Ferne is globally recognised and called upon for quickly accelerating complex change to achieve business strategies.  Translating strategies to actionable plans, prioritisation of those actions, engagement from the right people, bringing business architecture to life or your life plan if individual and in many cases driving the change as a program director.  The bottom line is Ferne accelerates businesses or individuals to achieve outcomes and enabling that is her passion.

What's the consequence if you take no action?

“If you do the same thing today as yesterday, your tomorrow will be the same as today”.  Ferne Eliz King

Want To Learn More?

Book a free 15 min call and see how Ferne can help you accelerate your aspirations for you or your business.