Hi everyone.
It's Andy LaCivita.
Founder of milewalk and the milewalk Academy, and award winning author of 'The Hiring Prophecies'.
Here with this week's episode of Tips for Work and Life.
We've got something to help make sure everybody's days are productive.
I want to talk a little bit about the techniques you can use that, whether you are a high flyer,
really productive, real go-getter, and you want to maximize your days even more.
Or, you're somebody, you're feeling a little stuck.
You haven't really made the charge you want in life.
And, where you're just not sure how you're going to complete that project.
Or, you're just not sure if you're making any progress.
Well, I've got some great tips today.
Very orderly set of tips, and habits that you can implement.
And, the greatest part about it, is these require no skills, and very little time to
put in place.
Now, I want to bring you back, about a year and a half ago, maybe a little longer, I wrote
a blog post about my two morning tricks to eating the frog.
That was about how you get your morning going.
Getting off to the right kind of start.
Whatever your routine is.
I know we all lead different lives.
We have different responsibilities.
We have different types of jobs, and families, and other things.
That's really about your mindset, and how do you secure the right mindset in the morning,
so that you're in a great place to race through that day.
I also, towards the end of last year, did a video and a post about how to reflect your
way to success.
And, it was really designed to give you a chance, at the end of the year to look back
in a really, really great way, at what you learned, what you did, and just reflect in
a manner, that no matter what you did, you were going to feel positive about your life.
Now, you got the morning, you got end of the year.
What happens in between all that?
How do you make sure that every day that you live your life, at the end of each year you
can look back and say, "Wow, what a great year, or a great day, or a great week, or
a great month."
That's what today's session is about.
I'm going to give you seven simple steps, that I think you can do every day.
The first two, in fact, start the night before.
One thing that I always recommend that you do, no matter who you are, no matter what
your job is, or even if it's just waltzing through your day.
Your leisurely day.
What are ... So, step number one.
What are three goals you want to accomplish the next day?
You want to think in advance about what it is that you want to accomplish, from a goal
perspective.
Mini goals, whatever they are.
Steps along the way.
The most important thing when identifying these goals, is to make sure that there's
an element of completeness.
You don't want your goals being things like, make progress on my project.
That's too loose.
If you focus more on, I need to complete step one of the project, or if step one is two
big, maybe I need to complete this portion of step one.
Whatever it is, just make sure that there is some conclusion that you can draw, and
that there was an element of completeness to it.
The other thing that you don't want to do, is you don't want to have too many goals.
Because if you have too many goals, you'll be chasing too many rabbits, and the expression,
the man who chases too many rabbits, doesn't catch any, or chases two rabbits, doesn't
catch one, but you get my gist.
No more than three, but just make sure that your directed, and think about those the night
before.
The other thing, step two, that you need to think about the night before, is what your
calendar of your day will look like.
Number two, schedule your day, and I stress the word, your day.
If you can think in advance, what it is that you want to schedule for the next day, you
are far less likely to get interrupted by other people's issues, or other people's requests.
The one thing that we don't want you to do, is not schedule your day before you check
your email in the morning, because as soon as you do that, you're likely going to run
amuck, and things are going to interrupt you, and you're not going to be able to work on
the key projects, or the key exercises, or the key goals that you identified, because
you got interrupted.
What I always recommend is, the night before, schedule your day.
And, when I say schedule your day, I mean, every single minute has something accounted
for.
If you don't know what you're going to do between 1:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon, because
it's open time, then write in there open time, or recovery time, or buffer time, or something
of that nature, so that you know you can collect yourself.
If some of your assignments, tests, duties get overrun, or you're running behind, you
have a chance to catch up.
Or, if you get some unexpected requests, you might be able to put them into the gaps in
your day, if you can allow it.
The most important thing is, that you schedule the day completely.
So, that's step number two.
Step number three.
How you start your day, in your morning, whatever morning routine you go through.
I get up, I take care of my dogs.
I go to the gym and I work out.
I come home and I meditate.
I eat and ... That's my routine.
Whatever your routine is, whether you just get up and take a shower, or you want to stretch
and have a cup of coffee, or dance, or whatever it is that you do ... I think one part of
that morning routine needs to be gratitude.
I love this part of the day.
Gratitude number three, three things that you're grateful for at that very moment that
you roll out of bed, or an hour after you get out of bed, or first thing that you do
when you get into the office.
It only takes one minute to write down three things that you're grateful for.
And, the most awesome thing about gratitude ... There's two great things.
Number one, it is physiologically impossible to be stressed out and grateful at the same
time.
Even if it's for mere seconds, you're giving yourself a chance to be stress free.
You're giving yourself a chance to put yourself in the right mindset.
The other thing about gratitude, the powerful thing about gratitude, is you can be assured
that gratitude is a wonderful place where there is a force that's greater than you,
and it's greater than me, that is always available to you in a positive way.
You will feel better.
Better things will happen for you.
It's just a wonderful way to start.
That's number three.
Number four, as you work through your day, toward the end of the day, what did you actually
achieve?
According to those goals, what did you actually accomplish?
Did you accomplish the goals?
Did you accomplish less?
Did you accomplish more?
How does that position you for the next day?
What did I achieve, and what does that mean for tomorrow?
This is part of that planning, for your next day.
Just, what did you achieve?
Take stock in what actually happened.
Then the fifth thing is, what did you learn?
Lessons learned.
Can you write down a couple, or three lessons that you actually learned for that day?
It's really, really important to take just a few minutes, a couple or five minutes, to
think about what transpired over the course of the day, and what you actually learned.
What you learned about your projects.
What you learned about the people you worked with.
What you learned about yourself.
What to do.
What not to do.
Better ways to serve your customers.
Whatever it is, and it's really, really important that you take that time to reflect for a few
minutes.
Because, if you don't recall throughout the days, what it is that you're learning, number
one, you're not going to feel as accomplished.
Number two, you're going to continue to make the same mistakes.
So, what did you learn?
Step five.
Step six.
Let's start ending on a high note.
What were the victories of the day?
Give yourself a little brag zone.
It's okay to say, "Wahoo, I accomplished goals one, two, and three."
Or, "I sold my first project".
Or, "A marketing project is complete."
Whatever it might be.
Whatever your product.
Maybe it was, "I made it to the gym when I was really tired."
It could be anything, but what do you feel great about, that you actually accomplished
that day?
Then as you plan your day for the next day, what I also suggest is step number seven,
is actually a repeat of step number three.
I think that as late in the day as possible, and I stress as late in the day as reasonably
possible.
For some of you that might be, right before you leave the office, or as soon as you get
home, or after dinner, or after you put the kids to bed, or right before you go to sleep.
Right before you go to sleep, is the best time to do this, is gratitude again.
Three more things.
That's just a great way to get your mind in a good place before you go to bed.
It's always great to feel good about what you have in your life, and what you did that
day, and what you're grateful for.
And, if that's the last thing you can think of before you go to bed, I promise you're
going to have a better nights sleep.
It's always a great thing to do, but if you can't do it right before you go to bed, because
you're going to bed too late, or whatever it might be, at least do it in some point
in the evening, and I promise you, it is one of the best bookends to the day that you can
possibly have.
Go to sleep.
You wake up a lot more refreshed, and you go into your next day in a lot better frame
of mind.
I hope you enjoyed that.
Let's just recap them for you real quick.
The night before, three goals that you're going to accomplish.
Fill in your calendar down to the minute, even if you have buffer time.
Even if you need to plan buffer time in there, just make sure you know what you're going
to do.
Gratitude when you get up in the morning, as you work through your day.
Number four what are the lessons that you, oh, sorry ... What did you actually achieve?
Number five, what are the lessons that you learned?
Number six, what are the victories?
And, number seven, end your day with gratitude.
I actually, just to make it really easy for you, I created a cheat sheet that you can
use, just to make sure that you run through, util you get this all memorized, and you make
sure you're making it a habit.
It's going to take a month or two, but you can download the cheat sheet as well.
Check out my two morning tricks for eating the frog, and also that annual reflection
guide for success.
That post that I created titled, 'How to Reflect Your Way to Success'.
It's really, really a great exercise, whether you want to do it on a daily basis, or weekly,
or monthly, or quarterly, or annually.
I really think that'll help make your days more productive, and then as time goes on,
you'll watch the victories pile up.
All right, until next week.
Hope to see you around the blog, or maybe in one of my courses.
Check out the Tips for Working Life blog.
If you're watching this anywhere, other then my YouTube channel, or My Tips for Life, Tips
for Working Life blog, hop over that.
There's lots of great giveaways, and other downloads that you can have.
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Until next week, have a great one.