Hey everyone!
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
This week we are doing another Get Your Life Together challenge
and we are focusing on work and productivity.
What I'm going to do is take you along with me on my typical workweek
and I'm just going to try to squeeze in as many productivity tips and hacks as I can
and share them with you along the way.
So the first day I decided to tackle all of the things
that I've been putting off on my to-do list.
Usually when I have a to-do list,
I knock out the most important or the most urgent things first.
And there are certain items that fall to the bottom of that list
and I just put it off to the next day and the next day and the next day,
until I cannot put it off any longer.
And so sometimes I just need a catch-up day to work on
all those little things that I need to get done.
So for example, a lot of it was answering emails or doing interviews,
things that I've been putting off and lagging on.
Later on, I decided to put on a podcast while I was showering
just so I could listen to something and absorb some information while doing something else.
Some people call it "multitasking".
Tony Robbins calls it "NET time", which stands for "No Extra Time".
I've talked about that before.
I don't usually encouraging multitasking because I believe in focusing on one thing at a time.
But when it's something like showering or driving or putting on makeup,
I do like to listen to a book or a podcast.
The podcast episode I listened to was on time-chunking,
and after listening to that, I was actually inspired to time-chunk my week
and use that productivity tip to just block out and plan out my entire week
so that I could be as productive as possible.
Basically time chunking just means you're allotting a certain timeframe
for a certain task and project, and so you're more likely to finish your task
within that given timeframe VS. if you let the timeframe be infinite like,
"Oh, I'll give myself however long it takes to finish this task."
If you give yourself two hours to finish the task and you block out your time like that,
then it will encourage you to be more on-time and productive with things.
So today I'm going to shoot a video.
This is kind of meta.
I forgot that I have to vlog as I'm working this week.
So earlier I was just getting ready, listening to a Gary Vaynerchuk YouTube interview.
Took a little break to get some mail.
And then, just going to do a quick unboxing right now.
So this, I'm excited about – it is work-related.
It's just supposed to be a portable camera that has a gimbal
and I'm so excited to use it because I can take this with me to vlog
and I can get some really nice shots with this tiny thing.
It's like a drone camera on a handheld thing.
Later in the evening, I made some curry for dinner and I made sure to make extra
so that I could save some for the following day, just like my mini-meal prep.
Yesterday I posted an Instagram Story asking you guys your productivity tips
since I wanted to see if there was anything new that I should try.
So thank you much for sending so many suggestions.
There's so many good ones.
The ones that are popping out to me are:
Cut your phone - turn off social media, internet.
Do the pomodoro technique - set timers, which is setting 25-minute timers.
I've used the Forest app before, which you guys suggested as well.
There are also contrasting beliefs.
For example: Kimberley Wenya said "Do the activities that feel good first,"
contrary to popular belief because you want to raise your vibe to raise your productivity.
And then other people say that it's better to do the things
that you don't want to do first so you get it out of the way.
Let me know what you guys prefer and what works for you down below.
Focus on one thing at a time.
I'm totally all for that.
Another good one is: Just start doing your work for 10-20 minutes,
and then eventually you catch a flow and feel like doing it even more.
I actually spent that entire day decluttering and shooting my whole
Konmari tidying journey through my clothes, makeup, and skincare,
which hopefully you watched from the video from last week.
After a whole day of shooting and decluttering,
I made some curry noodles for myself for dinner,
just from the curry that I prepped the day before.
The next day is a good example of something that I do called "batching".
So if you notice, I batch specific tasks on certain days.
So certain days I reserve only for shooting.
Certain days are for answering emails.
Thursdays I usually batch out for meetings and communications.
Alright, so I just finished two Skype meetings with my team
and now I'm going to jump onto a podcast.
I'm going to go onto the "Work and Wired" podcast today.
So I'm about to talk to Ksenia, who's the host of that show, right now.
So it's later on in the day and now I'm doing a little bit of accounting,
just categorizing expenses because it is end of the month, end of the year,
and I just put off this for so long.
I haven't organized my stuff for the past three months.
So I'm going to set a pomodoro timer.
This is Forest, for 25 minutes, and just get to work.
At this point I decided to put on a podcast because the work I'm doing is kind of tedious.
So I'm done working now and I'm going to go out and do a workout class,
brave the cold, try to be productive.
Let's go.
FYI, I am moving out of this apartment end of January,
so the thing I'm going to miss most is being able to walk to work out,
to all these studios so close to me.
Alright, that was my week focusing on work and productivity.
It was kind of cut short because of the holidays.
The next day I actually went to pick up my brother
and just spent a lot of time with family after that.
Anyway, just a heads up that next week is the last video
in the Get Your Life Together challenge.
It's been an amazing ride and I'm happy to share this journey of me
actually trying to change my life and get it together with you guys.
Let me know if you have suggestions for other series that you want to see.
Leave them down in the comments below and I'll read them
and plan any future series that way.
Alright, thanks so much for watching!
Love you all so much.
Bye!