in this video i want to look at little ways that you can change how you approach your
days how you approach your routines how you approach your habits that will change the way
that you live your life because after all how we start our day can change our mindset like
up until dinner time how we approach our work can impact how we feel throughout our entire days and
how we design our routines can shape our years number one this has had a significant impact in
how i approach my days and it's more focused on a shift in the way that you think you might have
heard the saying it's a bad day not a bad life drill down on that even further and start breaking
your day up into sections if you muck up your morning that's okay like it's just the morning
part of your day you have three more sections of the day to go i like to create checkpoints in my
life as many checkpoints as i can and the most often overlooked are those sections within your
day this is advice that i originally read from gretchen rubin in james clear's newsletter and
she said instead of feeling like you've blown the day and thinking i'll get back on track tomorrow
try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters morning midday afternoon evening if you blow one
quarter you get back on track for the next quarter fail small not big i like to think of
this in a way that doesn't focus so much on being on track and being on task but also focuses on how
you feel if you had this morning where you just peppered yourself with all of this self-criticism
then you can hit your mid-morning checkpoint and ask how can i recalibrate for the rest of the day
if you have an afternoon or you're feeling really blur and you end up on tick tock instagram twitter
you can hit your evening checkpoint and ask how can i recalibrate for the rest of the day how
can i take care of myself going forward number two introduce interstitial journaling or mindful
productivity interstitial journaling is a concept created by tony stubblebine it is a mindfulness
practice that makes it easier to move forward on your to-do list and it reduces blocks within your
day to practice interstitial journaling at the start of your day open up a new note in notion in
rome or even just in a blank notebook start your first work sessions this aligns really nicely with
pomodoros where you work in bus and then you break between each task take out that note jot down the
time and write down a few sentences about what you got done how you're feeling and what you are going
to do next outlining the first action that you're going to take sebastian marshall from ultraworking
actually developed a very similar concept before interstitial journaling and he calls
it work cycles on their website they have a lot of testimonials that say things along the lines of i
was pleasantly surprised to find that i was three times more productive than i usually might be
the work cycles method is more structured it has reflection questions that you ask yourself before
and after a work session things like what am i trying to complete how excited am i about
this task where's my energy levels sitting and what distractions came up how can i do better
in my next cycle this is a technique for anyone but particularly for people who procrastinate
who find themselves getting distracted who have trouble focusing it's something to use when you
want to create more freedom in your day don't use it as a way to just load more tasks on your plate
use it as a way to be mindfully productive that you're making the most out of the time that you've
already allotted to working and getting things done number three ask yourself does each item on
my to-do list come with a context and then ask yourself do i actually have time set aside to
work on each context in my to-do list bear with me there are examples coming an example of a to
do with a very clear context is pick up bananas at the grocery store so the reason this has a clear
context is because when you're writing that down you're not thinking like when am i gonna get to
that when's that actually gonna happen you're like yeah i know that on friday or saturday
i'm going to be going to the grocery store and in the grocery store there will be bananas and
i will pick them up with doing my grocery cart and tick off that to do the context or situation
where you're going to tick off that to-do is when you're doing the grocery shopping and you know
that that context is going to come up an example of to-do's without real context are to-do's like
the ones that i used to write pre-life admin days so a while ago now if i saw a small to-do around
the house like a curtain that needed to be washed i would write it down as per the top productivity
advice capture all of the things that come across your mind at this stage you guys have seen me do
hundreds of to-do's just like that in my life admin day videos adding privacy screens to the
courtyard door setting up my hard drives moving around picture frames but back in the day these
things just would never get done i had work to do i had fun things i wanted to do i had goals
that i wanted to work on that felt far more important than all of these little things that
would eventually build up over time and become annoyances then i introduced life admin days now
whenever i write down something little in my home that needs to get done even a little errand that
i need to run someone that i need to call i know that if i don't get to it like during my weeks but
i'm going to get to it on a life advent day which is something that i do every month to two months
the context of those tasks becomes life admin days that is the situation in which i know that those
tasks will get done and it's a situation that i actually have scheduled on my calendar that i know
is going to happen in the getting things done at david allen world he talks about context like home
and work with an assumption that doesn't apply to me that if you're at home you're going to whip out
your home list on a weekend and just run through all of these little tasks to do around the house
my home context was far too strongly associated with like chilling out with my partner having a
cup of tea hanging out with my sister literally doing nothing not getting annoying things around
the house done as it should be creating themed context for me usually looks like having themed
days or themed weeks for example a planning day a thinking day you might have a goal sprint week
a life admin day a gist day it doesn't really matter what these days or weeks are called so
long as you know that they are recurring in your life and that you're going to land yourself in
those contexts that you can address the to do's that are part of those contexts at some
point and sometimes these contexts just represent headspaces that you need to plan to be in without
real context you'll find yourself writing down to-do's that simply never get done they just live
on your to-do list forever sometimes that's not a bad thing if they're not meaningful to
jews if they're not to do's that when not done will not impact your life but sometimes they're
important to-do's that need to be addressed at some point in time if you don't have a context
for them they simply won't be addressed before i get into the next little upgrade to make this
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flexible here is how you are going to do this draw up a table that looks like this in canva on paper
it doesn't matter on the top write three habits that give you a similar reward so for example
meditate walk watercolor all three of those things at least for me create a sense of mindfulness this
is your habit menu each day you can look at this and ask yourself which one of these do i feel like
doing today on the left hand side write down low medium and high this is a measure of your energy
your time available and your engagement levels so how interested you are in doing the thing to
fill in the blanks write a tiny version of each of those habits on at the top line write a standard
version of the habits on the middle line write a slightly more over the top version of the habits
on at the last line so firstly you get the ability to ask yourself what do i feel like doing today
this gives you a bit of variety and makes your days more interesting then ask yourself how am i
on time on energy and how engaged am i in the idea of doing this everything's on the low end of the
scale you can choose the tiniest version of that habit if everything's on the high end of the scale
then you can do the over the top version of that habit this allows you to choose your habits with
self-compassion with the idea in mind that you are a human being that needs variety that needs change
and that sometimes has off days and sometimes has really high energy days this is a slightly
modified habit system of the system that is in elastic habits by stephen guys and i actually have
a book guide to that book if you are interested in my app intention that you can download down
below if you liked this video you'll probably like my thinking habits playlist a playlist of all the
videos on the small mindset shifts that i've made that have improved my life i'm gonna have that
on the screen and down below i appreciate you so very much and i will see you soon