7 Must Do’s to Help break free and make progress
I’m not sure about you, however for me, there seem to be a lot of recurring themes with conversations out there, when speaking with other business owners, industry colleagues, friends or someone I’m standing beside on the side of the kids’ sports field.
The hamster wheel is real and so many of us feel like we’re on it.
Each day we all seem to have so many demands on us. Often we can reach the end of the day and wonder what the heck we’ve achieved!
We’re all facing our own battles, whether large or small. Regardless of this, we need to somehow get off the old hamster wheel or life is likely to simply pass us by.
Here are 7 ideas that help me steady myself and leap!
#1: Look after You.
It’s not selfish, it’s imperative. We all need to be in a good space to make good decisions, every day.
This means, Physically, Mentally, Financial and Relational ‘wellbeing’. The odds of having all of these in balance, is a long shot but we have to keep trying. For example;
– Getting that regular GP check-up (near your birthday and also every other 6 months)
– Put (looking after) yourself first and loved ones a very close second
– Getting to bed at a decent hour, in order to wake at a decent hour also, to maximise your day
– Exercise & having movement every day
– Watching what we eat and drink. When times get stressful we tend to open the pantry and look for sugary sustenance.
– Keep learning e.g. read or listen to great books, podcasts, doco’s etc etc.
– Making sure that your current spending can be supported by your current (& short term future) cashflow. (If not, take action and speak with a professional like your accountant immediately.)
#2: Think about and define your Purpose
This is likely to evolve, however it’s a useful thing to contemplate and decide whether you’re doing what you ought to be doing. What’s your 1, 5, 10 or even 20 year goal? Is what you’re currently doing and spending time on getting you closer to that goal? It’s a good idea to write this down.
#3: The best use of You
We can all wear multiple hats — often, we have no other option. However, we can’t continue to do this day in and day out, without having a detrimental impact on something, someone or of course, ourselves.
A useful exercise that people have told me has worked for them and is a bit of an eye opener, is recording your time over a week, to see what you’re actually spending time on.
When you review it, ask yourself, ‘Am I the best person to be doing ‘x’ task(s)? If not, how can I make that work better? What can I group together and off load? Could someone else do some of these tasks to free me up to maximise my productivity and have the largest positive impact for my life, for our family’s life or for my/our business?
https://clockify.me or https://toggl.com might be helpful.
#4: Having an Action Plan, separating Must Do’s from To Do’s
Not many of us have these, unless we’re off on a road trip. Writing prioritised Must Do’s down, helps take you forward. To Do’s on the other hand are always there and you will always have heaps of them. When Must Do’s are done, To Do’s can move across to become Must Do’s. A maximum of 3–5 Must Do’s is about any one person’s capacity.
The key difference here is that you commit to the individual Actions, not just having a Plan that sits in a drawer or on Post-It notes dotted around the place.
https://trello.com/, https://monday.com/ or https://asana.com/ might work for you.
#5: Time blocking (i.e. stop procrastinating…easier said than done though)
This is as simple as it says though. I’d suggest spending 30–60 mins on a Sunday afternoon to get the coming week in order. Maybe even consider colour coding your weekly calendar based on whether it’s You time (incl. Family time/sport), friends/social time, work time (split into working ‘on’ vs working ‘in’ time), community/charity time, etc.
You time, alongside ideally spouse/partner & family time, is non-negotiable. Once it’s in the diary, only an emergency should see those time slots be moved.
#6: Be Accountable
It’s really difficult to do life & business all alone. As my old business partner used to often say ‘You need to be in the trenches with someone.’ He was and still is bang on.
Roger Federer always had a coach. Despite being able to beat every other tennis player on the planet, he still sought advice from others who could be objective, also taking a bird’s eye view of everything going on, in order to help him arrive at good decisions, strategies & tactics.
#7: Have confidence & back yourself
My thinking is that absolutely everyone is constantly evolving/learning and working out life.
I’m not sure that even all top execs and leaders have all of the answers. Many probably make it up as they go along, yet they seem to do ok or even far better than ok.
If you have your plan, then you’ll already be two steps ahead of so many others.
Carpe Diem — Seize the Day, Fortune Favours the Bold/Brave and all of that good stuff.
‘There are those that make things happen, those that watch what happens and those that wonder what happened’.
This is a quote that I first read in 1991, that I now kick off workshops with. If we want to progress, we simply have to take that step and get cracking.
It seems logical to focus on what we have and not what we don’t have.
It seems logical to focus on what we can control vs what we can’t.
Most of all, it seems logical that if we focus on how we spend our time rather than our money (or even lack of), we might just find ourselves on the path to where we’d like to be, with happiness, contentment & even a bit of Joy thrown in. How good would that be?
I don’t think that’s a bad place to aim for.
Best wishes.
[Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay]