#1 . Structure your months and year around 3 types of days
Planning days — Those days are to ‘think’, organize, be creative and problem solve — they are buffers days for you to accelerate your growth and reaching your goals faster. Planning days are all about finding better ways, pivot and plan your success ahead by being strategic and not tactical.
Production days — Those days are meant for you to operate, take decisions, hire, execute your plan and take your actions. The thing is ff you have fruitful, Planning days, you will have greater production days.
Pause days — Pause days are vacation time, time aways, week ends gateways, birthdays etc.…These days are totally dedicated to those you love, there is no room for reading, checking emails or phone calls, you are entirely disconnected so you can regroup and reset. Most of executives and business owners may feel a need to be connected, or the urge to check on emails or texts. Resist the urge because I will assure you will be much more productive as you return.
Obviously, with great power comes greater responsabilities, and, if you feel you are one of those who can’t get away, may be you want to have a coach or a mentor to look on how to systemize your business, or responsabilities so you can at least a few days per year give yourself the gift of being totally disconnected.
Acceptance is so crutial especially when so many things are right now out of our control. Why suffering more by questioning what is not under our control ? If we accept what is, it does not mean we surrender or validate those events/facts, we simply accept them so we can actually overcome them, so they don't own us in any way. Acceptance give you the power back, it is an act of let go. I wish you to awaken to yourself a bit more, like going deeper to the layers of your beautiful self. Like you awaken to yourself further, I invite you to awaken to others too. The human kind is so rich and fascinating; never take for granted who you get in contact with, an array of skill, experience and perspective is available to you, let yourself uncover it with curiosity.
#2. Use a system to prepare your week ahead
Use a system to prepare your week ahead, if you fail to prepare you are more incline to fail to succeed. The system you can use is looking at your life and personal with a different lens. Imagine your life is organized in essence in big “buckets”. If you look at it closely you may then realize that you have 3 to 4 big buckets you are focusing on consistently. For example it may be — the relationships bucket, the business bucket, your interests buckets — that’s all and there then you can organize your week around those buckets of time. Having that system will allow you to balance your time around other important dimensions such as time for self and for family.
#3. Search for ‘white spaces’ in your week
When your week is all planned out, that’s it, you are ready to roll and execute. Now that all is mapped out, make sure you can focus on the white spaces ! White spaces are the unpredictable moments and you can decide how to spend your time on ! May be a workout, a business lunch or simply doing nothing!
#4. Create your own “custom-productivity sheet” always in front of you
If you study what you do, you always do the same thing in repetition. So studying what you do and writing it down will help you to systemize your tasks, hence create that “productivity sheet”. It can be done with word, excel or google slide. You will have big empty boxes with a title at the top — each category or box allow you to take notes and remember what you have to do in that category or box. Mental focus does not mean to remember everything, and this tool will help you get back to your actions more quickly, even if interrupted.
#5. Have a ritual for priming your day and closing your day
Prime your day — The way you start your day, will determine the way you will be productive during the day. Before you check on your phone, have a set of rituals that will allow you to gain absolute control, before you get reactive and get caught up by the uncertainty brought by the day. Allow yourself to decide on how you are going to systematically prime your day. Do it, every day. You may want to have a different set of rituals during your week then during your week ends.
Close your day — Sleep is an essential and crucial need to be able to reset and recover our brain for maximum efficiencies. As we prime our day, we want to make sure you “sunset your day” in the same way. Have a closure ritual at home or at the office. Make sure you really feel a sense of closing so you can restart the next day with a fresh perspective.
