Welcome back to our weekly column all about finding motivation and inspiration so we might achieve the best results possible each and every week.
Hopefully after Clark’s article last Friday, you had a little chance to reflect on the week gone by. It’s important in any area of life to create the time and space necessary for a little course-correction so we can be sure we’re headed the right way. It only takes a small deviation repeated daily to lead us to a completely different destination than we’d previously set out to reach.
So how will you spend the week ahead?
If you haven’t already done so, today is the perfect time to sit down and consider what you’d like to achieve over the coming week. Why, I hear you ask? This is so important because the chance of achieving our goals increases MASSIVELY through the simple act of putting our goals down on paper. It’s a little note to your subconscious saying, ‘Hey, this is where we’re headed, so keep a look out for anything that can help us get there!’ Remember;
The time will pass anyway. You can either spend it creating the life you want or spend it living the life you don’t want. The choice is yours.
Now the key word here is ‘create’. Now surely, if anyone wishes to create anything, then they need some sort of plan. It would be pretty unsettling if you hired someone to say, build an extension onto your house, if they were happy to get started without any sort of plan. I don’t know about you, but that’s not the type of person I’d fancy handing my money over to.
Your account balance: 1440
For each and every day this week, you have a fresh balance of 1440 minutes. How are you going to spend them? Will you spend them with your loved ones? Working towards your goals and passions? Will you spend each and every one with purpose? Isn’t it exciting though? The week is yours. When it draws to a close, you could be a whole week closer to your dreams. You could up that word count; edit those chapters; reach out to the people you need to; or make the people you care about smile. Whatever you do, I urge you to choose to do it. Do it actively, not passively.
What will you create?
Hopefully, after last week’s article, you’re a lot closer to deciding just what it is you want to move towards. Well, there’s no time like the present! Let’s get moving!
Now I know, it can feel overwhelming. Looking out at the week ahead and considering all the things that you want and need to get done can make us want to hit that snooze button another five times and put it all on hold. So I’d like to make it a little easier for you, if I can.
Plan for the week, not the day.
This has had a crazy impact on my life and overall effectiveness since I first started doing it. I’ve made massive changes that have stuck and tackled things that had been hanging over me for weeks, months and even years! Yes, it is that powerful!
So how shall we do it? Well, take a little time to consider all the things you want to to do this week. Write them all down on paper and them number them in order of importance one through to three. So the number ones will be the most important tasks, twos the second most important, and threes will be the easier things. Then take your planner and spread your tasks across the entire week. Try to have only one number one task per day if you can, then some twos, and mostly threes. That way, you can minimise the stress you put on yourself each and every day. If you need to include more, however, then give it a shot.
So why does this work?
The reason this works so well is that when we plan for the day, we write a huge overwhelming list of tasks we need to accomplish and consequently, we can’t get round to doing them all. So then we either roll it to the next day, or forget about it. Planning for the week is far less overwhelming. We can look out across the week and thing, right, Wednesday will be the best day to make this phone call because I usually have the time, but I’m not going to dump any other tasks on that afternoon because it’s a number one priority and I can’t afford to miss it. Now if we do miss something, then we can pull out our planner and reschedule it at a more convenient spot in the week.
I really hope this helps you have a productive and effective week! Let’s get out there and create the life that we truly wish to have!
As always, keep writing, keep learning and build a better book.
Peter
