What would your day look like if it ran perfectly? Pick a weekday, weekend, or a work day. Think through the day: What time would you wake up? How long would it take for you to get out of bed, what would you do first? Would you check your phone, or would you get up and go for a walk? What about stretching when you wake up? What would you eat or drink to fuel yourself? How would your body feel with your choices? When would you ready yourself for the day and what would be the best way to go about it? Now think through the productive part of the day - would you work or work out? Would...
What is your energy level right now? Do you feel like a hummingbird, sloth, grizzly bear, worker bee, or something else? Take time to think through how your body physically feels. Scan your body, posture, gut, breathing, head/neck/shoulders. Are you carrying pain or tightness? Are you breathing shallowly instead of taking clean, deep breaths? Are you holding tension in your back? Are you bouncing and fidgeting out of boredom or anxiety? Mark the spot below that feels most like your energy right now. energy image here What about your mental energy? Is it early in the day, mid-day, or late at night? How awake are you? Is this a good time for focus, or are you winding down from a...
Revisiting: Plan for the long term. Macro-level thinking is long-term and big goal-focused. Micro-level thinking is the small steps that build a foundation towards the bigger goal. These close-up, detailed views are important because they help you make lists, check off to-do’s, and make slow, steady progress. Now that you are further along in the year, have learned about micro and macro level planning, you can add more context to your plans: When planning your long-term project, use these two different levels/views to set milestones and keep yourself on track. Start with the macro view. Find today’s date and mark it as your starting point. Mark the date your project is due or when you want to accomplish your goal. Check how...
The words “sit still” might bring up memories of younger years and unmet expectations from the adults in your life at the time (but stay with us here for a minute). Intentional moments of stillness are good for your brain and body. These moments help the neural pathways that fire between your brain and body connect. Deliberate stillness helps increase your awareness of mindless fidgeting and movement. This creates endurance in your ability to focus. Some work islike a marathon; your brain and body are an endurance athlete, so think of this as marathon training. Make an effort to sit still as you do things that don’t require movement, like listening to podcasts, reading a book, or sitting at meals. Think about...
How is it going? We are going to take a few minutes to think about what has gone right since starting this planner and the skills introduced. Identify a day or week that felt particularly good and consider what you did that week that made a difference. How can you have more days or weeks like that? Did it help to have a number or marker of progress towards a goal? What made you feel motivated? Review the list of skills we’ve covered so far: Setting up a schedule that works Checklists Macro-planning vs Micro-planning Accountability planning Brain Dumping Check-out vs Re-charge Pre-planning for future schedule Re-charge practices Starting a new habit The trick to stopping a 'bad' habit Redefining self-care Habit bundling and improving...