Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Distractions

Tags

Annoyances, Discipline, Distractions, Drama, Focus, Monday, motivation, News, Procrastination

Distractions. They cause us to fall off track. They’re so easy to get wound up in. Drama with family or friends. The bad news we are bombarded with every day. The Corona Virus. The list goes on and on.

I’m not against staying abreast of what’s happening in the world, but do caution you of getting too mired in it. Have you been to your social media feed yet? If it’s anything like mine, it’s nuts. Mind you, I reduced my list drastically and informed those that remained that I do not want to hear about anything political on my feed, regardless of political orientation. I want my social media feed on Facebook to be free of that stuff. I like baby pictures, pictures of my friends on trips, jokes, poetry, good music or videos on YouTube. That sort of thing. If I want bad news I can watch CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, ABC, CBS, or NBC. I don’t have to look hard.

Yes, there will be some things you cannot avoid being distracted by. Someone in your family gets hurt or sick, your car breaks down, or heaven forbid you get sick. There is a difference between annoying distractions and real ones.

For me, a real distraction is pain. When I was having back issues, I was in so much pain I couldn’t think. That was something I couldn’t do anything about. What I’m talking about in this post is the annoying, rabbit hole crap that helps you make excuses for not tackling the list of to-dos sitting right in front of you.

Stay focused on your goals. Even if it is only one little step each day to get you closer. Those little steps add up.

Have a great Monday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Overcoming Obstacles with Contingency Plans

Tags

Accomplishment, Achievement, Dedication, Discipline, Drive, Monday, motivation

Whenever you embark on a new goal or strive to achieve something you’ve set up for yourself, you will run into obstacles. Obstacles, like my gym closing in the middle of last week, after COVID came raging back and caused a lot of open places to close again.

How do you overcome them? Well, sometimes you have to put a contingency plan in place. A contingency plan is something you put in place in case something you planned to accomplish is disrupted. My contingency plan is using exercise bands and a supine bicycle or stair stepping to replace my gym workout.

There are many examples I could give for obstacles and overcoming them. Let’s say you are working on a book and your laptop or desktop crashes. If you save your work in the cloud, you have nothing to worry about. Always plan for the worst and develop a contingency plan to handle the unexpected.

So there you go. My way of overcoming obstacles. Always plan for the worst and have a go-to plan waiting to be initiated if that worst thing happens.

Have a great Monday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Setting Goals

Tags

Discipline, Drive, Goals, Monday, motivation, Persistence, Setting Goals, SMART acronym

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.

Tony Robbins

I set yearly goals each year. Last year I achieved most of them. This year I was on track. But then…you know the rest of the story. Covid-19 has put a damper on a lot of things, particularly now that it is back. But the goals I have set that Covid didn’t disrupt are all on track.

Setting goals gives us direction. They require us to decide about what we want to achieve. Once we’ve done this, however, we are on autopilot.

If you’ve never set goals before, just keep in mind the SMART acronym. This acronym stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. If you’d like to read about it and watch a short video, here is the link.

I think the most important benefit I receive when I set a goal is the ability to see where I am and how to finish the rest of the journey. Try it out. You won’t be sorry.

Here is my week:

Physical – I will concentrate on shoulders this week. Every day I will exercise shoulders and do nothing else (See workout routine)

Mental – Learn, read, write, and journal

Spiritual – read my Bible, do my spiritual exercises, do my discourse work, and share my goodwill to all

Social – post uplifting quotes and articles to my social media feeds, interact with friends and family wherever possible

That’s it for today, folks. Have a great Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of June 15, 2020

Tags

determined, Disciplined, Driven, focused, Monday, motivation, Pumped, rituals

Here we are again, folks. It’s Monday!

I hope all of you had a great rest this weekend. I know I did. My “Do Nothing Day” (Sunday) was relaxing beyond belief. I napped and it felt really good!

Here’s the game plan for my week:

Physical – Exercise daily (See Workout Routine)

Mental – Writing Course daily, Codecademy daily, Reading Daily, Writing Daily

Spiritual – Spiritual discourse work, spiritual exercises, read my Bible (all daily), Dream Journal daily, Gratitude Journal daily

Social – Post uplifting quotes, poems, and other uplifting content, daily, help the folks when needed, stay in touch with extended family and my friends

Have a great week, folks! Here we go!!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Keep Going

Tags

Churchill, Keep Doing, Keep going, Keep Moving, Keep Writing, Monday, motivation, Persistence

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

There’ll be times that anything you do will be painful. You just won’t have the drive to do anything. Even the things you love will be painful. I don’t know if you’d call this depression or another psychological concept, but this happens to everyone from time-to-time.

What do you do? Keep going.

These changes in mood are part of the human condition. Keep going. You’re writing a book—keep writing. You’re trying to lose weight—keep moving. Whatever you are doing—keep going.

The mood you’re in will leave as quickly as it arrived. Keep going.

Have a great Monday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of April 6, 2020.

Tags

Daily activities, Mental, Monday, motivation, Physical, rituals, Social, Spiritual

Here we go, folks! Start your engines!!

Weekly schedule:

Physical (Exercise daily)

Mental (Coursework daily, Book writing daily, Read a chapter a day)

Social (Post to this blog daily, share quotes and articles daily, and stay in touch with friends and family via social media or phone)

Spiritual (Religious Discourse work daily, Spiritual Exercise daily, and read my Bible daily)

Relaxation (Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Curiosity Stream, and Xbox Games)

Have a great week, everybody!!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Compensating

Tags

Attacking the Week, Compensating, Do What you Can, Making Adjustments, Monday, motivation, sticking with the plan, Tracking Results

One of the hardest time to be motivated is when I’m sick. Last week, I did most of the things I set out to, but put a lot of it on hold to recover. So, here we are! I’m finally over this cold. I still have remnants of sickness, still blowing the nose and the like, but the difficult part is over. I attribute this to knowing what to do to take care of myself.

The first thing I did was turn off exercise. There’s no sense in it. You go to some popular websites and they talk about driving through, or continuing to exercise, but honestly, it just doesn’t make any sense to me. When you get sick, your whole body is in a war with the virus or bacteria that broke through. I believe the best way to fight this is to go to a doctor (if needed), get the necessary drugs or OTC medicine, get plenty of rest, drink a lot of water, and stick with the regimen of less is better when you’re sick. For me, this works. For others, going to the gym and continuing with their exercise regimen works for them. Enough said.

This week, we’re back on track. Here’s my schedule:

• Reading daily
• Working on my Fiction Book daily
• Exercise (but taking it easy) daily
• Learning daily (currently taking an MS Publisher course)
• Coding daily (Python is the language I’m learning)
• Meditating daily
• Blogging daily
• Posting quotes and articles to Social Media daily

This is it for the week, folks. I hope everyone is having a great week so far. Happy Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Reading Motivation Articles

Tags

Flipboard, Google News, Life Hacks, Monday, motivation, Motivation Articles, Pocket

Happy Monday! I wanted to write briefly about articles you can read about motivation that could help you find a new way of doing things. If you’re like me, you don’t like being an automaton. You like shaking things up from time-to-time. If this describes you, high-five! You and I are in alignment.

What are some good sources for articles on motivation? I use two. The first is FlipBoard. It is an app you can download to your phone, and it is a website. It is free. You simply create an account, select some preferences, and you’re off to the races. The second is Pocket. Pocket is free, and it collects articles from all around the web. It doesn’t categorize like FlipBoard, but it does allow you to save articles you enjoy, so you can return to them later. Both FlipBoard and Pocket also allow you to share great articles with your social networks.

Here’s an article I found that provided some great ideas for improving your productivity for the week. It is titled: 5 Tips for a More Productive Work Week. It took me less than a minute to find. Here are the main tenets of the article.

1.  Make a Morning Routine That Guides You
2.  Save Up Your Busywork
3.  Lean on a Tomato for Motivation
4.  Take Meetings During Your Slump Time
5.  Throw Out Any Productivity Tip That Doesn’t Work for You

I do most of the things suggested by this article already. You may not do these things already and may be interested in adapting some things to your schedule. This is why I read about motivation, productivity, and efficiency articles each week. It is because I never know when the next great idea will be shared by someone that I can introduce into my unique workflow.

I am always looking for the next hack or improvement I can add to my daily workflow. Try Flipboard or Pocket. You won’t be disappointed. Here are the links for both of these services:

https://flipboard.com/

https://app.getpocket.com/

I have used both of these article sources for years. I highly recommend them. Sometimes I get lucky and find a great article in the news. I use Google News. You may like your local paper or Apple News or some other news service. Whichever one you use, scan through it and see if there is anything interesting to you. You never know!

Here is my schedule for the week:

Monday – Sunday

• Blog Post Daily
• Write Section of my Book Daily
• Exercise Daily
• Spiritual Exercise/Meditation Daily
• Read a Chapter of a book Daily
• Study with my Wife for Her Teaching Credential Daily
• Coding Course Daily
• NLP Course Daily
• Writing Course Daily
• Watch Netflix, Amazon Video, or Vudu (entertainment) Daily
• Play an Xbox, iPhone, or PC game (entertainment) Daily

I wish all of you a terrific Monday!

The article I read is below. Click on the link if you are interested in reading it.

Until next time…

Dave

Reference

Duffy, J. (2019). 5 tips for a more productive work week. Retrieved from: https://www.pcmag.com/article/370875/5-tips-for-a-more-productive-work-week