Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday –

Tags

Energy, Interest, Meaning, Monday, motivation, Overwhelm, Simple, Simplify, time

There are so many ways and tools to plan and work your day. I’ve used Todo, Toodledo, and Todoist. After my Todo app began crashing (Google wouldn’t allow me to visit their web-version of the app, I decided to digress to Google Docs, Calendar, and Sheets. For me, this was a god send.

There’s also the To-do list itself or the daily recurring tasks that I always have, so I stay focused on what I want to accomplish each day. My big four are Reading, Writing, Learning, and Spirituality. One area I also consider important, but not as much any more is Socializing. I used to include this in my daily to-dos, but have lost interest in Facebook, and many of the social platforms. I still wish my friends happy birthday, enjoy looking at the pictures my friends post, and such, but I enjoy interacting with the community here much more.

Recurring tasks and checklists are awesome. I use these all the time. The problem: I tend to keep adding things until my schedule is an absolute mess. So, today’s article is about simplifying.

If you open your calendar up and it is literally filled with things to do, appointments, and tasks, it can be quite overwhelming. The key to motivation is setting up your day so you can actually get something done and not be immediately overwhelmed by the very tools you chose to improve your productivity. Have you ever seen a colleague spend hours planning their next day to only not do anything on their list? Much of this has to do with what I’m talking about. In my opinion, it is much better to get a few things completed than a bunch of stuff not completed. So stick to simple. Don’t put more on your plate than you can handle. This is particularly important for those of you who still work. One of the biggest considerations all of us have to make is not just the time we have, but the energy we have. If you have a laundry list of stuff to do on your personal calendar after you’ve been working all day, it is highly likely you will blow most of it off. You just won’t have the energy to accomplish all of it.

I enjoy doing little things each day that build toward my goals. Reading is one of the things I enjoy doing each day. I only have to read one chapter to check it off of my list. Do I tend to read more than that? You bet, but I only have to read one chapter. All of my tasks are set up like this. There’s a minimal threshold I have to achieve each day to check items off of my list. Writing involves writing to my wife daily, blogging, working on my book, and my journaling (dreams, gratitude, and another section I started this year, where I record my spiritual experiences and other ah-ha moments). All of this writing typically takes about an hour. Sometimes more, but typically one hour or so. When I’m motivated, I’ll write longer.

I do this with every task I have. If I open my calendar up and feel overwhelm immediately, I know it’s time to simplify it again. Pay attention how you react to your calendar and your daily tasks. If you feel overwhelm or resistance to doing anything on the list, get it off. There’s no sense in having a task on your list that you either blow off or continue to avoid. Get it off the list.

Well, that’s all I have for today. Remember that motivation depends on meaning, interest, time, and energy. A task has to mean something to you for you to want to do it. You have to have interest in it. You have to have time to do it. And you have to have the energy reserves available to accomplish it.

Have a great Monday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Small Things Turn into Big Things

Tags

Action Steps, Analysis, Brainstorming, Overwhelm, Planning, Procrastination, Small things, tasks

We had some friends over on Saturday. They took Mom and Dad out to lunch. When they got back, we all congregated in the living room and talked about all kinds of things. One of the topics was overwhelm and a lack of time. Interestingly, we all came to the conclusion that taking a complex set of tasks and reducing that down was the best option. When you do that, time decompresses.

Think about the last overwhelming task you had to do. How long did you procrastinate because you did not know where to start. With each moment of procrastination, the pressure increases, and you begin to think you have no time to do anything. This is the time to decompress time by pulling apart that big project, whittling it down to individual tasks, and attacking those individual tasks one-by-one.

When you begin knocking out these little tasks, the bigger task they are a part of begins to get easier. You begin to see how the project will be finished. This occurs when you can break it up into smaller tasks. The project is no longer daunting. It is simply a collection of small tasks that must be completed in a particular order.

Steps

Look at your project

What has to happen to finish it

What phone calls, people, places, and materials are involved?

Make a list of every single thing you can think of to get this project completed.

Each “single thing” are the tasks you have to complete in order to finish the project

If you run across a “single thing” that is still too complex to deal with, break that down too!

Once you have all these things written down, take some time to organize these tasks by time and category.

What tasks have to happen first?

Once you come up with a semblance of order, begin to knock out these tasks

Re-evaluate

If you take the time to do this, you’ll find your “big” projects are just a collection of little tasks–tasks that are done easily and without any stress. Take the time to go through this exercise, particularly when you get the feeling of overwhelm. You’ll find that this exercise simplifies the project, and will help you overcome feelings of overwhelm.

I hope all of you are having a great day! Here’s to Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

Tags

Action Plans, Focus, moving forward, Opportunities, Overwhelm, Procrastination, Resistance

Divine Spirit opens new opportunities, but we must take them. We must make our own choices with the best information at hand.—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Opportunities present themselves to us constantly. What do we do with them? Do we grab the opportunity, investigate it, and make a choice to use or not use it or do we let it pass by because we are too busy to take the time and test its value? I think many people do the latter. Why? Perhaps we are exceptionally busy being banged and bumped around by life.

Unlike the person above, another person may grab every opportunity that comes their way and scatter their attention and efforts to the wind. They run down this rabbit hole and then another, accomplishing nothing. This too can be problematic and aid a person’s procrastination. Both routes can lead to missed opportunities and add to a person’s level of confusion.

Again, I ask why? Why would one person be oblivious to opportunity and another be hyper-actively pursuing all these new ideas? Fear. Person #1 is fearful and avoids everything. They are like the cartoon Ostrich that buries its head in the ground. Person #2 is fearful and pursues everything around them, enabling procrastination. They are like a puppy in a brand-new home, running this way and that, smelling and investigating everything that comes their way. If you watch people in these states, you soon see how ineffective it is to follow either path. What’s the solution?

The solution to these problems is focus. Focused people stay on track. They move forward with their goals. They concentrate their efforts on what they must do today to move them one step closer to their goals and avoid getting side-tracked by that next idea that pops up in their head. They track these ideas, however. They write their ideas down. They capture these ideas and process them later.

An idea comes, you capture it, and get back to your work. This way you are capturing all the ideas that come your way and avoiding the scatterbrain effects of moving on everything you receive right now. This is the most efficient way of maintaining a steady flow of ideas and remaining focused on the task at hand.

If you find yourself in either of these states (ignoring your ideas or chasing every idea that comes) take a moment and ask yourself some questions:

Am I working on my goals or am I doing busy work?

Am I missing opportunities or capturing them?

If you are doing too much busy work and avoiding the pursuit of your goals, take time to think about why you are resisting action. Is the next task too big? Are you lacking information? Are you lacking the skill to accomplish the next step in your plan? When we resist something, it is likely because of one of these reasons. Brainstorm. Think about all the things you could do right now to move yourself forward. If you are lacking information or skills, look for some online tutorials, classes, or YouTube videos that could give you some ideas. Once you find the solution, add that to your goal’s action plan, schedule it, and get to work. If the next task on your action plan is too big, break it down into more action steps and continue.

I hope this helps some of you. I find myself in this place from time-to-time. When I recognize that I’m stuck or resisting an action step in my plan, I look at the step and ask the above questions.

Until next time…

Dave