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 – Motivation Monday – Execution

Tags

doubt, Execution, Little Steps, momentum, motivation, Perfectionism, Plan, Procrastination

So you have goals and a plan. What do you do now? Execute.

Get your action steps on your calendar and to-do list, and start knocking things off. Easy right? Nope.

This is the time procrastination raises its ugly head. This is the time we execute the things that have nothing to do with our goals and priorities. Why do we do this to ourselves? Fear of failure, perfectionism, and perhaps a little doubt sprinkled in (Is this the best use of my time?).

This is the time to do what Nike suggests in their logo–Just Do It. You’ve decided it was a worthy goal. You’ve put together a plan to achieve the goal. Just start knocking out the stuff on your list. Get it done.

If you still hesitate, take the action steps you have already and break them down further. Whittle these things down until you no longer resist them. Whenever we hesitate to do something we have in our plan, it is either too big, or we lack the skills to execute the steps. It’s ok to discover this when you begin executing because you likely have never done this before. It’s ok.

When you revise your plan so that it is easier to execute, you’ll find getting started easier. You’ll also build a momentum to your work. You’ll start building confidence in yourself. You’ll begin to think that you worried over nothing and your action plan will work.

Perfectionism? Don’t let this hold you back. Just do the best you can. Execute your plan and take care of the details later. It feels good to make progress. Take advantage of that and keep moving forward. You decide when you’ve gotten a project completed. You. Don’t let perfectionism slow you down. Done is better than perfect. What is perfect anyway? Do you know?

Your doubt about your ability to do something will fade as you begin getting your tasks done. You will start to see how execution helps you move forward and your confidence will build as you move through task by task. Keep going. Use that forward momentum to keep moving. Once I start moving forward, it is hard to stop. The momentum is easier to keep going, once you are going.

Well, folks. That’s all I have for today. Have a great Monday.

Until next time…

Dave

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 – Wisdom Wednesday – Regret

Tags

Art, creativity, do it, failure, Get it done, Mistakes, Perfectionism, Procrastination, Regret

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

Sydney J. Harris

All of us have regrets of some sort. Minimize them by doing what you want to do and get to doing them. Act as if you could not fail, and you will avoid much regret in your life.

I used to be a huge procrastinator until I read some books that stated that the bulk of procrastination is caused by a fear of failure. Eliminate failure, and you’ve won half the battle.

The next contributor to procrastination is perfectionism. You say to yourself, “I want to do this thing, but it has to be perfect.” Then you delay and delay and delay some more. Why? Because you will never attain perfection. You will only achieve your best, and you know what your best is.

Take any art, be it book writing, drawing, anything that involves creativity. You decide when you’ve hit your best. You’ve decided when it is done. It doesn’t matter what other people say. You accomplished what you set out to do. And you know, the people that will like it are out there. But you have to get your creation out there for other people to notice.

When I first began blogging, I was so worried about what other people would think. Did I put enough time into that post? Are there any grammatical errors? Did I talk about the right topic? The answer: YES. Your readership likes what you are writing. They like what you talk about. They enjoy seeing what you’ve done.

Do everything as if you cannot fail, and don’t worry about what others think. I know that’s hard to do, but trust me. You’ll be much more productive and you’ll start knocking things off of your to-do list more quickly if you do the best you can, with what you have, be it time, resources, or any number of possible constraints.

You’ll feel better. You’ll feel more confident. You’ll enjoy what you are doing when you grant yourself the freedom to screw up.

Happy Wednesday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Mistakes

Tags

Grateful, Mistakes, Perfectionism, Peter Drucker, Procrastination, Productivity, Thankful

People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

Peter Drucker

Do you procrastinate? If so, one of the reasons may be that you are a perfectionist. A perfectionist wants everything to be perfect. They want their work areas to be perfectly set up, their project plans perfectly in place, their final product perfect. Guess what? These are all unattainable. Perfection will never happen–ever.

I used to be a perfectionist. It is a bad way to be. When I realized this, I began to look at how to get things done and not worry about the end result. There will always be something else you can do. There will always be another opportunity to improve. So give yourself a break. Get to work, make your mistakes, fix them, and get the job done.

When I stopped praying to the perfectionism gods, my life got a lot easier. I no longer worry about making mistakes. When I discover I made one, I fix it and move on. If the mistake is something I can avoid in the future, I note it, develop a mechanism to prevent it in the future, and get back to work.

If you are a perfectionist and want to escape the perfectionist-procrastination cycle you might want to check out this article by Web Standards Sherpa. I’ve read it and it’s pretty good. You’ll be amazed how freeing it is to just get to work and deal with the mistakes as they come.

Today, I’m thankful for leaving perfectionism behind.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – The Inner Critic

Tags

Delaying, Fear, Get it done, Imperfection, Inner Critic, Little Steps, Procrastination, Take Action, Waiting

Have you ever woke up in a funk? You know that feeling that today is going to be one of those days? Everything you do is wrong, not good enough, etc. Say hello to your inner critic.

There are many articles and books that discuss procrastination. One of the biggest contributors to procrastination is the inner critic. It’s that small voice inside your head that wants everything to be perfect before you start something. It says, “Whoa. Slow down. You don’t know enough yet. The stars aren’t aligned yet. You’re not good enough. You’ll embarrass yourself.” This was, by far, the largest contributor to my procrastination.

What I’ve found out:

1. It will never be perfect
2. Do the best you can, it is better to do something, than nothing
3. By doing, you get better
4. By doing, you feel accomplished
5. By doing, you learn what not to do
6. You can always repaint, rewrite, or redo

I could go on and on with this list. The key point is that you will never be perfect. Getting something done is better than doing nothing and continuing to drive yourself crazy as you stare at your project day after day and doing nothing on it.

You’ll never be able to ignore your inner critic. You can quiet it down a bit. Just get to work. Even if it is just one little step in your project plan, you’ll feel great checking that off of the list. Over time, when you realize that you are making progress, that little critic will stop acting up. Doing something is better than doing nothing and thinking about it. Get it off your mind by doing something, anything to move your goals and projects forward. It is a great feeling when you can look at your to-do list at the end of the day and realize you’ve done a lot of work. And it all happens because you did the best you could, with what you had.

We can all improve. We can all get better at what we work at. The key is getting started and moving forward regardless of whether the stars are aligned, you know exactly what you want to accomplish, or the finished product is exactly what you wanted. Paintings are a work in progress, books are a work in progress, anything you set out to do that is unknown to you is a work in progress. You can always repaint, rewrite, or redo whatever you start. That’s how all the greats do it. So can you.

So if you are just like I was a few years back and staring at a to-do list, paralyzed by inaction, you can begin moving forward today. Break those scary projects down into even smaller steps. Do it. Check it off the list. It really is that simple. If you make a mistake, who cares? You learned what not to do. Don’t do that again and continue forward.

I hope all of you are having a great day!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – How Are You Using Your Time?

Tags

Achievement, Goals, Meaning, passion, Planning, Procrastination, time, Waste

“Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can’t buy more hours. Scientists can’t invent new minutes. And you can’t save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you’ve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.” ―Denis Waitley

I love this quote. I remember reading it a few years ago. It was an epiphany for me. It forced me to ask, “What do I do with my time?” My answer at the time was a little embarrassing.

I love video games. I love movies. I love TV shows. I used to waste an unbelievable amount of time on these things. I’d work, I’d come home and flick on the TV or the XBOX and that was my night. When I look back, I realize how much time I wasted on frivolous things.

Entertainment is fine. We all need to relax our minds from time-to-time. When this entertainment takes over your life, it is no longer fine. I used entertainment to escape my responsibilities—the important things in life, like exercise, meditation, writing, reading, and learning. Now, when I am seeking entertainment, I enjoy it. It isn’t a numbing experience. It is not an escape or a means of procrastination.

There’s a good exercise you can do, to see how you are spending your time. Write everything you do in 5-minute increments for 5 working days. You don’t have to be exact. Just capture as much as you can to see where you are putting your time. The results will amaze you when you take your 5 recorded days and look at what you did or didn’t do.

We all have more time than we will admit. When I did this exercise, I discovered that I was wasting my life. I got up, ate, went to work, worked, came home, watched TV, and went back to bed. What a dismal unengaged life right?

What do you want to do with your time? Do you want to exercise? Do you want to read? Do you want to write? Do you want to build and run a business? The possibilities are endless. Choose the things you want to do and get them on your schedule. My first choice was exercise. I wanted to get in shape and feel better. So, I carved out some time in the morning to exercise every day. This is where I started.

Now, that I am retired, I structured my day with a bunch of activities. Reading, writing, learning, exercise, and meditation all take up a part of my day. I also enjoy reading the news, keeping my email in-boxes cleaned out, and interact on a few social networks. These are the things I enjoy doing. All of them contribute to the goals I have set for myself.

What are you going to do with your day? What are your goals? Where do you want to be at the end of the year? In five years? You can do whatever you want to do. It is up to you. Make choices. After you’ve chosen the areas you want to pursue, plan how much time you want to spend on each area of interest. Then get these things on a daily list or calendar.

Go out and find self-help books on planning, goal setting, and time management. Watch some YouTube videos. Take some online courses. You can also ask yourself, “What have I always wanted to do but never had the time to pursue?” If you’ve done the above time-tracking exercise, you realize how much time you really have. Go after this thing you’ve always wanted to do. Maybe you wanted to learn how to garden. Maybe you want to start a coin or stamp collection. Maybe you want to start an exercise routine, take up yoga, or learn to ballroom dance. The possibilities are endless.

Life continues. Time continues. Why continue to follow the same path if you are unhappy with it? You can do whatever you want to. Weigh your options. Explore. Choose. You’ll be glad you did.

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

Daily Ramblings – Thinking Thursday

Tags

Abraham Lincoln, Paralysis by Analysis, Perfectionism, Procrastination, Stephen Guise, Walt Disney, Worry

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” Walt Disney

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/walt_disney_100644

As you’ll see below, I’m reading another Stephen Guise book. This one is called How to be an Imperfectionist. It’s a great book and will help you get unstuck, particularly if you are a perfectionist and worried about all the bad things that could happen to you if you start doing this or that before you even start!

I didn’t realize how much of a perfectionist I was until I began reading this book. If nothing else, this book will motivate you to just start something, instead of wasting time worrying about things that may or may not happen in the process. Just get on with it already!

I think this is an important point. How many dreams do you have? What goals would you like to begin but haven’t? How many projects are you still thinking about doing? Just get moving on them. This is easier said than done, I know.

Paralysis by analysis is the best description I can give in this regard. It is overthinking. It is over-worrying, it is planning for doom when you haven’t even started. It’s all those things that cause you to pause before you do anything.

You want to learn to draw—do it! You want to find a companion—get out there! You want to write that book—get on with it! Seriously, folks. Stop thinking about all the problems you’re going to have and just get moving on your projects. This is really liberating.

If this is you—read this book: How to be an imperfectionist, Stephen Guise. It’s the best $5.99 you’ll ever spend. I’m still reading the book but will finish it before the weekend is out. I’ve already begun doing the things I wanted to do without reading his book, but you guessed it—I was one of those folks that would talk about doing this or that and never get off the ground. Now, I am pursuing all of it. Life is so much better when you just get on with what you want to do and stop worrying so much about outcomes. Enjoy the ride!

One of the things I say to myself when I am about to do something that is on the edge of my comfort zone, is: The Adventure Begins. This is something I picked up in the Army. This statement was a psychological trigger that caused me to instantly focus on soldiering and forget about the girlfriend or wife I was leaving, the comforts of home I would be missing out on. This triggered my alter-ego—the soldier who was tough as nails focused on the mission, come hell or high water. The Adventure Begins is a great way to tackle some of your high-stress, high-angst projects. Just get started, folks. You will feel so much better when you do.

You can even read about Walt Disney’s life if you want. Heck, read about Lincoln too. Both men dealt with serious setbacks and accomplished great things. They looked at the situation, put together a plan and did the best they could as they went along. In the end, they went down in history as men who did things no one else could do or wanted to do. They took life as it came and dealt with all the problems and issues facing them.

Were their solutions perfect? No. They were just solutions, wrought with problems, disappointments, and challenges. They moved forward day-by-day and, in the end, accomplished great things. You don’t need to be a Walt Disney or Abraham Lincoln to do the same.

Here’s what I’ve done this week:

Exercise Program:

Jim Stoppani’s Shortcut to Size – (www.bodybuilding.com) – I’ve done this workout before and returning to it because it is just a good all-around weight routine. It’s 8 weeks in length, a 4-day split with 3 rest/cardio days mixed in.

Books:

Armor, Steakley – Recommended by an Army Buddy. Wow! What a terrific book! If you like outer space stuff, you’ll like this book. Great action, lots of twists and turns in the plot, and such a great climax at the end.

Mini-habits for weight loss, Guise – Finished this book in a day. It has some great advice on weight loss, particularly the suggested mini habits to get your program jump-started. If you’d like to leave the Yo-Yo diet world and start something that helps you change for the long-term, this is your book.

How to be an Imperfectionist, Guise – Yep, I’m on a Stephen Guise kick right now. He has written some other books and I’m going to read all of them. All his books are reasonably priced (around $5.99 for the kindle version). If you like mini-habits, his first book, you’ll enjoy the rest. They all read the same but have some different ideas. I’ll write a review once I’m finished.

Classes:

De-mystifying Mindfulness Course – Coursera – One of the largest disadvantages of the Coursera platform is the timing. I like moving through a course at my own pace. I lost interest in this course when I was forced to stop doing anything for it for over a week. I am now concentrating on one of my life goals—to learn how to write code.

Codecademy – I’m currently learning how to use Atom, a text editor that can compile your code. It is free and was developed on Git Hub. I am still working with HTML and CSS, but now am working on projects that have little to no step-by-step hand-holding. This project is a basic website and the code is all my own. I really enjoy this stuff. This is particularly fun because it is really testing my ability to generate code on my own, just like a typical developer would, working with images, a technical spec, and that’s it. This is a real kick!

Documentaries:

Looking for one that interests me.

Movies:

Haven’t found any movies that have intrigued me enough to watch.

Fun:

Ozark – Netflix – Season 2 – Ok, they did a good job with this. I won’t give you any spoilers, other than it is just as good as Season 1. I highly recommend this one. If you haven’t watched Ozark, you’ll want to add this one to your watchlist.

Homecoming (Amazon) – This is a thriller with Julia Roberts. I really enjoyed it and blew through it in a few days. What I liked most was the shortness of the episodes (around 20 minutes or so). There is also a very interesting cinematic effect you’ll see when you watch it. I won’t give it away here. All I can say is this is another series worth the watch.

Interesting Apps:

Toon Blast – Every once in a while, I come across an entertaining game app. This one is a match game of sorts but very entertaining.

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Funny Friday

Tags

Don Marquis, Funny, Giggle, Joke, Laugh, Procrastination

Graphic from: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/don_marquis_107414?src=t_funny 

I hope everyone has a great weekend. I’m in Adrian, Michigan for an annual religious retreat. I will try to get something up for my Spiritual Saturday posting but can’t promise anything. We have a busy day scheduled tomorrow and I am running one of the workshops. If I don’t get something up tomorrow, I’ll definitely see you on Monday.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Until next time…

Dave