Well, would you look at that, it's almost February. Nearly 31 days has passed since we've made new year resolutions, goals, and proclamations that our life will be better, different. Have you been able to accomplish everything you wanted to this month? No? Well, this post is for you, my friend, and for those of you who said yes? Good for you, now get out.
REVISIT YOUR GOALS
Are your goals clearly defined enough or do they set you up for failure? Do you have daily, weekly, monthly milestones? Tri-monthly? Why you are failing them only you can answer, but I know if you don't have your goals broken down into little bits and pieces, then all you are doing is drifting without direction. Revisit your goals, break them down, and try again.
Tip: Although not free, Lynda.com has a great video with Dave Crenshaw on how to achieve your goals using these broken down milestones I talked about. Link here.
I HAVE NO TIME
It can be easy to use the good old 'I have no time' excuse. Everybody knows what that saying means - you're not serious. If you've come to this point in time and realized that the goal is simply not for you, then just discard it. Throw it away and make a new one. However, if you've come to this point genuinely feeling like you've let yourself down, then let's work on your time management.
There are several time management systems out there that will track your computer and app usage, but for the first week use pen and a paper to track where your time really goes on an hour by hour basis. It doesn't have to be perfect, but try to time it around every hour. How many times a day do you visit Facebook. Is it productive like talking to a potential client or guest or are you just looking at cat pictures? A detailed description is key and by the end of the first week of February you'll get a pretty clear idea of where all your time is going.
PRIORITIZE AND OUTSOURCE
Now that you have 7 days worth of data on how you spend your time, you can find solutions that will help you stop sabotaging yourself. You are now presented with several choices instead of feeling constricted with your time and day. You have the ability to completely remove unproductive actives in your life or schedule time blocks in your day for these less productive activities. You have the ability to decide what's really important on your list and what's not and you have the ability to outsource the activities that make you procrastinate or outright dread. You always had this choice before, but now you can physically see what's been happening and you can prevent another month like this one from passing you by.
