We’ve all been there haven’t we? Overwhelm, stress, panic, anxiety of what didn’t get done, how little time we have, why can’t we have more hours’ in a day etc etc etc. I can promise you that all of the top leaders in your company right now have felt it at one point in their life or another. So how do you plan your day effectively and efficiently? What works?
Here’s my laundry list of what I include daily in order to achieve balance and ultimately, calm and productivity. I use a lined A5 notebook and I write out each day what I need to be doing every 30 minutes’. Sometimes I’ll admit, I find that I have to ‘next’ a few things in order to get through what is important (that is called prioritising). And what do I mean by that? If I have 20 leads to call and I am running a bit behind, then I’ll sacrifice something less important like social media posting for instance or walking the dogs in order to get it done. It’s called being flexible and being easy on yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your empire. So take a breath, grab a notebook and your favourite coloured pen and let’s get started:
- Morning and evening rituals. My morning ritual consists of prayer, meditation, breakfast, affirmations and visualizations, personal hygiene, listening to an audio book, writing out my monthly goals, writing in my gratitude journal and diary and listening to personal development audios and watching videos. At night it’s listening to the same affirmations and visualizations audio that I recorded for myself, writing out my monthly goals again (because that is what Billionaire’s do), I read for 15 minutes’, prayer and reading my Bible, personal hygiene, listening to an audio book and meditating.
- Blocking out time for my company’s training calls. This is an absolute non-negotiable for me – I suffer from serious FOMO I’ll be honest. Lol
- Prospecting calls – morning, afternoon and evening;
- Exercise;
- Going through and replying to e-mails;
- Social media time (and I set a timer and stick to it – I do what I need to do and get out. I rarely scroll);
- Industry training. Right now I’m watching/listening to Sonia Stringer;
- Eating and drinking adequately. I find I have to set myself alarms during the day or else I simply forget;
- Something that makes me feel good – for me it’s walking dogs, learning languages and playing piano;
- Personal development. I read for 30 minutes’ a day and also listen to an audio book a day but I also plug into my company’s trainings and I am also currently studying to be a Master NLP Practitioner;
- Time spent with my kids’ – playing or reading usually during the week.
I’ll leave it at that because the other stuff I do during the day probably isn’t really relevant. So now is the time to sit down and see how you can include this into your DMO/Calendar. For me, these are all non-negotiables. Of course sometimes things run over time and I need to juggle a bit, but I know my priorities are my calls to prospects, time with my family, eating and exercising. I know that I need to be doing that every single day to maintain balance and quality time accordingly. These are all absolutely things you can do even if you work a full-time job. You would be surprised what you can get done whilst commuting and even getting up half an hour earlier. Go on – try something new on for size. If it doesn’t fit, re-jig until it does fit. I’ll be honest, it’s taken me years’ to get to a place where I finally feel as though I am happy with how I create my days’ and it took a lot of trial and error. But the best thing you can do is take that first step towards getting to that place of being happy with how you are spending your time. Remember that everyone has the same 24 hours’ in a day – some waste them, some invest them. Which one are you?