A successful day means something different to everyone. For me, it means accomplishing everything on my list and feeling like I am moving my business forward.
When I first entered the business world, I fought using any sort of calendar, schedule or written checklist. Honestly, I know it's childish but I thought it was boring. I thought it was meant to change me into someone robotic and uninteresting. As I have grown, I have discovered that this can't be further from the truth.
Creating a daily schedule and a weekly calendar for myself has changed my life and my business.
Everyone uses a calendar differently so I won't pretend to know your schedule or how your day should go. The balance of your life is yours and yours alone. But, I do want to give you two quick daily steps that have been a real game changer for me.
Daily Prep and Closing Bell are two daily actions I brought into my life about a year ago and have been life changing. NOTE: You can use any titles you want for this. These are just the two I prefer for me. Idea for you include: Centering Myself, Me Time, Reflection, Coffee And Checklist, etc.
Here are my personal definitions and how to use them:
Daily Prep: Write out (if you don't already have it) your schedule for the day and review it.
Preferably, this is in a written calendar or notebook. (It will be clear as to why you need a notebook by the end of this post.) Make a list of EVERYTHING you want to accomplish that day (both personal and professional). Of course, this list is gonna be long so I want you take a moment and prioritize it to only 3 professional items and 3 personal items. You heard me right. Just do it. Anything you have to take off today, put on tomorrow. It's important to clear it from today's vision. If you get everything done and still have hours to play around - sure. Go.. Do. But otherwise, it lives for tomorrow.
Closing Bell: Review what happened that day.
This exercise can be accompanied by water, tea or wine depending upon what kind of day it was. Review your day and ask yourself a few questions. Did your real life day match what you had scheduled? If so, why? If not, why? Whatever you do, don't use this time to beat yourself up. The whole point of this exercise is to recognize patterns. That's all. Use it to brainstorm. Are you scheduling too much in one day? Are you forgetting important topics for your business/family that you need to be getting to, but aren't scheduling time for? Whatever the result.. do not panic. This time is merely for reflection and growth. Nothing needs to be fixed in the moment. Just take this time to be aware of what is happening so you can plan better in the future.
NOTE: Both of these activities should be done in a quite, calm space. Lock yourself in the bathroom if you have to. Most importantly, these are to be done every single day. This includes weekends! Even on days where you have nothing scheduled, you should be doing these two simple activities. We need to create a habit out of this that allows you to see what is really important every single day. Finally, try and keep a single notebook or calendar for the whole year. This exercise will start to act as a journal and helps you see the big picture.
So, start now. Take just a few minutes and allow yourself to focus on what you want out of each and every day. You'll thank yourself for it later.
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