My Favorite Life Hack: Weekly Organization Session

Taking one hour to organizing your week makes the single biggest impact on your results.  Pausing to look from a big picture perspective, you can elevate your experience in the ways that are most meaningful to you. Create a blueprint for your week by thinking about your goals and the next best step forward, prioritizing your to do list so that you are highly focused, while making sure to carve time for things that fill your cup.  

A weekly organization session carves out space to review, reconnect, and readjust, where necessary.  Prioritizing goals and aligning them with actions helps take large strides forward consistently. This allows you to see and develop opportunities that you otherwise wouldn't have. It also makes sure that taking care of yourself is truly a priority. Having a structure that guides you through the details creates a natural ease and therefore more presence in your daily being.

Weekly Organization Session:

Steps

Pick one day per week and set up a recurring appointment with yourself in your electronic calendar (with a reminder) for your weekly organization session. Carve out an hour or so to align, sync, refresh, and renew. I recommend doing this on Friday or Sunday for the upcoming week. That way on Monday morning, you can dig right in and feel well prepared. 

Integrate life into your schedule

1. Schedule the “rocks”: appointments and things that can't move around

2. Add in time for goals: timeboxes for key priorities

3. Add in time for relationships: setup memorable moments

Review your current items

1. Connect with everything that is going on: check your 'inboxes' and make decisions to clear the clutter

2. Schedule time for tasks: block out time for items that need focus this week

3. Wrap up: close out, let go, or delegate items

Be flexible

1. Be open to move things around: if things pop up, adjust your time blocks a needed

2. Be sure to fill your cup: regularly fit in time for activities that re-energize you

3. Don’t overdo it: leave plenty of room for preparing your day and typical things that pop up

There have been many times where I have entered my organization session feeling fragmented and chaotic. By the time I finish, I feel relieved to know that everything I want to get done has time carved out and will get done in an optimal way. I feel more grounded, clear, and ready. Being selective helps ensure we experience our ideal levels of fun, growth, and accomplishment.

Other Favorites:

• My Favorite Time Management Trick
• My Favorite Organization Trick
• My Favorite Trick for Feeling Truly Fulfilled
• My Favorite Daily Mindset Practice

Metamorphosis of the Monarch

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly."- Richard Bach

One of my hobbies is to raise monarch caterpillars and protect them while they develop until they become butterflies.  The chances of a monarch caterpillar's survival is only 2% in nature.  One butterfly lies about 400 eggs and only 8 typically live to become adult butterflies.  In recent years the monarch population has drastically declined.  I enjoy helping to increase the chances of their survival.  This year I've had my largest "batch" ever with over 20 butterflies emerging during the month of June. 

The process is absolutely amazing.  Within a few weeks they grow over 2,000 times their original size and completely transform, changing to a distinctly separate organism entirely.

These caterpillars start as eggs, almost invisible to the naked eye.  I keep an eye out for any holes in the leaves of my milkweed plants.  Once I find a caterpillar, I move him into my mesh caterpillar habitat and place him on a milkweed plant that has a much greater chance of survival.  

As the caterpillars grow, they eat A LOT.  There have been many days where I had to make an emergency trip out to get more milkweed plants.  I have found that a cucumber is a good substitute for one day, in case of emergency.  They molt several times as they grow, splitting their old skin.  

Once the caterpillar is ready to form a chrysallis, they climb into a spot the believe will be the most safe and hang out there to make sure.  They then spin silk to attach and hang head-down in a "J" shape.  

About a day later, they straighten and start pulsating strongly.  They tear through their exoskeleton and expose the pupa.  It first appears as a light green milky substance.  Over the next few hours, the green darkens slightly and a beautiful gold trim appears.  You can immediately see the outline of the wings within the pupa.  

The Monarch chrysalis remains in this state for 1-2 weeks.  During this period, the entire internal contents of the caterpillar (including the muscles, digestive system, heart, and nervous system) are totally rebuilt.  They lose half of their weight due to the tremendous amount of energy it takes for this transformation.  The day before they emerge, you will notice that the color of the chrysalis darkens.  The following morning it will appear black.  It's actually clear - if you look within you can see the orange on the wings.  

That morning the Monarch will emerge.  The prior yellow, white, and black striped body has changed into a black body with white dots.  The atenna and legs are completely different as well.  The wings are folded at first.  The Monarch must hang upside down to allow fluids to surge to the end of the wings and dry.   It will take several hours for the butterfly to prepare for their first flight.  As they get ready to fly, they'll flap their wings, learning to use them.  I let them go that afternoon.  It's so beautiful to see them soar for the first time.

Monarch butterflies typically live two to six weeks.  During this time, I'll find many of them coming back to lie eggs on the same plants they were born on.  The process repeats.  The last generation of a season is born in September and October.  This generation migrates South to Mexico, where it will live for six to eight months until it's time to repeat the cycle. 

I love to see the process of change.  It's a great natural example of the change that we all go through and that is possible in each of us.  It's also amazing to see that with a little guidance and love, the chance of success is vastly higher. 

“If we could see the miracle in a single flower clearly, 
Our whole life would change.” ~Buddha

My Favorite Trick for Feeling Truly Fulfilled: Planning Outcomes

The habit that helps ensure my personal fulfillment over all others is a 90 day pivot review.  Every quarter, I carve some time out to take a fresh look at what my priorities are and set new goals accordingly.  Sometimes these goals are changing or elevating my approach on a goal I've been actively pursuing.  Sometimes they are completely new ideas.  By reviewing this regularly, I improve my ability not only to plan, but to elevate what I'm planning for.

When I step out of this Outcome Planning Session, I feel reinvigorated and ready to drive forward.  This 30 minute practice renews my motivation by alinging my focus with my planned actions.  It also prioritizes important reflection on my prior goals versus actual accomplishments.  I love to look back see the results of my intentions versus what really happened.  I learn so much when flipping through the pages and seeing my progress.

The template that I use is from my Daily Notebook and is pictured here.  The Notebook helps create daily balance, focus, and enjoyment.  When partnered with quarterly outcome planning and weekly organization sessions, it brings a much higher level of self-growth and fulfillment.

Other Favorites:

• My Favorite Organization Trick
• My Favorite Life Hack
• My Favorite Time Management Trick
• My Favorite Daily Mindset Practice

My Favorite Organization Trick: A Clean Inbox

I use action plans and my daily notebook as key components to integrate long-term goals into my calendar.

However, it is my inbox that helps organize all the details so that when it's time to knock things out, I can grab groups of information in work packages, advance quickly, and follow up impeccably.

My email inbox is the key factor in my delivery.  I have a method that works best for me and have spelled it all out here.  When my inbox is cleaned up, I feel a great sense of clarity and readiness.

Other Favorites:

• My Favorite Life Hack
• My Favorite Time Management Trick
• My Favorite Trick for Feeling Truly Fulfilled
• My Favorite Daily Mindset Practice

My Favorite Time Management Trick: Timeboxing

The key to my effectiveness of time management is my use of electronic calendars.  I use calendars such as Outlook or Google to create blocks of time to make progress on everything I want to (see Timeboxing to Maximize Output).

Over the years, I've developed a lot of methods to elevate my effectiveness with these tools.

Best practices for using electronic calendars as a basis for effective time management:

1. Plan your week ahead.  Once per week I do an organization session to get touch base on everything currently going on, prioritize, and set up weekly activities based on evaluation of my action plans.   
2. Build in time for goals.  Anytime I have a larger goal that may expand over a period of a few months or longer, I carve out two to three blocks of time per week as a recurring series.  I set up each block for a couple of hours.  This makes sure that I get a couple of solid windows of time to dedicate toward driving my goals forward consistently.  Being selective of what goals you focus on is key.
3. Schedule recurring tasks. For minor tasks that recur at a certain frequency, I'll block out a half hour or hour in the calendar so that I don't forget to do them.  I add in any helpful notes and/or links right into the invite so that I don't have to rethink how to do it every time.  

Tips:

• Using colors for specific types of meetings and/or reminders can be very helpful too.  For example, self-reminders can be gray.  Big meetings that you run can be green, etc.  Colors make it easier to see where things are intuitively as you start to associate topics with them.
• Be flexible and move things around as needed.  Schedule working sessions for yourself as "tentative" status so that others can still schedule time with you.  When you do have a conflict, simply drag the time block over to an open space. 
• Recurring appointments can be set to repeat every week day or on the last Friday of the month, for example, so set them in a way that is most effective for you. 
• Carve out 5 minutes every morning to plan your day.  Even though you have already scheduled everything out, you want to evaluate if it's the best use of your time before you get started.  You may want to move some things around based upon things that come up or drives that you have.  I have a workbook where I pick out what my key focus will be, note what little tasks I need to accomplish, and plan how I want to grow each morning.  I love writing those types of things on paper, noting ideas about them, and checking them off as I finish them.

Setting up my calendar this way brings me great peace of mind to know that everything will happen before it needs to.  It's one of my favorite and most essential life hacks!

Other Favorites:

• My Favorite Life Hack
• My Favorite Organization Trick
• My Favorite Trick for Feeling Truly Fulfilled
• My Favorite Daily Mindset Practice