Creating a Weekly Habits Template in your Calendar

Consistency builds momentum. Small consistent steps are more powerful than large sporadic ones; they lead to great achivements. Weekly habits are the best path toward being consistent. Think about the habits you have each week. With a little conscious shaping, you can free up great amounts of time and energy, and thrust your goals forward.  

Creating a weekly habits template in your calendar is a fun brainstorm session that bring clarity and inspires growth. It prioritizes your goals and provides a structure for the "to do's" to go around. These are the steps to creating one:

1. Open up a blank weekly calendar. Open up your electronic calendar and set the view to: week. Skip ahead a few weeks into the future so that its not overly crowded and set up the appointments as recurring starting next week.  
2. Design your time in a way that works best for you.  
1. Think about the typical things that you need to take care of each week and place them where they work best. Consider: prioritizing your day each morning, projects, networking, creative time, working out, personal renewal time, family time, date night, an organization session for the week, grocery shopping, etc. If you're having trouble getting started, leverage AI to help build the initial weekly schedule
2. Place a couple of time blocks for your goals where they fit best.  These are creative sessions where you dig in and drive progress on your most important goals (ex: Wednesday afternoon - 2 hours for goal #1).
3. Build in time for any processes that have recurring tasks. Set aside time blocks on days that will help make those most successful. 
3. Optimize and refine. Step back and review your time. Move things around to optimize. Are there changes you can make to create an ideal flow? Group like tasks together, take care to not overload a particular day, and leave extra flexibility on days you want it most.  

One of the most important things in planning is to remain flexible.  Remember that moving planned items around when needed is not only okay day-to-day, it's encouraged. Reviewing this template every quarter or so is a great way to reflect on what's working well and identifying opportunities to improve. 

Action Plans Accelerate Results

Collaboration is way more effective with a simple execution plan.  

Any time you have a team collaborating to achieve an outcome, an action plan is critical. It guides alignment on a unified approach and accelerates meaningful results. Depending on the size of the initiative, it can be a simple list or it can be a full blown project management system. One method does not “fit all”.  The best approach is the simplest tool for the scope of the work. 

Regardless of the tool, key components to include in the plan:

• Objective (why is this needed, how important is it)
• Goals and success metrics (what does winning look like)
• Defined scope to drive focus (what's in, what's out)
• Pilot (how can we achieve a quick win and accelerate learning)
• Key milestones with one clear owner (what are the big overarching critical pieces)
• Action items with clearly defined outcomes, due dates, and one owner (who does what by when)

Action Plan Best Practices:

• Design a team that has diverse perspectives, strong contributors, and is a manageable size (3-7 is optimal to enable speed and collaboration)
• Review the draft with your key stakeholders. Invite feedback and incorporate their ideas in to the plan.
• Load the document in a shared location that is easily accessible by all team members
• Establish standard status reporting processes and channels, including meeting cadences to drive progress and visibility across all impacted groups (working team, SteerCo, leadership updates, etc.)
• If an item is off track (red or yellow status), include the plan is to get it back to green
• Highlight progress of significant achievements and people that are making the difference 

Who Do You Surround Yourself With?

Each person that we come in contact with makes an impact on us.  The level of impact depends on how we feel about them and what they are representing to us.  We may feel a strong positive attraction, a strong negative rejection, or anything inbetween.  Either way, it's facinating to think about how a simple interaction has the opportunity to leave an impression on us that lasts a lifetime.  

The people we spend the most time with have a great deal of influence on us. We become like those we surround ourselves with.  Make a quick list of the five people you typically spend the most time with.  This can include podcasts, books, and TV shows that you frequently tune into.  What type of mindset do they have?  What are their most common attitudes?  Do they pull you up and inspire you to grow?  Do they bring you down and hold you back?  What feelings do they trigger in you?

Rather than hanging out with people who are nearby or you've known forever, think about consciously selecting your influences and what impact that may have on you.  If you aren't spending time with at least one person who serves as a role model for you and inspires you to grow, change that today.  Do some research, subscribe to a podcast, or read a book.  Bring more of that energy into your weekly schedule.  This small shift can change your life significantly.  

Summer: The Season for Blooming

Summer is the season of light. It’s warm, vivid, and bright. The days are long. Plants blossom all around. We feel more alive than ever. Play comes naturally. We find ourselves outside more.  Summer provokes fun, exploration, and vacation. Walks, bike rides, milkshakes, and ice cream come to mind. 

During this season, the potential that we dug up during winter and planted in spring is now coming into fruition and growing. It's the ideal time to nourish projects and see them blossom.  Some of the seeds you planted are already showing in recognizable form while others are just about to sprout through the soil. Nurture and develop them for the harvest in fall when you will see the supple fruits of your labor ripening.

There are several ways to make the most of summer and thrive off the enjoyment of it’s most beautiful characteristics: 

• Wake up early and go outside to enjoy the sunrise. 
• Bring some flowers in and keep plants around your living spaces. 
• Open your windows and allow the fresh air in. 
• Pause and enjoy the richness of flowers in full bloom.
• Enjoy your playfulness and be spontaneous. 
• Take a trip to the beach... and go in the water.
• Listen to the beautiful sounds of summer while letting the sun warm your face. 

Enjoy your summer!

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

Getting into the Mode for Optimal Performance

There is a state referred to as "flow" which describes that feeling when we are completely engaged in what we are doing.  While in this mode, we experience “energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity”._A1 Some call this “being in the zone”. 

Achieving this state can be tricky.  By understanding what conditions allow us to reach it, we can ensure that we are experiencing it regularly and maximize the amount of time we spend in it.  A flow state can be entered while performing any activity, although it’s most likely to occur when we are seeking to learn new things and challenge ourselves; when we feel the challenge will require us to stretch but is within our reach.

By getting “out of our heads” we can really have fun with this.  There is a part of the brain that self-edits which is called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (also known as the inner critic or the monkey mind).  When this part of our brain is active, it can lead to over-thinking and self-doubt.  There are periods of time when this is very useful, but there are times when it doesn’t serve us.  Shutting down this part of our brain during periods of creativity can help us reach a new level by letting us really dig into ideas and separating the limiting thoughts to a second round. 

When we can create our own perfect blend of control and surrender, we can truly get beyond ourselves.  A well-controlled environment allows us to truly surrender.  When we find this balance, we can shut down conscious processing, stop worrying about how we will be perceived, and induce altered states of consciousness where ideas blend together.  Pattern recognitions are increased and we’re hurled into the present moment.  By getting into this un-edited creative state while also experiencing the state of flow, it allows us to probe an idea in real-time with fresh thinking.  We can discover new ideas and solutions in real-time.

The best way for me to get there is to have a certain level of pressure to accomplish something but also have a window of time in which I can advance on it.  A timebox creates the excitement to play with figuring it out and helps me tap into a higher level of thinking.  Knowing this, I’ve built writing sessions into my schedule to allow me to continually explore new challenges, process thoughts in the way I enjoy most (writing), and take ownership of the final output.  During the creative sessions, I experience a sense of “plugging in”.  I feel a deeper level of awareness, see things in a new light, and realize how I want to apply these new understandings.  It’s what fills my cup.

By using this method, I am able to turn thoughts around and come up with great clarity. The more time I spend with a thought and thinking of various scenarios around it, the higher the level of genius I can bring to it.  Multiple reviews with a mix of creative and editing sessions, result in my highest quality output.

References:

·        Wikipedia - Flow (psychology)  _A1

·        Jason Silva on the Art of Charm Podcast

·        Wikipedia - Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

How to Build Writing Habits

Writing can be a pleasure but it can also be very difficult to commit to doing.  Writer's block is a real thing and is very tricky.  Over the last six months, I've found a little sweet spot with writing.

First, set yourself up with the right conditions for content to flow freely and to have fun with the process:

1. Carve out a regular window of time.  Have at least one dedicated writing session carved out every week. Pick a time that you are at peak performance.  I love weekend mornings. Most weekends I have at least one writing session during my son's nap time. I've got morning energy and creativity is high.  The limited amount of time I have helps to create a wonderful urgency that drives my creativity even more.
2. Create your canvas.  Figure out what communication method you want to have.  Do you want to use a blog, a notebook, a Word document, etc.  I use a blog so that I can collect all of my writing in one place, work on it when I want to, and be able to easily copy and paste later when I am ready to craft my blogs into a book.  Also I can consistently get some little bits of information out there while improving my writing.  Win, win, win!
3. Find your method.  Discover what steps you can take to get you in a mode where writing is easy and fun.  I always start a writing session by opening up a fresh browser screen and going to my blog to start playing.  

Then find the techniques that help get your creative juices flowing. I've got a few different modes that I switch between in each session:

• Creative Mode: For those times that I am at peak creativity, I don't edit my writing all.  I either jot down ideas on a piece of paper (my Daily Workbook) or create a new blog post.  The key is to let ideas pour out and get sloppy with them so that they just keep on coming.  I like to keep a collection of draft blog posts (I've got 34 right now!).  This helps me feel like I have a lot of options and reduces pressure on feeling forced to be creative  I always grab ideas that I have and save them as draft blog posts so I can easily play them later.
• Edit Mode:  I come back to my saved draft posts for a second review of the material on a different day.  I pick a post I feel drawn to and fill in what may have been left out and also clean up the overall message.  I then publish it on my blog ... The information being publicly available forces a different level of awareness and ownership.  That usually results in me finding new ways to improve the content. 
• Refine Mode:  Each writing session I review my most recent blog post and see if I can make any more improvements.  I always can.  I then share it on social media where it may be appropriate.  

Reading always sparks my desire to write.  Learning new things inspires me to share with others.  It creates a virtuous cycle of creativity, sharing, and fulfillment.

Organization Tip - Optimizing Use of Your Browser

Set up your browser to inspire you when it opens and help you find what you need very quickly.  This exercise takes about 10 minutes and saves you tons of time from searching around.

• Set your start page to open up to the tools that you use to drive your progress.  Have the first page be the site that adds the most value for you to stay tuned into.  My screen opens up to a high level action plan that shows me the critical items happening across all projects.  This helps me stay aware by seeing the team's progress and encourages me to add in any missing updates.

• Organize your key sites in folders on your bookmarks bar that are sorted in an easy-to-find manner.  Figure out the main categories of bookmarks that you need, create folders for them on your bookmarks bar, and then sort your bookmarks in them in a way that works best.  Get familiar and friendly with your bookmarks manager until you find out the perfect setup for you.   The folders I find helpful are: Tools, Requirements and Outlines, Action Plans, Reports, Repositories, Reference Sheets, and Misc.

If you ever catch yourself taking more than 20 seconds to locate something, think about how you can improve that.  An easy way is to organize your browser bar.

Timeboxing to Optimize Output

Timeboxing is a time management technique that has been proven to increase productivity.  This method allocates a fixed time period, called a time box, to each planned activity.

Organizing activities this way helps some people more easily enter a state of flow or to be "in the zone".  In positive psychology, flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.

I use time boxes to design my daily activities.  Once per week, I break my current projects into bitesize tasks and allocate them into a framework which consists of windows of time.  This practice enables consistent movement forward and a great sense of clarity.

I've found that these blocks of time facilitate a better output as well.  They allow me to dive into the topic at hand and think creatively on a deeper level about it.  Over time, I've learned how to really elevate the quality of thought I can produce by working on the placement of the boxes in particular sequences.  I've got a few time boxes that are my favorite part of my week every week.

When I use time boxes, it often silences the critical part of my brain, which enables real-time discovery when probing ideas.  I highly recommend using timeboxing in your electronic calendar to design your days.

References:

• Evidence of Maximal Adaptation to Task Constraints
• 4 Scientifically Proven Ways To Boost Your Brain Productivity
• Ultradian Rhythms in Prolonged Human Performance
• For Real Productivity, Less is Truly More
• Wikipedia: Flow (psychology)
• Wikipedia: Timeboxing

My Passion Project: The Seed Planner

Birthed out of an obsession to be organized

People often admire my ability to organize information and stay on top of so many details.  They ask how I do it and I share little "how to's" or best practices I've created.  The reality is that I have a relentless need to sort things out, understand the best next steps, rapidly drive forward, and consistently see real progress.

I am slightly OCD when it comes to organization.  I feel really happy when I can easily see that everything is organized, it all has a time and place, and I can focus my efforts on the key next step.  So much so that I ended up my creating my own organization system.

I created a The Seed Planner because I get really excited to plan out my day on a sheet of paper.  I've made various versions of this since 2005, testing different techniques and exploring what made the greatest impact on the quality of both my output and my daily experience.

I enjoy getting to work.  The Seed Planner helps me identify how I can add the most value, allows me to empty the details out of my mind, and guides my focus on the most important work to be done at the time.  I love adding color and character to my pages.  I use this tool to help me stay aligned throughout the day, adding to it as things arise, and checking items off as I finish them.  I appreciate knowing where to focus and making sure I get to everything that I want.

The real "trick" to being organized is constantly reviewing progress, sorting information, and taking action.  I check in on things often.  I have strong habits built around processes that I follow daily, weekly, quarterly, and annually.  The Seed Planner helps facilitate and improve those processes, while capturing the results of them in a keepsake.

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