“I feel like I have 10,000 things on my to-do list and when I finally turn to one of them, I can’t focus on it because I’m thinking about all other things I should do – like cook dinner.” – A woman during a recent initial chat with me.
This sums up a feeling a lot of us have and I hear echoed often by clients. The feeling of being stretched too thin, always “busy,” and often feeling ineffective because our thoughts are pulled in too many directions.
If you know this feeling all too well (and we’ve all had them), keep reading – I have some strategies I’d love you to try AND an exciting secret I want to share with you.
First, the strategies.
I REALLY want you to try flexible time-blocking and regular planning sessions. These two tactics combined are MAGICAL at easing those feelings. Here’s what I mean:
Flexible time-blocking helps you focus. When you time-block, you protect time in your calendar to accomplish each task on your plate. By finding time to accomplish each task, you create a game plan to get all of your tasks done. When you have a game plan to get everything done, you don’t have to worry about how/when you’ll accomplish each task – which means you can focus on the task at hand. No more distracting worries like, “agh – I should be working on drafting that paper instead of this,” because you know you’ve protected time later in your day/week/month to work on that paper. You now have the peace of mind to truly focus on what’s in front of you – whether that’s a work project, family or Netflix.
Planning sessions capitalize on this new ability to focus by helping you prioritize and focus on the right stuff. If you don’t have a plan, knowing what to prioritize each day and each hour can be really confusing. At 5pm, things like making dinner seem a lot more urgent than that major work project you’re trying to accomplish – but both pull at you and stress you out.
Taking a step back from the details during a quarterly and later weekly planning session helps you plan without the day-to-day things clouding your ability to prioritize. Plan when you’re able to see the big picture, not when you’re living in the weeds. When you take a beat and look ahead in your calendar by months or even just a week to plan, you can see how many big projects you have time for and find and protect time to do them. All while getting the day-to-day things done, as well.
Yes – life happens and will derail your perfect plan – but you’ve built in wiggle room and haven’t jam-packed your schedule, so you can adapt when it does. (Scheduling everything in your calendar does NOT mean scheduling every minute of your day.)
This combination of flexible time-blocking and planning sessions is MAGICAL because it helps you accomplish more with less stress and less of that “pulled in too many directions” feeling. And your confidence sky-rockets when you have a game plan and know how you’ll achieve your priorities – and then actually do it.
If this sounds appealing to you, check out my Bright Method program here. Let’s get you some of this magic.
