Three Step to being more productive - Part III
I know, I know, I promised you the final installment of this series on how to be more productive using my system and I have been delinquent in putting it out there. Wow, that does not bode well for my system does it - lol. That’s okay, we are allowed to move some of our to-do’s to subsequent weeks (OK months.)
Well here is the really fun part of my system of productivity and I say fun because this is where you see how all those items in your brain dump list, and subsequently in your main journal now come to life. (If you want to know more about the brain dump read here).
The point of all this is to realize some of the things you want to achieve. And when I say things you want to achieve I am talking about everything from wanting to own the Taj Mahal to just wanting to be a better person. This system works for all. And what is important and I think, unique about this system, is that it is geared towards making your dreams/goals/wants/needs into actionable items. We can all do this I promise.
So let’s get started:
From your brain dump list, and more importantly, from the sections you created in your main journal (based on your brain dump list) you need to determine what is of priority for you in your life right now. You may just have a feeling that you need to get things done (Create a To-do Notebook), and/or that you need to focus on a specific area in your life right now (Business, Career, Home). For those areas of priority to you right now - you must create separate journals.
For example, in my case, I wanted to get things done and I wanted to focus on my online business. I created a separate journal for my Business AND a separate journal for my To Do list. I suggest that whatever your priorities are - you must create a TO DO journal. Regardless of what your areas of priority are. You need a to-do list journal to make actionable items!
So, that being said, the key to all this is to create actionable items from your main journal/brain dump ideas. This is the most difficult part of the whole exercise but it can be done.
To make things more concrete for you I have listed below two example from my own lists, explaining how I have made some abstract concepts into actionable items.
Example #1
One of the items in my brain dump list was “do something different every 3 month”s. This was a pretty big ask. How did I make this happen and what were those things?
So here’s what I did. I had already moved the idea of - “do something different every 3 months” from my brain dump list to a main section in my main journal. I created a category/section called “Out of the Box”. I did this because, as I alluded to in my previous post, I knew these ideas were important even though I was not sure how they served me now.
I then studied, with more focus, those items in my “Out of the box” list. Were they really “out of the box” or were they simply out of my comfort zone - for whatever reason. I’ll give you an example. Here in Montreal, we have a company called St. Armand Paper. They make handmade paper - they are open to the public every Wednesday and will show you how they make their paper. Why had I never done this? This was a local source of inspiration that I always wanted to visit and yet I had never done this. I moved “Visit Armand Paper” to my calendar and because it was in my calendar, I moved it to my to do list for that week. Check - what I thought was “Out of the box” was now done!
Example #2
My brain dump list also included an item which is now popularly called “self care”. This, probably like most of you, is one of the areas I pay least attention to. But this time I was determined to address this lack of action. I had already made a point of dedicating a specific section in my main journal to Self Care -it had its own tab!. This made it important and meant it needed attention. But what did I mean by self care really? And importantly, what did self care mean for me? Well I went back again to my main list and found I had written things like - get healthy - eat better, do your pedicure once a month because it makes you feel better, exercise more, read the history you always wanted to read, socialize more (yes this is self care too!) These items were right there in my brain dump list - easily achievable - yet why was I not achieving these goals. I turned these into actionable items by listing them in my to do list journal as follows: Get cookbooks on better eating at Chapters, Enter pedicure as a repeating event in your calendar, check local classes available, join the library, email/text the girls at least monthly to set a date to meet. I did not list them all in the same month, instead I dispersed them throughout a 6 month period making them more realistically achievable.
Get it? Are you starting to see how your goals can be turned into actionable items?
Moreover because I really wanted to make sure I kept on top of, well, my self, I decided to track how often I actually respected the goals I had set for myself. I created a Self Tracker for myself, listing the items that were important for me in my right now. The list I made was based on the idea that I wanted a well balanced life. One that included all the things I loved in my life from creating to promoting my business to doing things out of my comfort zone. These were the things that were important to me and I wanted to make sure I was making efforts in those directions. I wanted to keep myself on track. Below is an excerpt of my own, personal Self Tracker:
I am making this available as a pdf file for you. If you would like one adapted for your specific self care goals let me know and I can adapt it to your needs. Reach out here.
If you have trouble moving yourself to get things done, the self tracker is a great option. You can see above that this is a DAILY recording of what you are focusing on. It is meant to make you more aware of where you spend your time and which areas fall short. You don’t need to track this forever. Do it for a month and then look over where you have marked X’s for “done”. Look at which areas you are weak in and then make a point of moving the actionable items in those areas to your to-do lists next month.
Actionable items are what make goals and dreams happen. It is one thing to have ideas and dreams, but unless you, yourself act on them, they will definitely not happen. We are all responsible for are own lives. Let’s try and make thing happen, as we want them to happen!!
I welcome your questions, your insight and your own personal experiences on being more productive. What methods do you use? Are you open to trying my method and if yes I’d love to follow you on your journey.
Some resources for your new journals:
To Do List - (I love this option and have used it for many years)