In This Episode…
After yesterday’s episode where I talked about a disturbing trend I had spotted in my productivity, today I did a couple of things different to the way I have been doing them. One was an excellent choice that helped me make significant progress on on of my projects. The other… Well I’m too embarrassed to admit it in writing here, but I talk about it in today’s episode.
Edited Transcript
Hi, this is Michael Tipper and welcome to today’s episode of the Profit Productivity Podcast.
In yesterday’s episode I talked about an alarming trend I’d seen in how my days were going. That was because I kept getting side tracked. I wasn’t following the plan I’d set out for each day. So at the end of yesterday, I came up with four options I needed to consider if I was to solve this and move forward.
The first option was to stick to this way of doing things to see if I can make it work.
The second was to see whether all I needed to was write out the top three things I want to achieve for the day and just run with them. I’d do that until they’re done without worrying about when during the day they got done.
The third option was looking at priorities and the fourth one was considering whether I might need more discipline.
So what I want to do in this episode, is reflect on what’s happened today as a result of me looking at those options.
Well, I realised quite quickly the first option of sticking to the written plan for the day wasn’t an option to continue with for a number of reasons. Mainly, because it doesn’t work for me at the moment. It had became a bit of a pointless exercise. I realised there’s no point in doing something that isn’t doing the job.
I was setting myself up to do something and by not doing it I wasn’t being consistent with my intentions. I think it’s really important moving forward that I’m consistent because if I’m not, I’ll start undermining myself.
The second option was to just set the prioritised list and run with each item in order. Today I’ve done that. I didn’t plan what I was going to do when, but just started on my first task (the most important one for the day) and cracked on with it.
This has worked really well for me today. I’ve done four hours and 41 minutes on a project related to my business. Now that is just 20 minutes short of what I did the whole of last week on the same category of task.
Not everything on my list has been done today, but I’ve got great momentum on one particular project. Progress has been made in that area, so it’s been really powerful for me. I definitely think this is the way forward for me.
The third option looked at my priorities. I’ve realised I’ve still got work to do there as well. I went out last night with some of my tasks still not complete. I got back late and as a result, I was tired when I arrived home.
Therefore I didn’t do my daily review that was especially important to do yesterday because of the trend I’d spotted. I didn’t go through and really analyse and think about the implications of what I learned from yesterday. I didn’t identify what worked well or wrote out what I could do even better.
I gave myself a bit of a get out clause because yesterday’s podcast episode effectively did that for me. But that’s not what the podcast is about. I still have a process of reflect and review and I didn’t do it.
And then the fourth option from yesterday was to look at whether I needed more discipline?
Well, I think I do need to exercise more discipline. My effort is not matching my intentions and my aspirations.
More importantly though, there’s been a knock on effect this morning. I didn’t get up as usual at six o’clock like I have been doing for the last month and more.
I got out of bed to switch my alarm off and I went back to bed because I was tired because I’d been out late last night.
So I didn’t do my morning routine; no meditation, no exercise and no stretching. I feel quite frustrated with myself that I allowed that to happen.
Now you might think I’m being too hard on myself or maybe that I’m not being hard enough. My perspective is I have aspirations to be able to achieve far more with my life.
Every time that I allow my discipline to waver, I’m setting in stone that little bit of a habit that might drag me back down if not now, then certainly in the future.
Because success doesn’t happen overnight. Failure doesn’t happen overnight.
Success happens because of the small decisions I make on a daily basis. Failure happens because of the small decisions I make on a daily basis.
Today I made a decision that set me back in terms of my morning routine. It didn’t set me up very well for the day. I’ve actually had a good day in terms of getting stuff done. But how I feel about how I’ve conducted myself today is not positive. And that’s the important thing.
I can’t look at myself in the mirror and be proud of my work today because I succumbed to feeling a little bit tired and I went back to bed.
I am pleased with the overall progress I’ve made.
I can now see I might have overestimated what can be done in a day in terms of the tasks I’ve left on the table that still need doing today.
But I feel positive about the progress I’ve made on my major task today.
I think one of the key things I know I need to get more used to, is being able to suffer the consequences of not doing some of the peripheral and trivial tasks so that I get the satisfaction and the benefit of making one task move forward in a tangible way.
So that’s Today’s episode .
Until tomorrow.
