Your Perfect Week & An Invitation

What if I told you that a little structure could bring A LOT more freedom into your life and by freedom, I mean time. If you are like most entrepreneurs you may be a little hesitant... but by structuring your week and creating boundaries between work and life, focusing on the tasks that make the biggest impact in your business, and following the rules you have set out for yourself you can actually reduce the amount of time you’re working AND get more things accomplished.

If you’d rather watch a video on this topic check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/CreatedFutureAcademy/videos/314798442633885/

What you want, versus what you say you want...

I used to say that I wanted to learn to speak french, but speaking french never ended up on my calendar.. So guess what? I never learned French. It was something that I said I wanted, but it wasn’t important enough to me to actually do it. What ‘French’ do you have in your life and business? If it really is important to you we need to put some time on the calendar to make sure it actually gets DONE. What you say you want, if you actually want it should have a designated place on your calendar THIS WEEK and every week.

For most of us, when a new priority or even a fun activity is presented to us we tell people we are too busy to participate, when we really just don’t want to. And if we don’t want to, we shouldn’t. Your time is a limited resource, and you should treat it accordingly. But what happens when the thing being presented to you is something that you consider a priority, and is something we say we want?

By simply changing our language from “I am too busy” or “I don’t have time” try saying “that isn’t a priority for me” even if it is just to yourself. This will help you make the decision if these activities are important enough for you to make the time, or just not priorities. It will also remind you that how you use your time, is a choice.

So what does all of this have to do with a perfect week and how can you create one?

A perfect week is one where you make time for all of your priorities. Below I will show you exactly how to create one.

First, download your Perfect Week Template so you can follow along.

1. Insert the times along the right hand side with a couple of hour increments. You will be SO tempted to start filling in your upcoming weeks calendar with your appointments, meetings and client work. PLEASE Refrain! We will get there. I promise.
2. Put in your family time & time with your partner. These things that are important to you, things you MAKE time for, rather than finding what’s left of your day and energy.
• Family Dinner
• Date Night
• Fun Activities
3. Self Care. Things like meditation, reading, working out, journaling should go in next. A great way to incorporate a lot of these elements is by establishing a morning routine that includes your version of self care.
4. If you didn’t already, make sure you put your bedtime and your wake-up time on the calendar. These are your boundaries for the day, don’t be tempted to give yourself more time at the end of the day to work. Parkinson’s Law states that ‘work expands  so as to fill the time available for its completion’ so if you give yourself more time at the end of the day to complete your work, it is going to take that long. BUT, if you give yourself a deadline… you will force yourself to complete your task within that time frame.
5. Now, WORK. Put in any client appointments, meetings, 'deepwork' and distractions
• Your deepwork should go on your calendar for that time during the day where you feel most productive, alert and focused. This time should be utilized to get your most important task of the day completed.
• Distractions is referring to work that takes you ‘out of the zone’ things like email or social media. They are important to do, but if you start them you could end up down a rabbit hole or find yourself constantly checking for updates. If you schedule time to check these, and refrain from looking throughout the day you will be far more productive with your time.
6. Make sure your completed calendar is aligned with your priorities. Whatever your top priorities are in your life and business, they should be reflected in your perfect week calendar. If anything is missing, go back and add it to the schedule.

Have you heard the analogy about the big rocks? Originally illustrated by Stephen Covey, picture a glass vase on the table. Next to the glass there are big rocks, gravel, sand and a cup of water. If you imagine that vase as the amount of time you have in a day, how would you most effectively put in the items?

The big rocks are your main priorities, the gravel represents your daily responsibilities, the sand represents interruptions or distractions in your work, and the water is all the firefighting that comes up during your workday.

Most people will fill that vase up with water first, come into their day unprepared and fight whatever fire is waiting for them, then add in the sand and get distracted by email or social, the gravel goes in next with meetings and appointments and the vase is full before you have completed any of the main priorities.

What if you put in the big rocks first? What if you planned your day where the things that are most important to you were represented on your calendar each and every day. There would still be room for the rest in the vase.

Make sure those big rocks are represented on your calendar.

And I will even do you one better, if you want to work on one of those main priorities during a designated time, join me on Wednesday September 26 on a zoom call live from 10am CT to 1pm CT to work on your #1 priority for the week. It is completely free and I would love to see you there. 

This isn’t a workshop or training session just 3 focused hours where you can get things done. I will kick off the session by asking everyone what they are working on and we will get cracking!  

Here are the deets:

Topic: Implementation Sprint

Time: Sep 26, 2018 10:00 AM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/870425730

Or iPhone one-tap :

   US: +14086380986,,870425730#  or +16468769923,,870425730#

Or Telephone:

   Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location):

       US: +1 408 638 0986  or +1 646 876 9923

   Meeting ID: 870 425 730

   International numbers available: https://zoom.us/u/av6iqRB0L