Good morning my friends. Today I’m continuing to work on my planning for Q4 and there are more challenges as I move forward. The challenge is time and allocation of time.
We each have the same twenty-four hours in the day and how we utilize it is important, but this is not exactly what I mean when I say time and time allocation. What the planning calls for is scheduling out my days and blocking out certain days throughout the quarter that I will not be working on my plan. This is important because if I assume that I will be working toward my goals for a certain amount of time each day and I plan that way, I’ll become overwhelmed when things don’t go as planned.
It’s no surprise that things never go as planned so why the frustration? Because when the plan is made to work on a Saturday for X amount of hours, for instance, and I wake up feeling bad or I have an idea to go do something fun like hiking or go to a festival I’m going to do it. Now the time I had planned on working is gone and I’m playing catch up in order to stay on track.
Two or three days like this and soon I’m so far behind it’s useless to try and I’m left feeling demotivated and frustrated with myself. I’m sure there are many others who have gone through this as well. Maybe it’s why not everyone is living their ideal life, I don’t know.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, I’ve come to the realization that it’s better for me to let go and do what feels right. Some of the readers of this blog have also mentioned that and encouraged me. It’s satisfying to know that others read and take the time to respond. So, with that in mind I began breaking down my time.
Because of the work schedule I normally have (usually 60 hours weekly) I don’t make a lot of plans and I do activities as they come up sometimes at the spur of the moment. Flying by the seat of one’s pants is not a great success strategy and I’ve been doing that for years. My only plan is work. My work schedule is usually six days a week. A joke I have at work is telling my supervisor “I plan on working this weekend. Don’t make me break my plans.” Because of this, I don’t usually know what I’ll be doing two or three weekends out from any given time. Not that I’m trying to pack my life with scores of activities, but it helps when planning an ideal life.
What I decided to do, and I have been doing this for many years, is schedule out my entire day. This is something that is set on a daily basis from Monday to Saturday because I work a regular job. This may seem to be a bit of overkill to some but I learned this technique many years ago and it has helped me to become successful in my career. I’ve used it to manage my personal goals as well but this time I will incorporate it more fully.
An example of how it works is there is a ten and a half hour block that is spent in someone else’s employ. Obviously that time is taken, but there are niches that can be used to great advantage. I’ve discovered a few and I’ve used them with great success.
A thirty minute lunch can be allocated (I’ve normally used this time for meditation and it has worked great to keep me balanced). Here’s another; It takes about 45 minutes to drive to and from work and instead of seeing it as an unproductive time, I usually listen to an audiobook or memorize the words to a song that I wish to learn. Both of these are productive uses of my time since they both move the needle on specific goals that will help me attain my ideal life.
Another use of time is in the mornings. I’ve been waking up an hour or more before I have to leave for work for years. It’s a practice I developed because I feel that the best time for me to exercise is before work. It’s also a good time to read my daily ten pages and write my daily 10 minutes. That’s two goals that are being worked on before the workday even begins.
Ten minutes and ten pages is not much and seeing results on a daily basis is impossible, but in setting up the ten minute blocks of my day, by the end of the year I can see that I’ve read over three thousand pages. That’s more than ten three-hundred page books. Now that’s progress, not to mention the education that I’ve given myself along the way. In ten minutes I can write 250 words which adds up to over ninety-thousand words. Each of my novels is about seventy-thousand words, so that’s more than a full book. It o LU takes doing it.
The one obstacle that is not accounted for in most plans is procrastination and this one is not much different but it is easier to overcome with this plan. As an example, in Q2 I had a goal of asking a question on social media every day for 90 days. It was a simple task that took two minutes. I did it at the same time every day. It was the first thing I did while sipping coffee.
I received hundreds of answers from many different people and my time investment was only two minutes a day. These questions were thought-provoking and caused some people to think about their lives in a way that maybe they never had before. This small two minute practice may have made a big difference in someone’s life and maybe they passed the good vibration on to someone else. Think about it. Maybe one of the questions made someone’s day. A powerful impact fora two minute investment.
This is ultimately part of my ideal life. To spread good vibrations and manifest abundance. I’m not talking about money necessarily,but anything that is good. I believe we receive what we give. Sure, I give off bad vibrations sometimes, but I understand that when it is visited back on me that I had a part in it.
With that, I hope that you received something good from these thoughts that I’ve shared with you. Please feel free to comment and share if you would like to share the good vibes. Peace and Love to you all.
G A ZUBIA 