Let the crazy begin
2015 it is! From January the 1st, I started working out my goals. I spent two days brain-storming what I wanted to achieve this year. Then I spent a further two days (more or less) dividing up those goals into smaller chunks, adding dates throughout the year so that I could stay on track…. And those were just my work goals.
Then in went my personal goals, health goals and family goals. But I didn’t stop there. I needed a way to track my tasks and keep track of K.P.I’S.
Into my diary they all went.
By now my diary was looking like the list from Hell before my day had even started. Of course then my training started with my personal goals – get fit, be healthy. This involves three-day training sessions of kickboxing and a cycling session on my own. (Ugh)
First week – I was like the Walking Dead. Everything hurt. My brain hurt with all the lists and tasks and i was tired and wanted huge amounts of sugar. The running dialog in my head was the Little Shop of Horrors plant screaming, “Feed me Pauline, FEEEEEED ME!”
A lot of mental energy was used to tell myself I wasn’t hungry.
I might add here that my new eating regime had kicked in – Two Paleo meals a day and cut out all bread!
Week two – I coped a lot better. I tried not to stress out about my lists, tasks and K.P.I’s and just slowly work through them. I did a little bit of goal assessment and scrubbed out two goals I thought I could revisit half way through the year instead. – Let’s not burn ourselves out.
Week three – Important lesson: switch social media off! Which is a laugh for me as I run a social media business. But I have found that switching it off for two-hour periods helps me be more productive. Then I pop back online to check accounts for 45 minutes only – Then another two-hours absence. I get a lot achieved by doing this.
Thoughts upon reflection:
One thing I have learnt is each of us is different and we all work in our own ways. The important thing is you experiment and see what works best for you.
For instance I know I work a lot better if I work in a cafe. I write all my columns, article and blogs in busy cafes. – The energy of the people around me inspires me.
-I like to have the stress of deadlines. I deliberately put that little bit of pressure on myself. That’s not to say I procrastinate but I spend a lot of time researching and formulating my thoughts and then produce the strategy right on deadline.
-Morning meetings for me are better than afternoons. I schedule my day with morning meetings and afternoons are for production.
So three weeks in, how are you doing?
