Episode 132: Freedom In 10 Minutes A Day

So many of us feel like we're stuck in a cycle of rush to work, do what's thrown at us, rush home, care for kids, and fall asleep in front of the TV. The secret to reclaiming your day is spending 10 minutes in the morning or evening planning it. Learn the four basic steps of planning your day to reflect your priorities. In the long run, having a great life starts right here.

Want to get a snapshot of your own life in just minutes? Take the free Prior 10 Life Assessment at www.prior10.com/assessment.

The information contained and documents referenced in the podcast “Your Priority Centered Life” are for entertainment, educational and informational purposes only, and are not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, professional medical or health treatment, diagnosis, or advice. We strongly encourage listeners to consult with medical providers or qualified mental health providers with issues and questions regarding any physical and/or mental health symptoms or concerns that they may have. Furthermore, the opinions and views expressed by podcast guests, partners and/or affiliates are not necessarily those of the podcast host. Dr. Alise Murray’s opinions and views are expressed in her individual capacity and are not to be construed as those of any of her podcast guests, partners and/or affiliates.

Transcript

(Transcript is auto-generated and may contain minor errors.)

 Hi, Dr. Elise here. We are looking at part two of Your Day->Your Life. Let's take a look at your day specifically. And just pause for a moment and think about if you can remember a recent day that just really sucked. Just pause for a moment and recall that day, and I'd like you to think about why was it just a day when that you feel like, ugh, a day you would not wanna repeat? Why was that? What did that day include? What happened exactly? And now let's switch it up and look at a day that was really a great day. Remember one of those days, and the same thing. Why was it a great day? What did it include? What happened that made it so good?

I could make an educated guess based on years of working with folks and hearing them tell me, as therapy clients and as coaching clients, about days that really did not go well.  My guess is that when you were thinking about the day that didn't go well, it might have included some or several of the following.

Maybe it was a day that had very loose boundaries. So in other words, a day where people just kept throwing things on your plate. Saying, this needs to happen right now.

Maybe the day that sucked also included a lack of planning on your part where maybe you, for instance, got up late and you just zoom, took off, went out the door,  but hadn't really thought through what the day would look like. 

Or maybe you did plan it out, but you were unrealistic. 

Maybe your day that did not go well ignored your non-negotiables. We all have non-negotiables, so non-negotiables would be things like your sleep. Maybe one of your non-negotiables is time with people you love. 

Another thing that could have happened is that you could have let your mood drive your decisions. Maybe it didn't even feel like a decision. You just found yourself on your phone and before you know it, hours of the day have poof, vanished, and now you've got people that are wondering "what happened to what you were supposed to do for me". So all of these are things that can happen when we're having just a really bad day. 

Now let's talk about what we can do to try to prevent that. Let's talk about the essential parts of daily planning. First thing you want to do, let's back up and say, when do you want to do this? I say make a decision based on when you think you're going to be able to concentrate for 10 minutes and you're going to be able to have the bandwidth to be able to make decisions. At the end of your workday, you could go ahead and do your daily plan. It could be before bed. I usually say don't do it right before bed because it is getting your mind kind of busy and you want to do things that are more boring, taking less energy during that hour or so before bed. So before bed, fine. Not right before bed though. Pick a time and you can always adjust it later. Pick a time for 10 minutes of daily planning. 

So once you've got that time set up and you've got a location where you can concentrate, reasonably quiet without interruptions, then the first thing you want to do is you want to take a look at your calendar and you want to make sure that  your appointments, your meetings are already set in your calendar. You also want to block off time for non-negotiables.  When I say non-negotiables, I mean the things that you just really feel like, this has to happen in a day.  Things like sleep, things like eating, maybe walking your dog, so that you can get an idea of how much time you have remaining.

So once you have an idea of how much time is remaining, great, now you're going to look at the things that you have to do, and you're going to choose your top three tasks, the things that are most important for you to do. So a way to decide this is to look at, is there a deadline attached to this?  Even if the deadline is not for a few days, you might feel like "I really do need to do the first part of this now so that it's not a mad race at the finish,  to get it done". So deadlines would be one way to pick what goes into that top three. 

Another way to pick would be to look at your Prior 10 life assessment areas. Now, if you're not familiar with these, if you go to my website, www.prior10.com, there's a free assessment there. And when you take the free assessment, you will see how it asks you questions about major areas in life, and in the end, you'll get a snapshot of how satisfied you are with these different areas in your life.

For instance, let's say that in the health area,  let's say that you're not very happy with how things are going with your health, then you might feel like it's really a top priority for me to make a doctor's appointment. Or It could be that maybe you are very satisfied with your health, but you still feel like "this is really a top area for me. I'm training for a marathon and I just really want to make sure that I get that training time in."  So maybe this is something that would be one of your top three priorities.

Once you've figured out your top three tasks, then you can look at additional tasks,  I know that tasks take different amounts of time. Doing a quick phone call is obviously a lot different than writing a big presentation. But in general, you can think about "how many tasks can I realistically get done in a day?"  If you have a planner you can look back and see "how many tasks did I complete yesterday? How many tasks did I complete the day before?" And so forth. You can oftentimes use that data to get kind of an estimate to say, "alright, so I tend to be finishing about six tasks a day on average." That can give you a ballpark. It's not something that's going to lock you in. And of course, some days you just might have more open space than others. With practice, you'll be able to figure out what is realistic to put in there so that you can feel more of a sense of satisfaction, because if you're continually feeling like you missed the mark, it's going to be hard to stay motivated.

Now if you have too many tasks, then you might want to check out my Declutter Your Time course. This is something that's available on my website, prior10.com. 

Once you've determined what your top three high priority tasks are, you'll want to take a look at your day, and you'll want to find time when you can focus without interruptions so that those things do get done. You want to have the attitude that these three things are going to get done, period, and do not let other things crowd them out.

Occasionally, we are going to have some days where your kid gets sick. You have to leave work. You have to go pick up your kid and spend the rest of the day at home with your kid. Taking care of your child is important, but hopefully you're not having too many of these days where you are derailed. If you are having a lot of days where things are getting derailed, then it's important to look at why, so that you can try to account for that a little bit better. 

And that's all there is to it, my friend. Just those steps of finding a 10 minute period during the day when you are going to be able to make decisions and not be interrupted; blocking off your meetings, appointments and non-negotiables;  picking your top three high priority tasks to do no matter what and scheduling those in;  and then picking your optimal number of additional tasks and scheduling those in,  and of course, allowing some breathing room so that your schedule is realistic.

Once you get in the habit of it and you see how your life is different, then you realize having a routine like this is not something that shackles you. It's the exact opposite. It gives you your freedom back because if you don't  set aside time for your priorities, other people will be more than happy to say "your time  can be used fulfilling my priorities." Other people will be more than happy to give you more to do. So being able to have this 10 minute planning period can help you to be able to know "these are the things that I am standing up for, and that in turn will help me to have a life that I love". Thanks so much. See you next week.