4 Steps to help you refocus on your goals

Every time there is a change in season, say back-to-school, to or from vacation, change work or project, there is a natural resistant to get back into a routine. It is even harder to refocus on the habits that will push us towards our goals. Here is how you can refocus at any point during the week to get back into the healthy habit of working off a list! A duly kept to-do list will help you refocus on your goals because it is a reliable system.

In my experience working with hundreds of clients improve their productivity, I have found that the best way to assess where you want to go is at the end of the week. On Fridays, we tend to have very fresh memories of the outcome of the last days including heightening frustrations or great excitement. We can verbalize clearer (1) what we want more of and (2) what we are sick and tired of too.

How to refocus on your goals and close your week on a high note?

The best way to close your week with a bang is emptying your brain from all pending tasks to be able to enjoy the weekend, sleep better and ditch the overwhelm.
Try these steps will set you for next week’s success:

(1) BRAINDUMP – do a brain dump in writing. Set a 5 to 10-minute timer. Write everything that you have in your mind; it doesn’t matter what it is, write it. It doesn’t have to have any order. Think about all the tasks, activities, that you feel need to be done yesterday.

It’ normal to go blank in your mind the first minute or two, but once you start writing you are going to go on a roll.

(2) Write down the answer to “How do you want to feel next week?” You don’t have to make a novel out of it. Just write three powerful words. Mine are FIT FUN THRIVE. So what are your three words that describe how do you want to feel next week?

 

(3) Write down your answer to: What do you need to accomplish next week to feel that way? With the brain dump in step one above you emptied all that psychic RAM in your head to make room for clarity to flow with the answers to what you need to do. When you are overloaded with ideas and tasks that haven’t had a resolution, your brain keeps trying to find a solution none stop. The latter brings the overwhelming feelings that drain us of energy.  

(4) Start plugin what you have to do next week in your CALENDAR. I prefer the weekly schedule broken down by hours. It is time to decide when are you going to do what. And before getting overwhelmed asking yourself “When am I going to do anything?” Just block out everything that you are already committed, like, work, kids activities, meetings, doctors appointments (don’t put in laundry just yet). Block out everything that you are committed to doing to see how much time you have available.

 

If you want the template of my calendar, you can download it here. This is the one that my team and I use.

 

I created this template out of that same type of calendar that I use plus the modifications that work for us.

 

Though many people think that a schedule restricts them and don’t allow them to be spontaneous, I differ. Working off an intentional weekly to-do list gives you direction and freedom to be more creative (in my case, without any guilt.)

Start by having a plan that makes you can feel your best next week. Because isn’t everything about how do we [want to] feel? Yes, we want to accomplish all this. But is it all the craziness and the madness and the running around making you feel the way that you want. So start there. And then let’s start reverse engineering where and how are we going to get there. So have an amazing weekend FULL OF SUCCESS and in the meantime have fit fun thriving weekend. Take care.