I was recently reminded of a quote by Aristotle. “Well begun is half done.” In this particular season of my life, this has become an important principle. As the year is beginning to wrap up, I have found myself with a tremendous amount of projects with quick successive deadlines. It’s kind of the ebb and flow of life, but this time of year things always get a little more hectic for us. And it’s at this stage that I’m very grateful for the principles that here and elevate your results we implement. I’ll be the first to admit that there’s no real right answer to how you plan and execute your goals. More important than any specific principle or technique is to just do it. But I thought I would spend a few moments sharing my process. How do I take a multitude of projects with successive deadlines and manage my day so that I can make sure that each of those projects is being completed on time.
First, I’m a creature of habit. I like to have my day be as repetitious as possible while allowing myself to be flexible. I start that repetition with my morning routine. My morning gets kicked off at 4:00 in the morning. For me, this is the best time. When no one else is up, there’s no other activity for me to begin my daily processes. Step one for me is to focus on my health and go to the gym. I go to the gym. I spend between 45 minutes to an hour there. I do this at least five. I attempt to do it six, but at least five days a week.
When I return home from my workout, I spend a few minutes doing my daily routine of making coffee and fixing myself something for breakfast. I don’t spend a tremendous amount of time in this part of my day, but I do find that it’s very important for me to focus on that process. First, I force myself to eat and I try to eat something healthy. Typically it’s going to be 3 eggs, and two pieces of bacon. Some could argue that that’s not the most healthy of meals, but it is part of my repetitious attempt to balance myself. But more than anything, it’s the process of making my breakfast and consuming my breakfast to end my workout and get my mind prepared and slowed down so that I can then move into the next part of my day.
The next part of my day is more focus on me, but this time more on my mental state. I spend time in front of my computer most mornings doing research on a multitude of projects as well as writing and posting articles.
I’ll spend anywhere between an hour, hour and a half two hours on this part of my day. And once this is completed, then I’m ready to move on to tackling other larger projects. My wife and I are in the process of managing multiple businesses and managing multiple projects within those businesses and it is extremely important that we are able to stay grounded and move forward to make sure that we’re successful in all of our projects.
In the US, the average male lives 74 ½ years. That comes to 27,192 ½ days. Me, specifically, as of today, I am 47 years old. I have lived 17,312 days. That equates to 63.7 percent of my life expectancy. For females in the United States, the average life expectancy is 80.2 years or 29,273 days. I can’t control what was done during the 17,312 days that I have lived but what I do with those days remaining becomes more and more important to me.
If I had to come up with my life’s theme that I love to share with others, it’s this, “We have one life and we don’t get any of it back.” So, it’s important that we move through our day with a plan. I treat every day using a simple goal-setting process. I break this down into four simple steps. These four simple steps are what I do for each of my days. First, define your goal. How does this look for me on a daily basis? I know what my ultimate goals are, my long-term plans. I know what that success looks like because I have spent detailed time defining that success. And I know that I cannot achieve success for most of my goals today. So every day I am going to be focusing on the steps that I need to take that will move me toward success in my goals.
Once I have these daily steps defined, my imperative steps, I create a plan of action for each steps. So what is my day going to look like and when am I going to accomplish each of those steps? This is where the old faithful calendar comes into play. I’m going to write down on that calendar in 15-minute increments what I’m gonna be doing to accomplish my plan of action toward those imperative steps.
Up to this point, it’s just planning. Once again, as Aristotle said, “Well begun is half done”. But once I have my planning in place, I then move forward to taking action.
So let me back up to my morning routine. My morning routine is planned. I know that every morning I’m going to get up early enough to be at the gym at 4:00 o’clock. I know that every morning I’m going to spend 45 minutes to 1 hour at the gym and come home to fix breakfast. I know that typically that breakfast is going to be three eggs and two pieces of bacon. I know that I’m going to drink coffee and eat my breakfast which typically takes me, from the beginning of that process to the end, between 20 and 30 minutes. I know, because of my daily plan, that once I have gone to the gym, come home fixed and ate my breakfast, and drank my coffee I am going to spend time on research, writing articles, and sometimes just zenning for a few moments before I get started with my day.
Now it’s important to note that once I get started on my day, I don’t just then start the planning process. I actually finish that the day before, looking forward to what my day looks like for tomorrow. So as I open up my calendar today, as I open up my planning tools today, I know from the exercise of closing my day yesterday what my imperative action steps are, what my plan of action is, and at this point I can start my day off by simply taking action.
Now I made a comment earlier that I attempt to be flexible. Being a creature of habit is important, in order for me to achieve success, that I learn to be flexible. So even though I planned in advance the day before to accomplish specific steps and action plans today doesn’t mean that other things will not happen, because at some point in every day you will need to pause your plan, redirect and go through the steps of determining what you need to accomplish, what success looks like, creating a plan of action, and then taking action or execute your plan on projects that are nowhere on your radar at the start of the day.
The key to this is that I deliberately start my day. This allows me, when I have new projects that land on my desk, that I can follow these steps on a daily basis or frequently during the day to create a plan and start executing. One of the keys for me is to always remember to keep everything in balance. Some days I might have to focus more on a particular project for a client. And some days I’ll have the ability to spend more time with my wife and family. Some days I’ll be more social and other days I will spend more time budgeting and preparing for a financial future and success. At the end of the day, it’s about balance, and the only way that I have found to be balanced in all of my areas of life is to define goals in each area, make a plan of action in each of these areas, and take action. So each day I am trying to focus on every area of my life. I start my day by being healthy and focusing on my mental clarity. I then start my day and work toward the goals that are related to my financial success and future. My wife and I love to travel, so we make sure that we make that a priority.
I mentioned earlier that there was really no right or wrong way to accomplish our goal. But it’s an area that I struggled with early in my life and the tools that I share are tools that I, and Amy, have found to shorten the runway for us to attain success in whatever we choose to accomplish. If you’re anything like me earlier in your life or midlife or later in your life, you’ve struggled to be consistent with a plan, consistent with setting goals and making a plan of action and taking action. If those have been things that you’ve struggled with, then reach out to us at Elevate Your Results. We would love to be a part of your success journey.