This week has been one of the most productive weeks I’ve had in recent memory, all because I grabbed control of my schedule and started getting organized. As a relatively new business owner, I was quickly getting in over my head, and the feelings of being overwhelmed were starting to take over. So I decided to do something crazy and started taking my own advice.
In our YouTube videos, I talk a lot about inspiration, motivation, and action and how you need all three to make any kind of meaningful transformation in your life. In fact, that’s how we came up with the acronym for IMPACT: Inspiration, Motivation & Persistent Action Creates Transformation. We believe making an IMPACT leads to a Full Life (or IMPACTfull Life). But I quickly realized I better start walking the walk if I’m going to be talking the talk.
So the frog I needed to eat this week (thank you Brian Tracy) was getting my schedule organized and putting some systems in place to be more productive moving forward. If you have ever dealt with that feeling of being in over your head, you know what I’m talking about. You start wondering if you’ll ever be able to catch up.
Well, I can tell you that it is possible, but you must be willing to stop to evaluate and then make some changes. I decided to start by reviewing my flight plan, a concept I first read about on Hugh Culver’s blog (check it out here). He points out that, just like a pilot, we must chart where we’re going before we can take off. We had put a flight plan together when we were first getting started but had stopped reviewing it every week, and I quickly got off course. Lesson learned, so I’ll be reviewing it every Sunday morning from now on.
As I went through my flight plan and looked at my boulders (goals), I started breaking them down into rocks (projects) and then down into pebbles (tasks/to-dos) and started making a list of all of the things that I have to do on a daily and weekly basis. The next step was putting them on the calendar. I decided to rely on Google Calendar since I was already somewhat familiar with it, but I wasn’t committed to using it to its full capacity. I like it because it syncs across all of my devices and I can share it with others.
Once I started putting the pebbles into my calendar, it became very clear to me what I needed to do each day. Gone were the days of waking up, playing on my phone for an hour, trying to figure out what to do first. I had no time to waste because I had an appointment with myself to get something done, and another one coming up soon. I worked with a drive and focus I hadn’t had in a long time, and I accomplished way more than I had in previous weeks.
Now you might think that working at this pace would wear me out, but in fact the opposite happened. I had more energy than ever! Just feeling like I was on top of things again gave me a burst of enthusiasm and motivation that carried through the week (and into the weekend). I’m not tired at all, and I worked harder than ever. Once that weight of everything I needed to be doing was lifted, I was off and running (well, not literally).
If you feel overwhelmed, make a decision to get control of your schedule and start getting organized today. Don’t wait; it’ll only get worse. Design your flight plan, review it weekly, and put your pebbles on your schedule. Unless you can afford to hire a personal assistant to do it for you, you need to learn how to schedule your time so you can make an IMPACT and lead a Full Life.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope you find it helpful. Please share your best strategy for dealing with overwhelm in the Comments below.