An article In The Harvard Business Review, How to Spend The First 10 Minutes of Your Day, reinforced my own practice of how I spend the first part of my day. Yeah!
For a while I’ve made it a daily practice to plan my day with worksheets that I keep in a notebook. These ten minutes planning sessions help me go from overwhelmed to overjoyed. When I don’t take those ten minutes to plan, I can tell the difference in how my day goes.
There are five steps to my planning process.
Step One:
I list five pieces of evidence that I’m growing in a positive direction, that I’m meeting my goals. It’s easy to get discouraged when you are working on a big project. Focusing on what is going right helps me from having a “pity party”.
Step Two:
Next on my list is to write down five things that I appreciate and that bring a feeling of abundance to my life. Fresh flowers on the dining room table, long walks, my readers, my family, blue ink pens and yellow writing pads…those kinds of things that make me feel like the luckiest person in the world.
Step Three:
What is my dominant feeling for the day? How am I going to choose to feel today? Productive, balanced, strong, courageous, energetic, laughter, love, enthusiastic…? My choice and I write it down.
Step Four:
What five actions can I do today to feel more joy in my life and work? What can I do to create a business I love? From answering emails to planning newsletters, I break it into three to five important things to do that day.
Step Five:
What project or problem do I need help with? What am I having a hard time figuring out? I write out the problem, then I delegate it to the Universe. Be a great CEO. Delegate and let it go! When I delegate and let it go, I’ve found that somehow all the pieces arrive when I need them.
Between the Universe bringing me what I need, my inner guidance whom I refer to as my Inner CEO, and me, I realize I don’t need to feel overwhelmed. Because right there on my worksheet is everything that is important for the day.
I sign and date my plan, since research (and my experience) shows that when you sign something you commit to it.
Download a sample of my Daily Practice worksheet below.
I challenge you to take ten minutes first thing each day and plan your day.
Go from overwhelmed to overjoyed!
Download Daily Practice Worksheet here.
