Get more done in less time with this one habit!
Happy New Year and Monday Challenge: Live With Specific Intention!
What is your specific INTENTION for TODAY?
Happy New Year and welcome to 2018 peeps!
I won’t lie, I’m super excited about this next year and couple of things that I have coming up. I will wait and tell you about those things at the end…I don’t want to get ahead of myself : ).
This week’s challenge is all about Specific Intention. What is your specific intention for today? What is the single underlining mantra for this day? What is the one thing that you want to do or get done today? How will focusing on this issue, whatever it maybe, help you get closer big goals (more on that tomorrow)?
If you are like most people you don’t have one. You just want to survive long enough to get back home and enjoy some peace and quiet. You just hope and pray you survive the day. Here’s the thing, I want more for you! I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed, drained, and reactive. I want you to finish the day feeling both energized and proud of what you accomplished. You can do this by having a specific intention for the day.
My Example
My specific intention for today is to finish my Facebook content. I want to have a post for every single day of the week. Minus Saturday and Sunday :-). If I do my job correctly and stay focused on my specific intention, I’ll finish this task in an hour maybe an hour and 30 minutes. On the other hand, if I “wait” do this when I have “free time” it won’t happen worst case scenario or it will be a rushed and result in poor content and take me twice as long.
Because as you know, we get distracted…the phone rings, kids want something, your boss needs something, etc. But if you have a specific intentions, i.e. you know what you want to accomplish for the day it’s crazy the amount of time you will save and the amount of quality work you will get done.
Once again, what is your Specific Intention for today?
It could be health-related. Maybe it’s an act of service for others or maybe you’re focused on your business or your career. Oftentimes these things kind of intermix.
So, what I’d like you to do is set an intention for your day, every day this week. Then if you find yourself unfocused or getting distracted I want you to get back on task and remind yourself of what your intention is for that day.
Having a specific intention goes beyond a to-do list, it’s more focused on “Why” we have a to-do list (more to come later this week). You shouldn’t just have a random list of to-do’s anyway. Your To-do list should directly relate to your “Why” and be evident in your specific intention for the day.
If your to-do list is just a list of tasks that aren’t related to your “Why” and they fail to correlate to your specific intention for the day they are most likely just noise. Honestly, they will just be a distraction from your real work, you know the stuff you are avoiding that will actually be meaningful.
Trust me, I’ve lived there. Especially when I was an assistant principal and athletic director. My to-do list were ginormous. However, because I wasn’t super specific on one that I wanted to get done. Often times I got a lot accomplished quote on quote, truly, it was amazing the amount stuff I got done. But I didn’t move forward on the big goals that I had planned. I was too reactive instead of proactive.
Sound familiar?
Before you poo poo this, I want you to give it the All-American try. You will be surprised how much you get done if you have a daily specific intention. Accomplishing your goals will become a lot simpler, because you will have a rubric to decide what’s important and what’s just noise. Especially when something random pops-up.
As you will see, the less important stuff you think you have to get done kind of falls away. This allows you to save more time and more importantly more energy! Imagine you coming home and having enough energy to want to play with your kids?! By focusing on your specific intention you will improve your life and get you closer to your goals while working less but focusing more.
That’s a huge win.
And it’s okay if your intention is a little different everyday. Actually, I think that’s kind of normal. The important thing is that your specific intention always correlates to your big goals. It correlates back to your Big WHY. If it doesn’t, it probably shouldn’t be a specific intention of the day.
REMIND YOURSELF OF YOUR SPECIFIC INTENTION THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY!
It’s a good practice to check in every 3 to 4 hours to make sure that you’re on point and reminding yourself of what your specific intention is. Doing so will help you be more productive and save time and energy. Which is AWESOME!
With that said here’s an awesome tool that I’ve been using that I find immensely helpful. You will need to have Google Chrome the extension is called, “Momentum, click the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfknpbbblfpciffpaejjkokdgca?hl=en .”
This little app, if you will, is for your computer and it reminds you of what your daily intention is each time you open up a new browser window. Plus, this little sucker will help you create a to-do list for the day :-).
I think it’s awesome! Cuz it helps me focus and get a ton done by reminding me of my specific intention. And as a bonus, I am able to create my to do list for the day based off of what my specific intention is.
So for example, today my specific intention is Facebook content. My to do list says Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. As I create content for those days I click it off. And like I said, after about an hour to an hour and 30 minutes I’m done.
That’s pretty awesome!
Now go be awesome!
KELLEN LAKE – Hammering out content.
PS – I currently train three people online, this is a less expensive option then face-to-face. I am strongly considering making this a core offering. If you are interested reply and say, “I am interested” : ).
