I’m always buying journals. All you need is a spiral notebook.
I don’t think you need anybody to guide you through a journal more than for an entire year.I like to get ideas from other people, but I like to have an open sheet of paper because I like to vet out ideas and move in a lot of different directions.
I think planning your day is just such a great habit. I think in my 20s, I just ran around and tried to get as many things done as I could. The longer my to-do list, the more important I thought I was. As I’ve gotten older, I actually play rummy-cube with my to-do list. I don’t know if you ever played rummy-cube but you have these tiles that kind of reflect cards. Your goal is to get rid of all your tiles. Whoever gets rid of all their tiles, wins.
Great game, Okay super fun. But the goal of the game is to get rid of all tolls. That’s what I try to do with my to-do list every day. So when I have my list of things that I need to do, I start delegating those. I try to put those in the hands of people they can do them better than I can. If I have 10 things, that I kinda know would be important, I’m definitely trying to get seven of them in someone else’s hands. So the secret I found to really have a productive day is to not be drained by all the things I shouldn’t be doing and I don’t need to do.
I have found that there are six things that will help you have a much more purposeful day and a much more productive day.
1. I Want to Know What I’m Going to Do Today That Has the Highest Pay-off, Economically
This is what am I doing today that’s going to make money and pay the bills. What’s the one thing I can do today that’s going to move the financial meter the most?
2. I Want to Do Something That Feeds My Passion
Like this podcast. This is my passion. I love teaching. I love encouraging. If I didn’t do this podcast or write books, I’d be empty. There’d be a void. Why? Because I’m passionate. This is my giftedness: the ability to communicate, to make complex things simple.
I need to schedule a time for my passion in a day.
3. A Purpose
What is the one thing I always say? What’s the one thing I knock this down in the next five years that makes it a good five years? Well, I’ve been working on one goal, since 2012, and it’s probably going to happen this year, but it’s my life purpose. I look at things in 10-year increments: where I want to be for a decade’s worth of work.
This is kind of my purpose. This is the one thing that I think I am here on earth to accomplish. I need to put time into it every day. I need to refocus on it. How am I going to move the needle? It doesn’t mean I do something every day towards this but because I’m looking at it every day, it definitely goes into my scheduling.
4. Prioritize
I have things that I have to do based on the roles that I have.
If your father, your husband, or if you’re a CEO or are you a Little League coach, whatever roles you have agreed to do, you have responsibilities for them.
That might be grocery shopping on the way home.
5. Promises Have I made
What have I committed to doing?
I have promises that I make to my business partners. Recently I took on a TV commercial from one of my business partners, I said “no, let me just handle it, I’ve got it”, and I got it scheduled in the next couple of weeks. I wanted him to do it, but he wasn’t moving the ball forward on it, so I took it off his table completely and that’s okay because this person does other great things for me and I probably should have owned it from the beginning. And I always give a date I will have it done by. When I make a promise to my business partner, I tell them I’m going to do it faster than they thought I’m going to do it better than they thought, and they’re never going to have to remind me to do it.
Why do I say that? Because it forces me to do all those three things, so they know when I agreed to take over something, they can take to the bank.
Sometimes I make promises to a client.
6. Play
There are certain things I love to do. I love to exercise, to read, to play golf. I love to play tennis, to take a hike. I love to do nothing.
Can I let you in on a secret? I love a good nap.
Now, if there was an Olympic napping team, I’m on it. I have no problem with napping because I think that’s true indulgence when I can nap at 1 o’clock for a half hour and I don’t have to answer to anybody, I don’t have to apologize to anybody. I’ll tell my staff, “listen, I’m going home, I’m going to go take a nap”.
You have to be able to play and that just means you’re doing what you want to do. You’ve got to have certain things that you look forward to in your schedule.
Blueprint Your Day
Maybe this will help you in 2020 plan your day. You’re not going to have something in every one of these categories. They’re just six things that you can ask yourself every morning. Hey, what’s going to be the financial pay-off there, what am I going to do that’s going to make money. What’s my passion, my core genius, what is it that I do that I love doing that I’m good at? What is my purpose, why am I here, why am I on planet Earth? What priorities do I have based on the roles that I have as a human being? What roles do I have and the responsibilities that come with them. And finally, I want to play a little bit every day, want to exercise every day. I want to read a little bit every day if I can, I want to take a little cat nap every day, I don’t want to burn out!
