#107 Say NO to goals + YES to productivity

If you have been hanging out with me for a while you probably know by now, that I am a certifiable, obsessed systems girl.

 I have systems to:

📍 run my business

📍 keep my family nourished and fed

📍 help others create the life they desire

📍 prioritize and organize with a solid strategy

Let me ask you something. Do you feel distracted, pulled in a million directions, or frustrated? Only asking because I have been there. Until I developed really good systems as well as habits and rituals around those systems, I was saying YES to everyone around me. In realizing that by saying yes to them, I was in fact saying NO to myself. That was the ah-ha I needed so that I could stop whining and close the gap on who and where I wanted to be. 

I didn’t completely say F-You to everyone around me. That would have served no one. Instead, I carved out time in my calendar for myself, like actual real-time and commitments. And no matter how sexy the offer was to cancel on me, I didn’t (and don’t). My needs and goals are just as crucial as driving my kid to soccer practice or hopping on an impromptu call with a client who was having a meltdown.

In order to get your biz and life organized and systematized, you have to have a very clear picture of what you are working on right now. As a creative, I can bet dollars to donuts that you have a gazillion ideas spinning around in your head at all times. 

Spending too much time throwing a bunch of shit against the wall, that never sticks can be the difference between progress and procrastination.

Warren Buffet says it best, “the simple fact is that you can’t focus on lots of things at once.”

Whether you are an employee with professional goals, a solopreneur with revenue goals, or the CEO of your home with family projects, the key to achieving success is by being intentional.

The process remains the same regardless of the category. Thus completing that project and reaching your goals is done with a high level of impact and a strong purpose.

Today's three tips might be just the thing you need to create a system for prioritizing your needs, wants, and desires. 

Tip #1

Grab a piece of paper and spend about 15 minutes doing a massive brain dump. Write down all the projects, goals, and priorities that are currently swirling around in your brain.

Tip #2

Take a look at that list and if you can recognize some of the ones that you have already started working on, decide if those are still important. Now, pick between 3 and 5 that will give you some value, meaning, and income while at the same time impacting others. Now move them to a new list.

Tip #3

The ones that didn’t make your 3-5, move them to another list. I have a place I call “idea vault. I store them in specific worksheets that I have created for my program, WNR, but you can do the same in a Google doc, Evernote, your notes app, Asana, moleskin, or any place that feels comfortable for you.

The key here is deciding on what is important. You will get to the other stuff, eventually, but for now, it’s about progress over perfection.

Q3 is g great time to close the gap on some of those open-ended projects and goals. In doing so, completing them will give you the momentum and drive to keep moving forward.

Suppose you are a more visual person (like me)? If so, feel free to download my Life Plan Dashboard. This is something I use quarterly and share with both my clients and students of the What's Next Roadmap(WNR). I want to offer this to you because I know that sometimes having a container to put your ideas in help with the thought process.

You can grab it here.

If you do this exercise and find it helpful, I would love to see your progress. Take a picture of your work and tag me here on Instagram. Use the hashtag #whatsnextroadmap. 

Have a great week.

P.S. If you are digging these three tips, you can get them in your inbox each week. Sign up here.