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When I was a kid my mother told me, “Find 5 things you can always do to make money and you’ll always have money.”
I’m now 43 years old and I am running 3 bonafide businesses and 2 side hustles.
My mother is irritating (but often very helpful, I have to give her credit), but literally makes my skin crawl with anxiety to be around her sometimes.
I have health issues, like abdominal problems, pain, and other symptoms like brain fog, and fatigue. Energy to me is a finite resource. When I run out, I can’t run out. I’m also a single mom with a toddler.
Due to the extreme stress overload I decided to only focus on the top two businesses, one that has the potential to make the most money the most directly and the other that gives me the most joy but doesn’t make much money, at least for now.
I woke up extra early this morning to try to get an edge on the phones prospecting and wouldn’t you know it, the roofers for my condo showed up.
I felt a pang of despair when I had to accept that the loud screwing and hammering sounds put a hard stop on my phone calls.
Last week my son’s preschool was closed due to Covid so he was home with me full time. This week I really can’t afford not to be producing again.
I panicked. Then I came to grips with myself, put on my inside smile, and decided instead of panic, to use the time to organize and improve some other valuable part of my life.
Me, “Alexa, can you add tasks to ClickUp?”
Alexa, “I have added Quaker to your shopping list”.
Thanks Alexa. Dumbass. (put a pin in that…)
I am in a modern hell. A modern world in the throws of a pandemic with a 3 year old who refuses to wear a mask and he’s about to be going into a class where masks are heavily enforced. I’m confronted by the constant uncertainty of mask mandates whenever we go anywhere outside of home.
How am I going to be able to work if my son gets kicked out of school for not wearing a mask? Which of my businesses can I do from home even if I have a toddler clawing at my screen with a willful curiosity about every beautiful button on my Macbook Air?
I have more tasks on my to-do list than I can count and the sheer volume of it all is overwhelming even without the unexpected stand-stills.
I’m very tired and each second of clear thought in my head is precious. I can’t afford to waste time. I can’t afford to waste anything right now.
I can’t afford to let a modern hell frame of mind frame my world.
I choose to forget all the things that are going wrong around me and remind myself of my many skills so I can seek adaptation.
And here we are… I would like to share with you 5 things you can do every day to steal your time back from the gremlins of unproductivity.
They may seem a little random at first but they are the gems of wisdom that I have used to snatch my time back from the main things that take it away on a daily basis.
1. Get a handle on your food.
Food is energy. Food is life. It doesn’t take as much planning as you think and you’ll be better for it. Eating the wrong foods steals your energy and robs you of good health. Basically, everytime you eat the wrong thing you’re telling your family and friends you don’t want to spend time with them. Ouch. But true.
But wait, you may say… it’s really frikkin hard! Read 100 books on nutrition and they’ll all recommend 100 different things. Watch 1000 hours of absolutely educational and credible Youtube videos and you’ll still crave cheese at night. Right?
Wrong. You will stop craving cheese at night when you get a handle on your food. There are basic ingredients that across all books and in timeless wisdom are considered universally healthy. Eat mostly those foods.
It will actually cost you less money to eat the best foods if you do it right. I would bet most people spend at least $150/month on extraneous snacking they don’t need or foods they shouldn’t have eaten. The cost of making poor food choices is especially expensive later in life in the form of medical bills and medical leave.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I have (mostly) a handle on my food, I probably wouldn’t be able to function at all.
2. Get cutthroat about your time and where you choose to spend it.
You only have so many hours in a day so every time you say yes to something, you block space out on your time card.
Don’t be afraid to say no and not give a reason. The best canned answer is, “No, I’m sorry. I just won’t be able to.”
Make a list of your priorities and how much time they will take each day. The time you have left is it. That’s it. If nothing else fits then you’ll either have to edit your priorities or automate and delegate tasks.
In this past year I have made it my mission to organize and clarify my work processes and I have found some amazing tools online that have helped me do just that.
You can automate many tasks and link to nearly any software tool out there with Zapier or Integromat. You need very little skill to make the most intricate “zaps” or “scenarios”. It’s actually fun to build these task robots and once they’re built they literally go to work for you.
Quick tip, don’t bother trying to automate tasks for processes you don’t really have a handle on yet. Every time you change your process you’ll be rebuilding automations. Automate once your process already has a clear groove.
I have researched and dug deep into the trenches of the web to find resources for myself to do better and work smarter, and I’m happy to share with you what works for me. For a list of software and tools that I use in my businesses go here.
Delegating tasks comes down to hiring someone for errands and/or hiring a local or virtual assistant. The money math on that will vary by person, so if your bank account isn’t full of extra funds, you’ll have to revert to editing your priorities and streamlining your tasks/errands so you can do them yourself.
3. Schedule your break time.
Tell your brain what time it will be resting and it won’t want to take so many breaks throughout the day. Your focus will improve and you will finish tasks better and faster.
Give yourself a golden hour. I call it my God Hour, because I don’t want anyone else around but me and God for a whole hour. It’s my hour. Mine.
This hour is worth your money so if you need to pay someone to watch your kids every day for 1 hour then do it. And don’t think you have to be making money during this hour in order for it to pay off.
This rule follows the law of increasing returns. How else do you think billionaires manage to get a foothold in so many markets? They have the money to throw around at all the good ideas they thought up with their well rested brains.
Give your brain this time to actually let go of everything. The results are magical.
You might recognize this as a form of meditation, and it basically is. Just remember you are supposed to be resting your brain, not thinking about how to meditate.
For many this will be a lunch hour, which is technically 40 minutes, and 30 if you subtract the time it takes to get to your lunch spot. So that means, you get another 30 later in the day. Take the other 30 and don’t make any apologies for it.
For me, I use my lunch hour to clean up my kitchen from the mess made during breakfast and lunch. My Golden Hour is the hour between when I finish work and have to go pick up my son from daycare.
It is often the hour that I use to take my shower, so in this way it serves a double duty. If it weren’t for this hour of peace, I wouldn’t have the energy to do all my evening chores and be able to give my son the cheerful and patient mommy he needs.
Make sure you give yourself time each day to decompress.
4. Avoid negative people and situations.
This one is really obvious but not always easy to put into practice. Negative situations and people can steal hundreds of hours of time and mental energy you will never be able to have back.
Back to my mother, who is sort of incessantly negative, but again, very loving and helpful.
I have to schedule time to talk to her because if I let her have a few minutes with me in the morning, she has the potential to put my mood off for the rest of the day. Which affects my prospecting. Which affects my bank balance. Which affects my food.
Essentially what I’m getting at is try to defer negative people and situations away from your high priority tasks.
Also, it’s important to realize when you are avoiding negative people is that sometimes you are the negative person you need to avoid.
If you are noticing a lot of inner dialogue that sounds grumpy, well then take notice. Take a few minutes to remind yourself of things you can be grateful for.
I like the phrase I learned from a book called Zero Limits, by Joe Vitale. The phrase goes, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.”
It’s from an ancient Hawaiian spiritual practice called Ho’oponopono, widely considered to be a powerful generator of abundance. It is a reminder that we are the true source of all problems and that all problems are healed with love and forgiveness. Saying this phrase when I’m upset about something helps to dissolve the bad thoughts I have about it.
I keep a list of my favorite metaphysics and spiritual resources here if you’re interested.
I have recently been needing more self-nurturing and have taken to spending a few moments thinking in a mindset of complete self servitude. Yes, that’s right. All about me.
What do I want in this moment? Not, what can’t I have, but just what do I want. Not, how will this want of mind affect others. Just giving myself permission to see my desire clearly for what it is without clouding it with guilt or judgement.
I admit this year I have wanted to crawl in bed like my son and get a blanky and suck on a binky and feel taken care of. But I’m a mom now so that’s my job for someone else along with my 3 other jobs and my 2 side hustles.
I have many friends who I don’t see much of anymore because of my time constraints but the person I have become is so much more full spectrum and self actualized now.
I feel that the more limited time I spend with certain people is higher quality and the loss of people I’ve left behind to make room for my real desires is worth it to further the cause. Some people and situations you need to take a temporary break from. For others, it will be longer.
If there is any person or situation which regularly causes you to have a downer mood or mindset, consider finding ways to gracefully make an exit.
In metaphysics, your thoughts create your reality so if you cultivate happiness as a lifestyle, you’ll have more effortless good to look forward to. You’ll also contribute more positive energy for those you’ve chosen to be around.
5. Learn to be more flexible with your mental processes
Well, what the heck does that mean? What I’m referring to is all the ways you think you need something in order to be the best. The ways we are held back by rigid thinking. Let me give you an example.
I am a Taurus. I don’t put too much faith in astrology, but I think the old saying is true that you should never pull a rug out from under a Taurus. I absolutely hate being settled and then having to change something up.
Unfortunately, things come up and if I succumb to the negative emotions I have about having to adjust my plans, I will probably be in a chronic state of unhappiness. Because something comes up a lot.
We can’t control the world, we can only control our behaviour and our reaction to it. Every day is full of little challenges that can have compounding stressful effects.
It’s helpful to reframe these small challenges as the hurdles of a champion. Look at the plot twists as the dirt on your roots. You push through and they nurture you and make you more resilient. This is the kind of grit that youth stares at with envy.
Challenges can be a migraine that comes out of nowhere and hits you hard. A flat tire like I had a few weeks back. Or the letter I received from the condo association with a new requirement for units that must be done by end of next month.
Some other external event or the effects of some trouble you got yourself into that you now need to get out of. Other serious issues that demand attention now.
It’s easy to get caught up in a problem that needs fixing. It seems like if we don’t hurry up and get it fixed it will eat away at the rest of our lives. So it causes stress and steals time away from productivity.
In many cases I have found that by not rushing to fix a problem, the problem fixes itself. How many hours have you spent fixing something that was all for naught? Not trying to solve a problem right away gives your brain’s background processes time to work it out in a better way.
When things come up, give yourself space to solve the issue with finesse. You may find it solves itself.
Make a note of the issue like a thing to do, give yourself a time to finish it by, and then set it aside for a bit. There is probably a better time for the issue to be solved than the moment it presents itself to you.
For problems that really do require immediate attention, give yourself a few minutes to wrap up yourself to a fair stopping point in whatever you are doing, make a 3 second note in a task diary about where you left off so you can more easily get back to it, and go attend to this thing that must be done now.
I use ClickUp, which is an amazing productivity tool because the lists and statuses can be for anything and you can add near anything to them, like pictures, files, comments, reminders, etc. It is so customizable and flexible that it can even support SCRUM workflow.
I use it as a CRM, as a general task list, as task workspaces for all my businesses and projects. Each business and project has its own workspace and it’s own fully built out workflow.
ClickUp has its own ClickBot which runs automations based on triggers inside the app but it also connects to automation software like Zapier and Integromat so you can tie it into almost any software out there. And back to Alexa, it even has Alexa commands! Say, “Alexa, open ClickUp”.
Admittedly, Alexa does not always understand what I’m saying and she can actually be aggravating. But she is helpful. Like my mother, I guess.
For me, any system for organizing my things to do, whatever they are, should support voice commands. I have thrown away my purse in favor of a fanny pack since having a toddler and I relish in the ability to give voice commands when I remember something I need to do while in the middle of bathing my son.
Sometimes, mental flexibility isn’t about time, it’s about perception or opinion. In other words, you feel strongly about something and so it is a challenge to see a perspective other than your own. You feel strongly that something should be done a certain way or in a certain timeframe.
You might be surprised to learn that you don’t know everything and other people can see things you can’t. Of course, vice versa too… But be willing to be a student and learn from others.
Be willing to try things a different way. There’s rarely an experience in working and interfacing with other people that we don’t learn something new from someone else. It’s really wonderful, actually.
One of the things I miss most about not having much time to be around people is that I am missing learning new things that are outside of my bubble. It’s easy to get stuck in deep grooves and the best cure for rigid thinking is fresh perspective. So make sure you’re open to it.
If you respect and nourish your mental flexibility, you won’t snap when the day throws you for a curve.
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