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Good morning, friends and Uncommoners! I hope you’ll excuse my absence over the past few weeks. While I had the urge to post something often, it has just been too crazy until this morning to sit down and put something coherent together. With the Thanksgiving holiday, deadlines on other projects, and a variety of small “I need your attention now” projects that needed addressing I’ve been go-go-go and totally off my normal routine. I’m happy to report that all this craziness has been good, positive craziness, and in fact I think November has provided a very powerful lesson in routines, productivity, and the art and science of getting back on track. Which, as you can probably guess, is what we’ll be exploring today.
Check out Nacie’s new post at Making the Most of Things: The Secrets of Budget Giving: 3 Great Gifts Under $30!
As many of you know, one of my main focuses for 2009 has been the study and implementation of productivity measures in my own life. Since July, I’ve been making it a point to get up early, make daily to-do lists, and develop a general routine to accomplish the work and personal goals I’ve set for myself. The way I figure it is there are only so many hours in a day, and if I want to make progress toward my financial goals, work goals, and fitness goals – not to mention spend some time having fun – I’ve got to be a better steward of my time, which to me means get in a routine.
Over the past few months I’ve been performing routine trials to see what combination or sequence of events yields the most productivity toward all my goals on a daily and weekly basis. Some of the routines I tried made me feel like I was busy all day without actually accomplishing anything (no good), and some were too disjointed and left a lot of wasted time between tasks (also no good).
It wasn’t until the beginning of November, after we had moved into a bigger place where I could have my own office instead of just a corner of the living room that I finally struck upon a routine that made sense for my life. The routine was carefully crafted to be based in the morning so that I could start my day in a consistent day and be free after lunch for where the day would take me. It looks something like this:
- 6am: Wake Up
- 6-645am: Use light box, check and respond to email, review Social media info from previous day
- 645-7:30am: Breakfast, Coffee (lots of coffee) and catch up on world news
- 730-11am: Client work and meetings
- 11-12pm: lunch
Afternoons were left pretty open, with space for more client work or errand running, personal project work, and time for exercise. This has been (and will be again) a very productive routine for me most days of the week, and thanks to its success I’ve made significant progress toward my 2009 goals in November – at least the first few weeks.
Around the 15th of November things started to get crazy. Loved ones needed help with their projects, the holiday came on fast and furious, and one of my side projects needed immediate completion. The result? I was working when I could, all hours of the night, going to bed and waking up at odd times, catching naps to make up for lost sleep, sidelining several client projects, and ignoring the gym completely.
Was it worth it? Sure – sometimes life throws craziness at you and you have be prepared to catch the craziness, not be knocked over by it. Besides, it is good to shake things up every once and a while. A routine, after all, is a tool, not a prison and shouldn’t become so entrenched that its disruption ruins your life.
However, I know myself, and I know I need a routine. It is my opinion that everyone who works from home or dictates their own schedule needs to be conscious of creating structure. And some negative effects of my routine being thrown off included poor use of my light box and feeling sluggish and generally yucky due to a combination of no exercise, holiday food, and that comforting but deadly on the go “i’m too stressed to cook” food.
Last night when I was setting my alarm, an internal war was waging: what time do I set it for? The routine angel on my shoulder said “6am!” an the other one said “you’ve had a crazy few weeks…you shouldn’t set your alarm for tomorrow!” Ahh, it was so tempting not too! But Tuesdays are the official start of the Nacie week, and I knew if I didn’t get up at 6am today my hopes of getting back on track for the rest of week would be dashed. So I sucked it up, set it for 6am, and found myself pleasantly surprised by how much I had accomplished by 10am. I knew I got up this early for a reason!
I’m sure that the holiday season presents a major routine challenge for you, too, whether your routine involves when you get your exercise in or when you have a moment to yourself to work toward your Uncommon Vocation. The thing that we all need to understand is that sometimes our routines will be thrown off, and that’s OK as long as we can get back onto them in an efficient and timely manner. Issues don’t arise when something disrupts our flow, they arise when we allow those disruptions to affect our flow long after their over. You need to take the first opportunity you have to get back on track, because if you don’t there will always be something to keep you off kilter and prevent you from getting back into the groove.
So as we face this holiday season together, let’s forgive life’s unexpected and expected interruptions and face them with a smile…and a firm resolve to stay focused on achieving our goals and maintaining the routines that are most productive to us. Remember, there are only have 30 days left in 2009 to check things off your list of yearly goals before we need to start thinking ahead to 2010!
Here’s to your Uncommon Life,
