Life is Chaotic

We jump from one thing to the next, we juggle priorities, we never have the time we need. We often spin our wheels and yet accomplish very little in a day.

image source

Life is a Balance

Lately it seems this topic has come up more and more in my conversations both on Steemit and Discord. So many valuable people here in our community are burning it at both ends in an attempt to accomplish their goals. They work tirelessly yet still don't feel they've made a dent in what they want to do. I know dozens of Steemians who are here to make a difference. They've intended for their time here to be impactful. Whether the mission is to bring more women to Steemit and crypto, to spread equality and awareness, or to promote their favorite charities; each of these amazing people are here to inspire change. And change, my friends, is exhausting work.

So how do we get it all done? Many of us work outside of this platform, we raise children, we have homes to maintain and errands to run. Life does not stop because you have an amazing post idea or need to put in curation hours. Add in the time it takes to run a Discord server, or actively participate in many of them. To read, comment and support our friends in the Steemit community. How do we balance the things we have to do with the things we want to do along with leading a movement or initiative?

image source

Some Tips on How to Manage the Chaos

I thought it might be helpful to share some of the tools I've used in both my professional and personal life to manage my time and drive results. I'm in no way a time management trainer, but have spent my entire career and adult life finding ways to manage the chaos. I've implemented a few simple yet effective ways to accomplish what I set out to do without experiencing burnout or struggle with conflicting priorities.

• Be Clear About Your Primary Goal
• Keep No More Than 3-5 Main Objectives At One Time
• 6x6 or 4x4 (explanation below)
• Do What Counts
• Power Up Your Schedule
• Meditate
• Sleep
• Exercise
• Be OK With Unfinished Tasks

So What Does That Actually Mean?

Be Clear About Your Primary Goal - Define Your WHY

What's driving you? And I'm not talking about the what, that's easy. You either want to make money, make friends, contribute to a cause or a movement, raise a family. That's your what. We all have a what that we want to do. But what is truly important here, and will keep you focused in the long run, is the why. Your why is your center, your core, and what will keep you focused and on track accomplishing your goals. Write down your why, draw it, pick a song that embodies it, do whatever it is you do. But keep that why in front of you at all times. Why trumps What every single time.

image source

Keep No More Than 3-5 Main Objectives At A Time - You CAN Do It All, Just Not Right Now

I won't go into the statistical data here, but it exists if you're interested enough to seek it out. It's been proven time and time again that as the number of objectives, or goals, a person sets increases the percent completion decreases. Ambition is great. I encourage you to write down all of your ideas. Just don't tackle them all at once. I tend to stick to 3 at a time. Once those are knocked out work on the next three. These are your high level objectives. Your bullet points. We'll talk about how to manage the action items under those in a minute. But for now be ok with taking it 3 at a time. It's less overwhelming, but more importantly you're more likely to get them all accomplished. And accomplishment is motivation to keep going.

6x6 or 4x4 - Keeping Focus In Manageable Chunks

So I first heard about the 6x6 concept when I attended the Global Leadership Summit several years back. For each of your 3-5 objectives list 6 things you need to get done in the next 6 weeks in order to reach your goal. Six can sometimes be intimidating, or if you're somebody that doesn't do well with long term goals, try 4. Or 3 or 2. It really doesn't matter. The point is to create your 6x6 plan (Or 4x4, 3x3 or even 2x2) and keep it in front of you every day. Make sure that every single day you did something to support those 6 things.

Quick example for a 3x3.
Objective: Run a marathon
Three things to accomplish in the next three weeks
- buy quality running shoes
- quit soda
- run/walk 4 days a week

Repeat that exercise for each of your 3-5 main objectives. You don't have to fully achieve that goal in the 6, 4, or fewer weeks. But you knock out the first things on the list without having to be worried or overwhelmed by how far you are from your goal. 6x6 keeps you focused on what's important. You might be busy today, but did you do something towards your 6x6 today? As long as you look at your 6x6 and be sure to work on something on that list every day you will most certainly hit your goal. When this becomes habit, you're hitting targets and feeling great all the time without the stress.

image source

Do What Counts - Don't Count What You Do

This is so important. SO important. If you take only one thing with you from this post, let it be this. Busy does not mean productive. We're all busy. We all have emails to answer and posts to read or whatever it is that gets in the way of accomplishing our goals. When you sit down (or stand up) to do things focus your time on the things that will give the greatest impact. The rest, I promise, is just noise. It can wait. Nobody that has accomplished great things has said "sorry I didn't finish, but I had so many emails". Busy work is just that, busy work. Save it for a different time. You might have gotten 45 things scratched off your to-do list, but was it something that contributed to your primary goal? Is it on your 6x6? If no, put it aside for a different time.

Power Up Your Schedule - When Are You At Your Best?

This is just a life scheduling trick. If you're a morning person, do you most challenging or important work in the morning. Plan your day around your peak performance hours. This can be a tad difficult when you work set hours and one of your primary goals is work-related. If you're a night owl but work a day job, you can still follow this guideline. If you're a night owl you're probably not going to be a powerhouse at 8am. THAT is when you do emails and the "noise" from the above bullet. If you start to perk up after lunch, that's when you work on your 6x6 items, your bigger projects, etc. If you're a morning person, don't sit down to do emails right away. I promise you they can wait. Get your most impactful things, the things that count done at the time of day when you're at your best.

Meditate, Sleep and Exercise - Mind, Body, Soul

If I could start my life over I definitely would have started meditation sooner. Your mental focus will increase exponentially if you make the time in your day for meditation. It doesn't have to be long, 10 minutes a day will do it. Even the busiest, most important people in the world have 10 minutes. Stop doing things that don't matter and do this instead. The payback is enormous. Your mental focus will improve, you will have more patience, your nerves will be more at least. Anxiety will lessen, blood pressure will decrease. You'll start the day ready for the day. It will change your life, I promise. I often grab a few minutes during the work day. But I also meditate every morning to help prepare me for the day.

Ditto the above for exercise and sleep. It helps you reset. There isn't enough time in the day, I get that, but I promise you that staying up those 3 extra hours to cram in more, more, more, is not getting you the added benefit in the long run. Get some fresh air, move your body and get the blood flow going, get a good nights sleep. The pay is immeasurable.

image source

Be OK With Unfinished Tasks - The Summary

Everything above really comes down to stop letting the busy work run your day. Be methodical about what you do. Remind yourself why you're doing it. Don't ask too much of yourself. Focus on the important things, and be ok letting the little things slide. If you're doing everything else in this list, you will soon realize that it's perfectly ok for the non-essentials to slide into the next day. You are not perfect, and you will never be all things to all people. Be ok with that and know that you're doing what counts and you're making progress towards what really matters to you.

Try It & Let Me Know What You Think

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to run their lives. You know what's best for you. Just thought I'd jot down a few things that have really helped me move the needle in the things I've wanted to accomplish in my life. We have our so-called "real" lives and we have our life here. It can be a challenge. Focus, Plan, Execute