Have you ever gone through a day, where you looked back at the end of it and thought to yourself, “I didn’t get anything done?” Or, maybe you know that you completed a lot of little tasks, but you didn’t do anything that you would consider significant. Maybe you got very off-track throughout the day.
Have you ever gone through a day and just felt overworked and overwhelmed? Was it hard or impossible to get everything accomplished?
Well, I’m going to talk about a really quick and simple thing you can do to stay focused throughout your day, month, quarter, and year.
Here’s what I suggest: Come up with a word of the year/quarter/month. When you choose this word, it needs to be one that’ll represent your activity throughout the said time period. For example, some words commonly picked include action, adventure, growth, or delegation. Maybe you already have a word in mind as you read this. However, sometimes it takes a little bit of time for the right word to come to the forefront of your mind. If that’s the case, don’t force it. Give it a week or two.
Once you pick the word, here’s how you use it. Let’s suppose that your word of the year is empower. As you go about your day, you want everything you do to be about empowering, whether it be empowering other people or yourself. When you interact with others throughout the day and things start to get a little bit off-track, just ask yourself, “How am I empowering this other person? Am I simply doing something for them, or am I empowering them?”
As for empowering yourself, when you wake up first thing in the morning, maybe take a little bit of quiet time to think and plan your day. Knowing exactly what you intend to do during each hour will give you the clarity to stay on track. If you have a long commute and have to sit in traffic, maybe turn on an audiobook so you can learn something new. This way you can empower yourself during a time that would usually be wasted. These are just a few examples, and there are many other ways you can empower yourself and others.
My challenge to you is to first of all, come up with a word of the year, quarter, or month. You can write this word on your board at home or work, or you might not have to if it’s easy to remember. It’s nice to be constantly reminded of it though, so you can pay attention to that word throughout your day. It’ll help you stay more focused and productive.
Make it happen, and have a better than outstanding day.
