Periodically, we need to review everything in our life. Our routines, the things we are doing, how we spend our time, who we spend our time with, how we pass our weekends, how we are learning and growing, things that are causing problems, things we’re eating, things we’re lifting, what we’re thinking… Everything.
Then, we need to make adjustments. This is working – keep it. This isn’t working – ditch it. Replace it with this. Then, you make the change and observe.
Too often, we get in ruts without really even knowing it. Clear assessments help to eliminate this. It’s like checking your work in math.
Here’s how it works:
- Establish goals and objectives for yourself. Then see if your daily activities are lining up. To do this, pay attention to everything you do:
- Document your day. The time you got up, what you first did, when you went to work, what you did at work, when you left, what you did when you got home, what you listened to in the car (part of your mental diet), what you read at work and at home, everything.
- Do this for a week, or however long it takes to develop a clear pattern of what you do with the one thing that everyone has the same amount of: time.
- If you have clear goals and objectives, you should be able to draw lines to your activities and to the goal/objective that activity is helping you to reach. If you have no goals or objectives, you have no direction. If your lines don’t navigate to your goals and objectives, you have direction but you’re not making any progress towards it.
Chances are, you are wasting time and unfocused. This is the default state—a default to laziness. You must exert disciplined thinking to dig yourself out of this state. The exercise I just mentioned is a method for doing just that.