“Wake up, wake up, it’s the first of the month, get up, get up, it’s the first of the month…”  Okay, so I like a lit­tle gang­ster rap and those are lyrics from Bone Thugs N Har­mo­ny, by the way.  But real­ly, friends, get up!  It’s the first of the month and a per­fect time for new begin­nings.  It’s also spring and there’s no bet­ter time than spring time for a fresh start.

There’s love and sun­shine in the air.  Ros­es are bloom­ing, but­ter­flies are danc­ing, and the whole world is opti­mistic dur­ing this time of year!

This is also a good time to reflect on where you are with your annu­al goals.  We are four months into the year, dar­lings and in a blink of an eye we will be wel­com­ing 2017.  Time waits for no one.

So where are you with your goals?  Let’s have an hon­est con­ver­sa­tion.  It’s not too late, this is a per­fect time for you to reflect on your past efforts, not on accom­plish­ments but on your efforts.

We’ll get to accom­plish­ing goals at a lat­er date.  For now, I just want you to acknowl­edge your efforts and to learn to eval­u­ate your progress in a pro­duc­tive way.

Here’s a sam­ple of my morn­ing sched­ule.  I have a lot going on, but regard­less of what’s hap­pen­ing, I have to make sure my Top 3 tasks for the day–these are the 3 most impor­tant activ­i­ties that must absolute­ly get done, no mat­ter what.  These dai­ly tasks will get me clos­er to my over­all goal.  Be sure to read, Become a Goal-Set­ter for tips on how to set goals and how to accom­plish them!

I have spent enough time study­ing myself and the art of get­ting things done that I make sure I do my most impor­tant tasks before noon.

I’m a morn­ing per­son and noon to me is what 4pm is to some­one who works a 9–5; I’m beyond exhaust­ed and not focused at all.

Keep in mind when you are the most pro­duc­tive, most alert and eager to get going, and use this time to work on your most grue­some tasks, your Top 3, those nui­sances you have to ham­mer each day that make all the dif­fer­ence in your career and life.

I usu­al­ly break for a quick morn­ing work­out right after my morn­ing tuto­r­i­al to get my ener­gy lev­els back up.  If I’m feel­ing a lit­tle deplet­ed after my three hour work run (work­ing on Top 3), I may switch my AM work­out with my AM tuto­r­i­al.  I lis­ten to my body and know that if I am too tired to focus, then it’s prob­a­bly a good time to break.

After my morn­ing work­out I grab some lunch, relax a lit­tle and then start my sec­ond shift.  This is the only time I check email.   I don’t check email first thing in the morn­ing.  No way, Jose.  Noth­ing is that urgent.

 

I then move on to my next busi­ness, which is in per­son­al devel­op­ment.

I sched­ule no more than 5 clients dur­ing my 8 week coach­ing ses­sions so that I can ensure I am able to give them my very best.

After I have exer­cised, had lunch and relaxed for a bit, I am now ready to work on my Top 3 Tasks for my coach­ing busi­ness.

My Top 3 include prospect­ing, work­ing on train­ing mate­r­i­al and check­ing in on my cur­rent clients.

Research is my favorite time!  I love, love con­duct­ing research and find­ing new, inno­v­a­tive ways to do things bet­ter!  This involves read­ing arti­cles and books on my sub­ject, tak­ing a work­shop or class, net­work­ing, and work­ing on my own per­son­al devel­op­ment.  Remem­ber you have to remain a stu­dent for life, my friend. So make sure you make time every day to work on your per­son­al brand.

I could be found refin­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion, review­ing tuto­ri­als on Lynda.com, or prac­tic­ing my pub­lic speak­ing skills.  I failed to men­tion that I have joined a Toast­mas­ters class (which I high­ly rec­om­mend) that meets Thurs­days at 7am; so my sched­ule is not set in stone and nei­ther should yours.

It is also com­mon for Ter­rance, my love­ly husband/trainer and I to hit the gym togeth­er for some strength train­ing in the evenings.  So again, my sched­ule some­times needs some tweak­ing, noth­ing wrong with that so long as I gulp down my Top 3 before I par­take in any­thing else.

Life hap­pens and you want to be agile enough to accom­mo­date inter­rup­tions, but it is real­ly good to have a sol­id sched­ule to abide by.  Notice that my sched­ule is also sim­ple to fol­low and not filled with 100 things to do.  The truth is, you will nev­er be able to fin­ish or get to every sin­gle item on your to-do list done and try­ing to do so is sil­ly.

Instead, learn to pri­or­i­tize.  Ask your­self, what is the num­ber one activ­i­ty you must get done in your cur­rent day.  If you’re in the busi­ness of sell­ing, which we all are, I’m sure you would put ‘Prospect­ing’ at the top of your list over a dozen oth­er things.  Sad­ly, most peo­ple tack­le the easy stuff and nev­er real­ly improve in their careers and busi­ness.

In my upcom­ing blog series, I will break down a good game plan you can adopt and apply to your day.  I will also talk about the dai­ly or night­ly stand-up (for those who also work in the evening) and what that is all about, why you should write your dai­ly suc­cess­es in your Suc­cess Log and how to put it all togeth­er.

But for now, it’s the first of the month and you should have a clear idea of what you want to hap­pen over the next fab­u­lous 30 days of April.  Only you can make it hap­pen.

Spend the week­end going over your pri­or­i­ties, but come Mon­day, be ready to put your plan into action.  Remem­ber, all the plan­ning, orga­niz­ing and research­ing with­out action will nev­er pro­duce results.  Tune in this Mon­day for the first of my Webi­nar Series.  This is what I’ll be work­ing on over my week­end.  Stay pro­duc­tive, and thirsty, my friends.

Don’t for­get to sub­scribe, and fol­low me on Twit­ter, Face­book and soon on my YouTube chan­nel.  Xoxo

Irís