Using My Time Wisely
As the end of the year draws near and I am in deep reflection of 2022, I start to ponder questions like, what have I accomplished this year? how have I progressed? how do I feel about the progress I have made? where am I headed? and what do I want to accomplish next year?
It's all a part of my annual review process, which starts the week after Thanksgiving and goes through the end of the year. It’s like a Christmas present to myself because I get to celebrate my wins and clear thoughts and ideas out of my head. This reflection and rest leads to lots of ideas and before I know it, I am blocking out work days, outlining goals, and setting up my planner for the next year.
Keep It Simple Silly
I love planning and organizing and I just love that my planner is nicely broken down weekly, monthly, and quarterly. I keep a list of all tasks each year, so I can easily see finished, in progress, and “what didn’t work” tasks. Seeing the entire picture is the goal here and tracking tasks is how that picture gets into focus. I want to see how I got to “hey girl, you did that!” because that moves me to, “okay, now let’s keep going, what’s next?!” The entire journey matters to me and seeing these tasks get checked off or not just gives me an extra feeling of productivity. I do weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews and stick to the K.I.S.S. method - Keep It Simple Silly. So that means working smarter not harder and reviewing helps me identify any gaps and come up with solutions sooner, rather than later.
Running a business does take work and if I don’t balance my time right, I will burn out or worse, give up. I love what I do and I didn’t come this far to give up now. I believe in a work-life balance and I am so grateful that I can make my own schedule and choose when I work and when I play. I break everything down into goal buckets. In each bucket I know what needs to get done and then I plan out smaller buckets and tasks from there. It works for me and it keeps everything organized.
All of this allows me to really enjoy my family time and by the time the first week of January rolls around, I am ready to get going. Yeah, I know how to make good use of my time. Time is precious and I like to use it wisely.
Every year, I try to do more stepping out of my comfort zone. Having this goal helps me to really consider opportunities that come my way. I can’t just say no, not without real investigation. Each opportunity is a step and the steps I have taken so far have been life changing for me. The year I decided to retire from my corporate job, the year I started my business and this year I started this blog. I am so grateful for each step.
I don’t know what God has planned for me but I have faith that I am going in the right direction. At this time next year, I will be reflecting on 2023 and how I continued to innovate my life in unexpected and productive ways.
