Break Free Tip of the Month
From the desk of Terry Taylor, Your Recipe For Living Coach
May, 2012
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Dear Terry Jean,
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Terry Taylor
MAY'S BREAK FREE TIP shows you how to use your CALENDAR to keep your eye on the things that are most important to you for your life...and to keep things that you value from falling through the cracks! 

Partner With Your Calendar  

 

My calendar is my best friend. It allows me to organize the things I want to do so I can have the best return on my time and my efforts.

Most of us use our calendars to mark down our business meetings, medical appointments, or social events, but did you know that you can use your calendar to schedule many other important aspects of your life as well?  Such as:

  • Exercise time
  • Romantic time
  • Reading time
  • Gardening time
  • Piano playing time
  • Chore time
  • Personal care time
  • Dining time
  • Relaxing time
  • Sleep time
Have you noticed that if you don't actually schedule something it often gets overlooked? For instance, if I don't write down a time for my husband, my fiddle practice, and my exercisein a CERTAIN TIME SLOT ON MY CALENDAR, these things fall by the wayside. I get carried away with my tasks for my business, my writing, my home chores, and my computer communications - and I end up slighting my other important values.

But these other things are too important for me not to attend to - every single day! So I started planning my days on a calendar.

My Calendar To The Rescue

Our minds cannot focus on all the things we might want to do in any given day, much less any given week, month, or year! But our calendars can help us do this!

My calendar comes to my rescue in two ways:
  • It keeps me aware of what I want to accomplish on each particular day.
  • It keeps me disciplined by designating a starting and a finishing time to each of the things I want to do, so that everything gets dealt with and nothing gets overlooked.
In this way, my calendar records the plans I have made and it takes the minute-by-minute burden off my conscious mind to decide what to do and when to do it - because I have already figured that out before I write it down in my calendar. Now all I have to do is to follow the schedule on my calendar!

I love to put a check mark beside each item as I complete it. That gives me a feeling of accomplishment. If I don't complete it in that time slot, I allot another time slot on another day to complete it. I have found that the more you do this, the more realistic you become about how much you plan to do in one day!

What If Something Else Pops Up?

You don't always do what you have planned on your calendar. If for some reason I don't do what I had planned to do in a particular time slot, I put and "X" mark instead of a check mark beside it and write in the calendar WHAT I DID INSTEAD. Then I evaluate whether that was a more important thing to do given the circumstances - or not. Sometimes it's a hard call. Either way, I put the undone task (if it is still important to me) into another time slot for the next day.

Your calendar should not become your "dictator." I have had to learn that lesson for myself. If I find that I am doing too many "other things" than what I had planned, I go into "conference" with myself about my process of selecting what to put on my calendar. Over time I have found that I have been able to do a better and better job of picking what is really important to me and deciding how much I can plan to do in one day. This way I have made my calendar really work for me. You can too!

HERE'S HOW TO GET STARTED

Here's how to make your calendar your trusty "Partner In Life":

1. Be sure that you know what is important to you for your life.

 

2. Pick one the most important things and write it down on a piece of paper.

3. Write down the steps you plan to take to earn or accomplish that important thing.

4. Now go buy a calendar that suits you. This can be lots of fun, because there are so many choices.

 

My husband likes a simple "daily" pocket calendar with a separate page for every day of the year. My friend likes a simple "monthly" pocket calendar that displays each separate month, with a square for each day of the month to make notes in. I like a notebook-sized spiral bound calendar that is laid with a square for each day of one month PLUS a notebook-sized spiral bound calendar that is laid out with a column for each day of one week. That way I have an overall view of the current month plus a view of each day of the current week.

 

One year I used a calendar that had TWO columns for every single day. I used the first column for my "Official Plans" and I used the second column as my "Confessions Column" for the things I did instead...and the reason WHY. These kinds of calendars can be quite expensive, but when you consider that they are your "right hand man" for keeping you on track with the things that are important to you for your life, the expense doesn't seem so exorbitant.

 

Then of course there are the calendars on your various electronic devices. Choose what you feel most comfortable with.

 

5. Finally! You are ready to write something down in your calendar. Remember the steps you came up with in Step Three? Put the very first step down in your calendar. Be sure that you have nothing else planned for that time slot and be sure to allow enough time to get started on it. Just making even a little progress toward what you want for your life is a great motivator for doing more.


You can go through this same process for all the things that are important to you for your life. Some things require daily attention (such as work, nutrition, exercise, sleep, loved ones); some things can be done weekly (such as music lessons, hobbies); some can be done monthly (such as committee meetings, bill-paying); and some can be done yearly (such as vacations). Your priorities may be different (and they may change over time), but if you want to have the things you value - and if you don't want anything important to fall through the cracks - your calendar can be your best life partner!

In fact, it's an amazing tool, this calendar of yours. It acts like a kind of  "keeper of your conscience" by helping you hone in on all the things you want for your life - over your entire lifetime - so, instead of living a life of regret, you can love living your life!
 

I'd love to hear how these steps work for you -- feel free to email me at Terry@YourRecipeForLivingCoach.com, or post a comment on my Break Free Blog at www.yourrecipeforlivingcoach.com. Please know that you are welcome to share this BREAK FREE TIP by forwarding this message to a friend or colleague. 

 
Always here to make your days more delicious,

 

Terry
Terry Jean Taylor
Your Recipe For Living Coach, LLC
Your Recipfe For Living Coach, LLC logo 
A passionate motivational speaker and life coach with a new reality-based, no-nonsense approach, Terry Taylor is the designer of a unique strategy for reaching your goals and loving your life. Her CD program - 8 Steps For Reclaiming Your Life From Conflict, Confusion And The Control Of Others - is available at her website www.yourrecipeforlivingcoach.com, where you can also learn about her newly published book, This Is Your Life: No Apology Needed.  

 

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