Tools of the Trade

I did my March Review earlier this week, and based off that, created my April goals. Here they are:
I use a habit tracker to track what I want to do frequently:
Each day, before bed, I go through my habit tracker and mark what I did and didn’t do. I also mark down how many pages I read in which book at the bottom of my habit tracker. Next, I write down three things I’m grateful for in my gratitude log. Then, I note if I ate any junk food that day, and finally, I review my daily page and set up the next day. The whole process usually takes about five minutes or so.
Once a week, I update my monthly goals page with my progress and do a check-in with myself. Am I hitting these goals? What can be adjusted? I’ve been trying to do my weekly review on Sunday nights, but I missed the first week of April due to moving. Here’s my latest review:
How do you review?
I do a monthly review near the beginning of every month. I like to ask myself three questions:
– What worked?
– What didn’t?
– What can I do to improve?
What worked:
Power hours! If I set a timer for an hour and push through as many small tasks as I can, I get a ton done. This works wonders for little things.
Another idea that helped me in March was actually what’s becoming a mantra: “The only way out is through.” Sometimes, I just have to push through a task to be done with it, and this phrase has been steadying me for the hard ones.
What didn’t:
Recently, I’ve had a ton of small boomerang tasks–those tasks that seem complete but always come back with a next step. I’ve been having a difficult time getting them under control, so I decided I needed to track my time, not just my tasks. I tried a couple of different spreads in March to accomplish this. I used a weekly spread for a week, which just resulted in a lot of page flipping and didn’t help much.
I also took some scrap paper and drew out a weekly calendar with boxes for tasks, broken down by hour. This worked better than the weekly spread in my journal, but there wasn’t space to revise as my schedule changed.
What can I do to improve:
This month, I’m trying to plan my day out using Google Calendar so I can drag and drop my various tasks around as my schedule changes. I’ll keep y’all posted as I try it.
I’m also making sure I spend 5 minutes every day before bed running through my planner to ensure I’m keeping up on my goals. Also, I’m trying to read for at least ten minutes a day so I can make more progress on books. My goal in March was to read three books; I started six and got half way through each. My favorite so far is Mindset* by Dr. Carol Dweck.
My next post will run through my April goals, the other half of my review spread. Look for it on Wednesday!
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