Blow up the to do list accomplish more each day by incorporating these two best practices into your life.
We are so consumed by our attempts to manage our time and squeeze tons of things into our day. And yet, at the end of each day we wonder, “What did I accomplish?” Instead of beginning with long lists of things to do, calls to make, how about if we blow up the to do list accomplish more. We do that by re-framing our vision of the day and stop trying to manage time but rather begin to manage our energy.
Our energy ebbs and peaks throughout the day. Using those rhythms to structure your day will maximize your energy flow to be at your best and do your best work during those peak energy cycles. Now, how to capitalize on your energy cycles?
Use shorter blocks of time of 60 – 90 minutes, with a beginning and an end to give your day structure and utilize your energy cycles. Now, as a creative person, leaving the day without structure, may seem more familiar to you and even more comfortable. By creating time blocks, there adds a sense of necessity for completion or at least completion to a logical stopping point. Once there, you’ll feel good and can move on to the next thing after taking a renewal break. If you are working on a large project, like booking the next tour, then scheduling smaller blocks of time with a shorter call list, will also give you a greater sense of accomplishment.
Now let’s talk about focused, uninterrupted time blocks, no distractions. When you sit down to work, turn off your
all phones, shut your email program so you won’t be tempted to check it. Just concentrate on the work you want to accomplish and do it until it’s done or for as long as you have dedicated that time. If it is a larger project, make a note about what you would like to work on next when you continue this work in another time block. You’ll get going again much faster. Studies have shown that by working in fits and starts, each thing takes about 20-30 minutes to get back to where you left off.
When you work in short time blocks, your day will fly by, and you will look back and be amazed at how much you got done, while feeling like you hardly worked at all. After each time block, you can take a well deserved break for a walk or a meal to renew your energy. Face it, when you try to blow through your low energy periods, your concentration is not at its best.
Blow Up The To Do List Accomplish More
Now with that in the works…
Ask yourself this question. “What is the most important thing that you do as a performing artist?” If you answered—create your music, your theater, your art, then the most important thing that you need to schedule, each and every day, is a time when you can do your most important thing—your art.
Now, what is your prime time of day when you have the greatest amount of energy? When are you most creative or productive at the thing that is most important to you? Now, get out your calendar, scheduler—whatever tool you use to plan your appointments, and block out time each day to do what is most important to your creative life. And stick to the time, hold it sacred, let nothing interfere with that time block.
If you don’t schedule time in each day to that thing that makes you who you are as a person and as an artist, then your day will fill with all sorts of distractions and you will ask a question like, “How do you juggle all the parts of your life and have time left to do your art?” First make time for your art—the rest will follow.
Look at your week, decide your best time to block out your creative time, then set up the rest of your time blocks.
So blow up the to do list accomplish more during each day by maximizing your energy with short, focused time blocks. Give it a try. Send me some stories about your successes.
How do you manage your energy? Are you mired in long lists of To Do’s that leave you unfulfilled by the end of the day?
Leave me a comment below or on the Performingbiz Success Strategies Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/PerformingbizSuccessStrategies.
I can’t wait to hear about your success.
Thanks to Carol Ehrlich for this week’s Biz Booster graphic image, “Blow Up The To Do List Accomplish More.”
Now, Thanks to the Band Curfew from the UK for providing the Biz Booster theme Music, Future Dance. Check them out at www.curfew.co.uk
And for more career boosting tips, articles, books, resources, tele-seminars and online courses, visit me at Performingbiz.com
