We all have dreams, right!? But as long as we don't bring them to paper, they will fade again and will get lost in the rush of our every-day lives. Therefore, it is helpful to write them down to transform them into your goals. We all need goals in order to make a sense of our lives and, ultimately, to be happier!
Goals are going to provide you with a direction for your thinking. You can focus more clearly when having set a goal and that is why you can be more productive throughout your day. If you have a difficult decision to make, you can look at your goals and it will be much easier for you to make the best decision. So, your outlook on life is going to be more positive because you can't get lost easily.
Now that you know that goals are important for your happiness and to manage your day, week, month, or year, let's look at the best way to set yourself goals.
They are only helpful as long as they are realistic and doable! Therefore, don't set yourself too many goals at once. Start with the most important one.
Take a sheat of paper and write down your biggest goal (e.g. finishing High School).
Add smaller goals that help you to reach this big one.
Tips for defining goals:
Give information to make it easy to picture your goal (e.g. instead if "Travel more" make use of more details (where, when, who is with you?) like "Travel to beautiful places in Asia with my sister next fall".)
The goal should be realistic or at least its sub-goals should be doable with not too much effort. Otherwise you're going to be unmotivated because you don't see a change on the way to your goal.
Your goal should only take up 60% of your time. There can always occur something which was not planned, like a conversation with your friend, an unexpected e-mail to reply to ASAP, you wanting another coffee, etc...
Here is an example that you can print and fill out:
My goals.pdf
Sometimes we're simply overwhelmed because we have so many things to do and to finish. Simply starting off with a random task can often be ineffective because you might end up with the biggest task at the end when you're already tired. Therefore, writing a to-do list can help you to get an overview. However, before doing that, you should consider writing down ALL of your tasks, prioritizing them, and just then write your to-do list.
These methods help you to get an overview:
(The PDF files can be downloaded and printed out.)
Menue of options to print.pdfWrite down EVERYTHING you want/need to do. It can be writing an essay, cooking a delicious dinner, or meeting a friend. Writing it down helps you to remember it later and to focus on what is actually important. You can write your menue on this:
Eisenhower-Matrix to print.pdfWith this method, you categorize your options from your menue into 4 quarters.
Important-urgent need to be done immediately.
Important-not urgent need to be taken care of soon, that's why they need a deadline.
Not important-urgent tends to be pushed aside. Try to get them done quickly and don't overload this quater.
Not important-not urgent is worth considering of having to be done at all.
todolist to print.pdfTips for your to-do list:
do the most difficult task first because that is when you can focus best
include different variations of body positions to avoid sitting still for a longer period of time (e.g. 1. Write an essay, 2. Take the trash out, 3. Read a chapter while standing/walking through the room, 4. Have lunch, and so on ...)
include breaks
The start of your day is easier if you have a calm mind and a structured overview of your day. A morning routine can be very helpful because you don't have to make up your mind about what you need to do as it is the same every morning. These points can be part of your morning routine and will help your mind to get ready for the day:
enjoy a moment of silence
drink a glass of water
open the window and take some deep breaths of fresh air
smile
workout (yoga, running, stretching, etc.)
read (newspaper, book, etc.)
wash your face with (cold) water
brush your teeth
massage your ears (stimulation of nerves in the ear increases your blood pressure and wakes you up. Simply massage your ear from the earlobe up to the top by taking it with your thumb and index finger)
...
Secondly, a to-do list can help you start your day off efficiently. You can include writing it as part of your morning routine; however, I personally prefer doing this the night before. That way, you are not faced with having to organize yourself but can already start your day with the first task on your list.
You're going to save a lot of your lifetime if you establish set places for your belongings, may it be your laptop, your charger, your keys, or something as simple as a pen. If you instantly know where they are, you firstly won't have to invest time into searching for them and, secondly, won't have to waste your brain activity thinking about where they could be. It is necessary, of course, that you immediately put the things back to their places after you've used them. That way, you keep everything clean as well. Set places will save you time, unnecessary occupation of your brain, and will help you keep everything clean.
Here are some examples of where you can keep things:
Keys in a bowl or on a hook in the hall right by the door
Phone and laptop chargers in a drawer under your desk
Glasses on the night stand
Wallet on the desk in the hallway
A shopping list on the fridge
Your mail in a binder standing on your shelf
Implemented routines contribute to facilitate your day because they connect your target state with your current state. It is especailly helpful to transform every-day tasks into such routines so that you don't need to invest effort into these tasks. Think about actions you're performing every day. Define them (your targets) in detail by using when, where and how they can be realized.
For instance: "After lunch today, I'm immediately going to put on my jacket and go for a walk around the neighbourhood."
A routine is made up of three elements:
A trigger
Your action
Treating yourself
In the example above, the trigger is the end of lunch, the action is putting on the jacket and going outside. Afterwards, don't forget to treat youself for this accomplished routine. Ending your routine with something positive helps you remember it in a motivating way.
Another example: "When my alarm goes off in the morning, I'm going to stand up, go into the the bathroom and brush my teeth."
What are your implemented routines? Share them in the forum!
When doing several things at the same time, you're more likely to make mistakes and you limit your brain from thinking intensively about a topic. Therefore, multi-tasking limits your potential to reach high quality work.
This is what you can do to eliminate multi-tasking:
Convince yourself that you want to be focused and not distracted by anything around you. It has to be your intrinsic motivation to work successfully
Leave your phone in a different room
Set yourself time slots during which you focus on your task only
Turn off your Email notification on your computer
Make sure you've got something to drink so that you don't have to take care of that in the middle of your work
Tell people around you that you don't want to be distracted for the next e.g. 30min
Clean your desk except for the work that you're doing
How do you single-task? Write your experiences into the forum!
You don't need to be a perfect person!!!
Allow yourself to grow, to learn, and to improve your self-management! Let new experiences nourish you. In an ideal world, you'd make use of all of these tips over and over every day of the week. But we don't live in an ideal world.
It is okay if a method works for you one day but not the next day. Take your time and try out some of the suggestions.
Have fun getting to know your inner couch potato and your process of gaining more self-discipline!
