How to Prioritize Projects and Live Smarter

Jun 11, 2020

You pour yourself a fresh cup of coffee and head into the office. It’s Monday morning and you have a to-do list that could take you into next month to complete. Plus, take Parker to the dentist today at 3 pm. Taking a deep breath, you turn your attention to your computer and start checking email.

Now it’s 11 am and you haven’t checked a single thing off your list.

There’s got to be a better way. And there is... it’s called prioritizing.

Before you click away, hear me out. Has anyone taught you how to prioritize?

“Productivity is moving the ball down the filed on the projects that matter most.” Mel Robbins

Let’s try going through that Monday morning routine again. Instead of brushing aside your extensive list of tasks, you take time to plan. Look at your calendar and the blocks of time you have available to cross things off the list.

Starting out your...

5 Benefits of Coaching that will Change Your Life

Jun 04, 2020

What is going on with the coaching industry? There are coaches to help your high schooler apply to college. There are coaches that teach you how to use specific software applications. If you want to get great at something… there’s a coach for that.

We’ve been struggling with getting our kids in bed before we want to pass out lately. Yep, there’s a coach for that too.

Is there a coach for the frantically busy? Someone to ease your mom guilt and give you the tools to seek a purpose in the everyday?

Yes, it’s called productivity coaching. Here’s why it’s life-changing:

The power of an outside perspective. Remember when you were trying to perfect your pike jump in high school? You would practice over and over in front of the mirror at home, but it wasn’t until your coach pointed out that your arms needed to fully extend did you nail it.

The same goes for your personal...

How to Rest and Digest Like a Boss

May 28, 2020

Today I will take you back to science class. Don’t worry, we won’t dissect anything. The smell of formaldehyde still brings back images of large toads and awkward safety goggles.

Just a brief lesson on the autonomic nervous system and how it regulates our internal organs. This system has two sets of nerves, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

The sympathetic nervous system regulates the fight-or-flight response. When you are working from home and the kids fight in the next room, you lose focus on responding to that email. Your heart pounds and all you want to do is jump out of your chair and run down the hall to scream at your kids. That’s your fight-or-flight response in action.

Now picture yourself at the beach. You’re lounging with your toes in the sand. Feeling relaxed listening to the waves crash and watching your kids play happily building sandcastles. This state of bliss is your...

4 Types of Productivity, Which is True for You?

May 21, 2020

“Mommy, what are we doing today”

“Why do we have to go?”

“Who else will be there?”

“How long are we going to stay?”

I thought this Spanish Inquisition style questioning would end after the toddler years. NOPE, this was a conversation with my teenager.

Each day I work through a to-do list, with little thought to WHY. I love the thrill of checking tiny boxes. This interrogation seemed like a waste of time until I discovered my daughter is a Prioritizer. That means she needs to gather data on what she has to do so she can focus on the most important thing.

This “AHA moment” was thanks to this assessment that helps you find your personal productivity style. Go ahead, take it. Who doesn’t love personality tests?

What Type of Productivity is Right for Me?

Did you take the test? What’s your style? Prioritizer/Planner/Arranger/Visualizer

We take for granted that each of us has...

8 Fun Ways to Keep Motivated

May 07, 2020

How is it May already? I have a confession. The task of packing up our winter gear (Uggs, rain boots, ski stuff) has been on my to-do list for weeks. And now it’s MAY!

I started by cleaning all the boots but now I have a line of clean boots to put away. A cute line of Uggs reminding me of my unfinished project each time I walk into the garage.

Somewhere between finding my soft bristle brush to whisk away dirt and letting the clean boots dry before the next treatment, I lost motivation. Where’s the fun in storing away winter?

Motivation is a fickle thing. It can up and leave during projects big or small but nobody want’s to leave a party when they’re having fun.

Here it is...8 ways to make motivation FUN!

Find that easy next step. If you have a giant project staring down at you, of course, you can’t fight the urge to snuggle back in when your alarm goes off. Instead of hitting snooze, find one task that...

How Work From Home is Going During Pandemic

Apr 30, 2020

NEWS FLASH: The honeymoon period with these stay at home orders has ended.

Our newsfeeds are turning from chalk messages on sidewalks to protests. It’s time to get real, dig deep, and find meaning.

I’ll go first. Here are some thoughts I wrote at the beginning of this crisis (six weeks ago) and my reality check on where we are now.

Work in shifts. We are all stuck at home so it’s best to discuss now what it will look like to share the load of monitoring the kids before things get too heated.

First I have to give props to my husband because he’s been a trooper through all this. We’ve been able to create a daily schedule that evolves each week. Distance learning is more challenging with my fourth-grader than we had expected. We’re learning the emotional language to talk about things before they get too heated.

Stock up on art supplies

Sidewalk chalk sure had a moment. We were able to get our hands on some but the novelty has already...

The Life Skill for Homeschooling and Beyond

Apr 14, 2020

“I complain a lot about the schedule, but I kind of like it” my teenager commented in our fourth week of quarantine. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I realized this was a breakthrough. She was seeing the value of planning out the day.

One thing they don’t teach in schools is how to organize time. Kids follow a bell schedule and sometime in upper elementary school, a daily planner is tossed their way. That’s about it.

When coronavirus made me a homeschool teacher overnight, I grabbed onto this school day routine that was making the rounds on social media.

It was too rigid for my crew but it got us through that first week. More importantly, it opened up conversations about time blocking.

“The idea is simple,” best selling author Cal Newport explains, “Assign specific times on your schedule for when you want to complete specific tasks.”

It creates a rhythm for the day. Both the kids and the parents...

I’m Coining a New Phrase to Explain Why I Forget

Apr 07, 2020

And arming you with a simple trick so it won’t happen to you
“Did you make your bed this morning?” I asked as I’m getting ready to send my son off to school.
“No, Mom, it’s housekeeper day,” he replies.
“That’s tomorrow,” and as the words come out of my mouth, I start to panic just a bit. I quickly check my calendar. He’s RIGHT! I’m not prepared, and more importantly, how did I let this slide by me?
I’m chalking this up to calendar blindness. Is that a thing? Probably not, but let me explain.
Do you have recurring events in your calendar that are so routine that you glance right past them without taking notice?
I’m excited to meet up with some girlfriends today for lunch, and I know I have to put some time into my high priority projects, but I had forgotten about the housekeepers. I’m so grateful for their work and I hate feeling unprepared for them.
This is how I’m going to fix it.
...

A Good Night’s Sleep Makes for a Better Tomorrow

Apr 07, 2020

But just how much is enough?

“Sleeping well won’t make you successful, but not sleeping enough will hold you back” James Clear

I earned the nickname Sleeping Beauty during the Tahoe Ragnar Trail Relay last summer. Ragnar is a long-distance team, overnight running relay that covers roughly 120 miles. Not a place you go to catch up on your sleep.

But I take my sleep very seriously, so the camping site we had set up to rest between loops was my sanctuary. I had packed a duffel bag twice my size with EVERYTHING I needed to catch some z’s (extra blankets and cushy mat included). The teasing commenced the second I pulled that behemoth out of the trunk, but I got the last laugh when they tossed and turned on their cots.

Sleep is a new buzzword in productivity, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Good riddance to burning the midnight oils to get it all done (that never seemed to work for me anyway).

Now if someone could tell us just how much sleep we need:

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“Productivity is moving the ball down the filed on the projects that matter most.” Mel Robbins

What Type of Productivity is Right for Me?

Here it is...8 ways to make motivation FUN!

NEWS FLASH: The honeymoon period with these stay at home orders has ended.

...

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