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This is actually the 2nd half of this post here.
Welcome back, friends.
We’re going to jump right into the guts of this post, okay?
We’ve already outlined how to break down the week. Once you’ve managed to break your week down, you have the option to break things into even more tangible bite sized pieces.
I do this with the same template that I use to outline my week as a whole. That template contains a daily breakdown. I’ll walk you through how I use it:
I circle whatever day it is. I write the numeric date in the corner just for tracking purposes.
The day is then broken down into sections.
The first section, or Section 1, is labeled for Priorities.
This is where the front of the line essentials are written down and referenced throughout the day.
Sections 2 & 3 we will come back to in a moment (meals/snacks & planned breaks).
Section 4: Today’s mantra. Some people will put down an affirmation or a quote that sticks with them. This is optional, this is just where I’ll throw a quote to keep me going. More often than not I will write down “I am a PIP” because that is my personal mantra.
More on that in a later post 🙂
Section 5: SMART goals. SMART refers to making your goals Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relavent and Time Bound. What exactly am I accomplishing and in what time frame does it need done? Does it help me in working towards my end game goal.
Section 6: Action plan. So these are the tasks that we will check off our list for the sake of executing our SMART goals. For example, if my smart goal is to have 3 articles written by the end of the day, then my action plan may consist of ‘writing 1 article before lunch’ and ‘writing 2 articles before dinnertime.’
Section 7: Postponed until tomorrow. If it didn’t get done today for any reason at all, it goes into this box to be reassessed in the morning. NOTE: Just because something gets reassessed, doesn’t mean that it’ll need immediate attention. It’s ok to postpone things for multiple days so long as it doesn’t get pushed so far out that it’s forgotten.
Section 8: Notes – just a helpful little square for containing those runaway thoughts.
Alright, so let’s drop back into Sections 2 & 3:
These sections are super SUPER important. I outline my breaks and my snacks and food for a very specific reason. That reason is this:
The more I organize each baby step, the less brain power is required to make those little things happen when it's time for them to happen, which gives all of my brain power the autonomy it needs to power through the action plan as a whole. If I'm not stopping my day to ask myself "what do I wanna eat?" then I'm not going to lose any momentum and can crank through the important stuff.
The template that I use to effectively break down my week and days while also staying motivated can be found here.
If you don’t want to make a donation to receive the template immedaitely, you can subscribe to my newsletter HERE and in 4 days this helpful outline will show up in your inbox, free of charge.