The Journey to Magnificence: Week Seventeen

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Welcome to The Journey to Magnificence! This is week seventeen: June 3-9, 2018.

WOW.

This week has been a game-changer, despite my usual slump starting on Thursday.

Time tracking is going to be the key to getting shit done in my life; I can tell already how powerful it is.

My only regret is not starting my WAHS journey with the Focus & Control Time Mastery course.

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What I Said I’d Do

Finish the F.A.S.T. Course
Finish Simple Pin Master Course
Track my time down to the half-hour increments all week

What I Actually Worked On

Finished the F.A.S.T. Course! (Also known as the Focus & Control Time Mastery Course)
Tracked my time down to the half-hour increments for 7 days
Planned out much of the next 7 weeks in my time tracker

Sunday, Day 113 – Time Tracking

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” Joseph Campbell

Well, I’m a planner. I love planning things. I pretty much live by my plans. More recently though, I’ve been getting better at going with the flow and doing things that make me uncomfortable – because 1) I know I need to do them, and 2) I respect the people who asked me to do them, and I don’t want to let them down.

Maybe that’s what this quote means.

If I always lived according to plan, I’d never do anything uncomfortable.

I need to embrace the uncomfortable occasionally to make progress. Progress is not easy, and often uncomfortable. The discomfort can be from doing something over and over again and not seeing the results I want, or from doing the things that I’m not good at because I’ll have to do them sometimes anyway.

I know, intuitively, that my plans are almost never the way things actually go. I don’t think I’ve actually had a day planned out half-hour by half-hour and not changed one piece of it.

That’s the nature of life – being flexible and accepting what comes as graciously as we can.

How life progresses – that’s the plan that’s waiting for us once we stop trying to rigidly bend the world to our whims.

Today was very tightly scheduled and managed. I only had a couple hours in the morning to finish last week’s Journey post, schedule the social media for it, and hit the “schedule” button in WordPress.

I’m actually impressed with myself that I got all my food prep for the week done in an hour and a half after church, right up to the minute before the Focus & Control Time Mastery live orientation call. I’d thought it would only take half an hour, so I only scheduled half an hour – but it ran over an hour and I had to duck out early because the husband and I had a date to see Deadpool 2.

I have a really good feeling about the time tracking template I’m using.

Almost like it’s the thing I’ve been waiting for to take back the time I sink into Fanfiction and Reddit.

Day 1 of Time Tracking, Complete!

Monday, Day 114 – Feeling On Top of Things & Powerful

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” Albert Einstein

Einstein knows what he’s talking about.

If we stop, we just fall over. We get stuck.

That’s also what analysis paralysis feels like. Not making any decisions or movement forward, and ending up in a loop of WHAT DO I DO???

To achieve balance, keep moving.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the smallest possible piece you could do.

Writing one word is the first step to writing a thousand.

Walking to the end of the block is doing more than not going on a walk of any length at all.

[bctt tweet=”Even if your movement is just getting out of bed today, it’s a win.” username=”inspiredforward”]

Celebrate it as such.

This time tracking this is going pretty well. I really like being able to plan out my half-hour increments and see what I can realistically fit into my day. It also helps to be able to move things around, too.

I woke up this morning feeling ready to tackle the world!

Unfortunately, that feeling ebbed around 2 PM, when I felt unbelievably tired and unfocused, but it came back again after I got my chiropractic adjustment and returned home. I’d had a half hour set aside to watch some Focus & Control Time Mastery videos, and I watched several videos at 2x speed. I finished one of the modules by doing it that way. I still took notes, and paused occasionally to make sure I was getting everything.

I also shared in the Focus & Time Mastery Facebook group about my difficulty with public speaking, because I’m taking Ruth Soukup’s advice and doing shit scared.

Creating accountability for myself is terrifying, but I know it works.

Demir & Carey call it taking extreme ownership.

Day 2 of Time Tracking, Complete!

Tuesday, Day 115 – Plant a Virtual Forest, Plant a Real Tree

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela

This quote is so true, especially when thinking about it in the context of the Work At Home School.

So many skills are being taught through WAHS, and every skill can be used to change our own worlds.

The stay-at-home mom who learns proofreading can change her family’s world.

The cube dweller who learns to code on the side can pull in a side income that helps her plan a dream vacation.

Not only does education give us the tools we need to change our worlds, we get to decide what we do.

It’s all our choice.

We can have access to education, but never take action on any of it.

Don’t be the person who consumes but doesn’t act.

Use your educational resources, whether through online courses or your college curriculum, to change your world.

I believe in you.

Now…

I really depend on my morning routine. And in combination with that, I also depend on my schedule. Even though I only started tracking and budgeting my time on Sunday, I’m already finding myself depending on it to figure out what to do next.

And that’s the point!!!

It’s reducing the number of decisions I have to make per day so that I don’t get that dreaded decision fatigue.

Of course, things still get shuffled around, but that’s not as taxing as trying to decide what to do in the moment.

That’s just a recipe for twiddling my thumbs and losing an hour to Reddit.

To be fair, though, I spent way more time on Reddit and Fanfiction today than I should have.

So clearly, I’m not disciplined enough to force myself off those times sucks yet.

On the bright side, my morning hours are usually filled with high-quality work. I tend to be more energetic in the mornings, but I haven’t figured out the exact timing of my afternoon slump or how long it takes to get that second wave of energy.

Something else that’s benefiting from this is my virtual forest:

And today I finally got enough coins to plant a real tree!

Day 3 of Time Tracking, Complete!

Wednesday, Day 116 – Yikes, Sleep Deprivation SUCKS

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” Leo Tolstoy

Someone who is patient enough to wait long enough will probably succeed in whatever they’re aiming for. Being patient with learning and implementation and seeing long-term results is far more gratifying than impatience.

I’m not a patient woman by nature.

It takes practice and mindfulness for me to exercise any kind of patience, whether it’s with the cat or coworkers, my family or the neighbors. I even have to practice patience with my phone, which is aging to the point of slow and erratically responsive.

Patience is really the key in this quote, in my opinion.

But patience plus time equals massive return on the investment.

The cat woke me rather abruptly around 1:00 AM, and it took me FOREVER to get back to sleep. I still woke up at my normal time, which meant that I was tired and a little grumpy this morning. I tried not to let it affect me much, and going through my morning routine really helped tone down the frustration of not getting a good night’s sleep.

Thankfully, as the day went on, I noticed it less. I didn’t even have to take any painkillers, and though I thought about having coffee, I skipped it.

I’m so glad I have a morning routine to help me sink back into the realm of sanity.

I definitely felt frustrated when I woke up because of a headache and the feeling of grogginess, but after I took a short, 20-minute walk and showered, I felt a lot better.

Another thing that helped was having my day planned out, for the most part, in my time tracker.

Demir asked a question of the Focus & Control group today about our morning routines – which I found hilariously coincidental – and I was able to recognize to the group that having a morning routine kept me from the worst of my frustration over a bad night’s sleep.

And, because of that, I’m going to bed early tonight!

Day 4 of Time Tracking, Complete!

Thursday, Day 117 – Cousin Time, Cousin Time, Favorite Cousin of Mine

“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.” Peace Pilgrim

The truth in this is that negative thoughts are self-destructive. They stay with us for so long that oftentimes, positive thoughts and experiences are overshadowed by negative ones – even if we only have one negative thought for every ten positive ones.

If we keep the positive thoughts at the front of our minds, how much better would our lives be?

If you said to yourself, “I’m in control of every reaction I have” every morning, would that change how you respond to negative situations?

I think it would for me.

As is now a monthly ritual, I spent this evening with my favorite cousin, enjoying good food and great company at the midpoint between us. We exchanged books this time, which is so quintessentially us.

It makes me happy that we’re so similar and yet different enough that we can have good conversations and debates about things from different perspectives.

I also had the chance to listen to a webinar done by Josh Stanton of Screw the Nine to Five, which is a community I follow on Facebook. The webinar was on how to build traffic, and I’m glad I watched it because I got some good takeaways about tracking Google Analytics metrics to gauge if I’m growing or not.

Day 5 of Time Tracking, Complete!

Friday, Day 118 – So I Kind of Just Ignored My Schedule…

“Never forget the three powerful resources you always have available to you: love, prayer, and forgiveness.” H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

You know, I don’t really have much to say about this quote except that it’s really beautiful.

It also makes me feel reassured and content in my spiritual life.

So you want to know what happened to my plan today?

It got eaten up and spit out by 4.5 hours spent reading fanfiction.

I have a problem, I know.

I’m distracted as hell, and my goals are paying for it.

Granted, they’re good stories, but that’s more than half a work day spent reading fanfiction!

In the end, the most I got done (in a productive sense that doesn’t include my work day) was about half an hour spent writing.

I might have been thrown off because of my morning not going how I’d planned it, but that’s just an excuse.

I’m taking full responsibility for not planning well – or, if I did plan well, for not sticking to it.

Just remember, tomorrow’s a new day.

Day 6 of Time Tracking, Complete!

Saturday, Day 119 – The Best Groups on Facebook

“Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A world of optimism and hope. A ‘you can do it’ when things are tough.” Richard M. DeVos

This is what I really like about the Focus & Control Time Mastery group, as well as the Work At Home School Student Community. Both Facebook groups are filled with encouragement and accountability, as well as sharing the successes (and setbacks) that happened each week.

They’re full of optimism, positivity, encouragement, and hope.

People exist in those groups who think you’re winning at life even if you don’t think the same thing in the moment.

I finished the Focus & Control Time Mastery course today! Just in time for my call with Demir, tomorrow, too! I’m excited for that 🙂

I also managed to spend a decent amount of time going through my overflowing inbox, as well as scanning old hand-written notes into Evernote for ease of access. I’ve got an entire notebook to scan, though, so while I didn’t get through the whole thing I did get the first several pages as well as other loose pieces of paper.

It’s time to cut down on the paper in my life, so I figure the easiest way to start is with those notes.

Maybe in the future I’ll look into one of those fast scanners so I can start clearing out my filing cabinet.

Yeah, I have a filing cabinet. It was a Christmas present several years ago. (I asked for it.)

Day 7 of Time Tracking, Complete!

What’s Next?

Actually finish Simple Pin Master Course (since the FAST course took precedence for my call with Demir)
Schedule time to watch at least 2 of the remaining videos I have to watch from Mindset University (it’s been a while since I’ve watched those videos!)
Be intentional with my time tracking
Write out my quarterly goals for July – September
Finish scanning my hand-written notes into Evernote

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The Journey to Magnificence is a series of weekly summaries of my journey through courses and resources provided by or found through the Work at Home School, hosted and delivered by Caitlin Pyle.

If you missed a post or found this one first, the others can be found here:

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About the author

Colleen

Life coach, author, podcast host, cat mom, wife, Ravenclaw, and semi-compulsive hiker living in the Montana Rockies.