Oh. My. God.
There is so much kick-ass content in this program, I kinda don't know where to start. I think, to keep it simple, I'm going to keep going with Craig Jarrow's 31 Days 31 Ways since I started Day 1 yesterday. That's easy enough. Then, I think I'm going to attempt to figure out which of the TEN other programs to dig into first. How? Who the hell knows. I'm going to go with whichever ones sound the funnest? We'll see. I'm really just going to guess. I just know I can't do eleven different workbooks simultaneously. That's insane. So instead, I'll do like two or three. Maybe.
So Day 2 of 31 Days 31 Ways - Craig Jarrow
Choose Tools You'll Use
My Tool Kit
I love the idea of tech but I'm hugely intimidated by it. I wish I could say I'm an early adopter but I'm a bit of a chicken. I have been using my smartphone for about a year (formerly an under-utilized blackberry) and in the last 9-10 months have started using apps that work between my work PC, my home laptop & tablet and the phone. I have totally eliminated double bookings which were previously occasional but hugely inefficient and embarrassing. I now do 75% or more of my personal web activity on my phone.
The software/apps/programs I use are:
- TimeTrade for booking appointments (consultations, portrait sessions, sales appointments)
- Google Calendars (for obvious reasons)
- Thunderbird for my work email and webmail (various) for personal
- Facebook for marketing/social media
- Buffer for sharing links of awesomeness
- Hootsuite for scheduling blog/fb/twitter posts
- MadMimi for my newsletters
- Evernote for harnessing my late night waves of brilliance
- Instagram for keeping my creativity spontaneous
- Photoshop for work
The software I need more training in for mastery of time management:
- Lightroom for batch editing and efficient workflow
- Successware for studio management - but that's coming.
- Proselect software - projection sales
Looks kinda like a to-do list to me!!
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Reclaim Your Dreams - Jonathan Mead
How I missed the worksheets yesterday is beyond me...I'll blame it on content overload.
So today, I'll look at yesterday's reading and make a contribution based on my worksheet from that reading. Tomorrow I'll do both on the same day (novel, I know.)
Chapter One - Reclaim Ownership of your Mind
For me, the idea of "going fearlessly with myself" means listening with an open heart to what my truest desires are and honoring them. At this exact moment in time, that includes working less, being more physically active, doing creative things for pleasure rather than for pay, reading because it's so pleasureable and napping for obvious reasons. Indulging in beautifully created food is pretty high up on the list too. (I'll blog about my relationship to food separately - but later)
On a scale of 1-10, I am committed to following my heart to about an 8 or 9. To get me to ten would involve eliminating life distractions - namely money/income/cashflow/assets.
The areas of my life where I'm giving up my power are in unhealthy relationships and in distractions (like my competitors or individuals whose personal lives include things my life doesn't).
One of the things I can start taking responsibility for in my life that will have the greatest impact for me is to find joy in every single day. Not allowing ungratefulness, jealousy, frustration, resentment or pettiness to creep into my mindset will empower me to be more of a positive creator of my own life experience - rendering the triggers of the aforementioned feelings/mindsets powerless. This is important for me to do because A) it's a waste of energy and B) using that energy to propel my life experience closer to the things I desire will make it happen that much faster.
The actions that I need to assume to take greater responsibility and experience more joy are :
-run 3-4 times a week for an hour minimum (with one super long run per week of 2-3 hours on the weekend)
-go to work late if at all on Wednesdays - stay home to cook/read/nap/craft/write
-work less hours per week.
-go on more dates with my husband
The parts of myself that I need to start listening to less in order to reclaim ownership of my mind & life are exclusively my inner critic. That's the voice that tells me that my paintings suck, that my craft projects suck, that my writing sucks, that my body will never the the shape I want, that my fashion sense sucks. That voice is entirely full of shit. The less I listen to it, the happier I'll be.
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Ok. that's seriously enough for one night. Did you read all that? What are your thoughts? Do you challenge yourself in these ways?
Have you considered purchasing this program? It's a HUGE amount of info to read through but if you aren't scared of doing the work, the rewards and payoffs promise to knock your socks off. Go buy it and let's do this together. If you HAVE bought it, leave your blog address below and I'll read your posts as you do the work and leave you comment-love. Because everyone likes that, right?
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"One of the things I can start taking responsibility for in my life that will have the greatest impact for me is to find joy in every single day."
ReplyDeleteThis got me thinking about what I could do in my life to find joy in every single moment, and what I'm currently doing to prevent seeing the joy. I think the biggest thing I need to work on is being fully present in the moment. Often I miss out on really experiencing things because I'm thinking/planning/worrying about what comes next. On the bus I'm calcuating how much extra time traffic is costing me, in class I'm thinking about what needs to get done in the evening, and lying in bed I'm thinking about my to-do list for the next day. All of this extra thinking is distracting me from whatever experience I really should be having at that moment. I've noticed this before but hadn't really thought much about it until yesterday. Yesterday afternoon I was on my way to Westminster Abbey. I was diligently following the instructions on google maps and as I looked up to check for a street sign I saw not only Westminster Abbey beautifully lit up, but also Big Ben and the London Eye. I was so focussed on which way i needed to turn at the next corner that I had missed the amazingness around me.
How am I going to change this? ugh, I think its going to be tough. I know that I've been doing this for a long time. I think I'm going to use the phrase "look up" to remind myself to do exactly that - to look up and take in all that is around me. I know this year in London is going to fly by and I want to fully enjoy it while I have the opportunity.
As for my inner critic - I need to stop listening to that voice that says I'm on the wrong bus, I'll never get there, I've forgotten an important detail and my life would only be better/more productive/more enjoyable if I could get more things done. I don't have a phrase to tackle that one but I'm hoping by being fully present in more of my day that the joy I feel won't be shaken by that nagging voice :)