April is the month many are starting New Projects. Sunday, April 11th’s New Moon was positioned perfectly to lend some good luck in New Beginnings of all kinds.
One of the first questions asked at the start of any new endeavor is, “What’s your plan?” Action Plans help us to better navigate new projects. To be successful you need to define goals, create defined steps, set milestones, visualize your action plan, and last but certainly not least, monitor and check off items in order to stay on track. These time-tested actions work great for specific projects that you want done by a certain timeline. Even though Action Plans are still a good idea, recognizing that we are not on the same planet as yesterday, it might be a really good idea to add a step before starting to create.
Navigating is a lot easier when you know your beginning point. For instance, balance between Work-Life-Fun could be very important and tops expectations for many in today’s design of a Balanced Life. Pre 2020, most made decisions toward balance by integrating commute times, travel for work and many other considerations that have changed dramatically over the past year. Where are you spending most of your time today? What actions take up most of your time? How much time is being devoted to what you must do and what you want to do? These are questions that potentially have different answers than they did last year. Understanding and truly absorbing new levels of information about your day will bring a feeling of confidence and victory (Balance) to any Action Plan.
In yesterday’s world, the “What’s Your Top Line” exercise, (game) was used to find out how much time was being devoted to an out-of-reach (for the moment) goal. Basically, it was done when finding time to work toward something bigger, a book, a new business idea, invention, etc. It will work perfectly to find out just where you are spending your energy and time each day. In other words, “Where do I carve out time for new dreams in my current schedule?” This added step to any Action Plan could potentially connect dots and help calculate time resources before you make a concrete plan based on old time schedules that might not work anymore. Here is the exercise.
In Old School fashion, take a piece of paper and draw three lines horizontal across the page. Label the bottom-line FAMILY, the middle-line WORK and the top-line NEW PROJECTS-LONG RANGE GOALS.
*On each line fill in all the activities that are required and enjoyed along with the amount of time each activity takes. For instance, the Family line could include everything from household chores, meal planning and prep, kids’ activities, along with fun time with family and friends. (Multi-tasking!)
*On the Work line, include drive time, travel for work and any other required meetings etc. This is the line that might look a lot different than last year.
*On the New Projects line, be open and think of what you want on this line. It could be projects of the moment only or add a line above for long range goals.
Whether you do the written version for discovery, or just mentally scan for out of alignment parts, bringing new “Time” awareness to any project will help create Balanced Action-Balanced Life and ultimately a happier YOU!
Love to All,
Cindi
“It All Starts with YOU!”
