Scary right? Where did the year go? Like a lot of you, I made some lofty New Year’s resolutions last year. Many of them have fallen by the way side. But I am a believer that it’s not over until it’s over. I can still accomplish some of my goals or at least make some good headway on them. I resolve! I decide to finish the year 2009 strong! How about you?
When I made this decision, in September I had in mind a post by Seth Godin that really inspires me in a situation like this. It’s called, “Sprint”. The idea is that sometimes, you have to sprint in order to ‘overcome your fear of creativity, brainstorming, intelligent risk taking or navigating a tricky situation’. I expand on that to apply to my situation that in order to overcome your tendency to procrastinate or get over your feeling of being stuck, you have to go on a sprint.
To explain further, take a look at the excerpt below from Seth’s Blog,
When we sprint, all the internal dialogue falls away and we just go as fast as we possibly can. When you’re sprinting you don’t feel that sore knee and you don’t worry that the ground isn’t perfectly level. You just run.
You can’t sprint forever. That’s what makes it sprinting. The brevity of the event is a key part of why it works.
So off I go on my own sprint with a focus on my physical fitness, personal branding (i.e. this blog), online business goals and offline business growth. My adrenaline is pumping, I have razor sharp focus on my tasks at hand and on the prize. It may mean less sleep, less personal activity, but when you are on a sprint, there’s no time to waste or to look at the temporary sideline fixtures like TV watching or hanging out with friends.
Here are some things that I resolve to do to help me during my sprint:
1) Check email 2 to 3 times per day And I specifically will not check email first thing in the morning. When you check email first thing in the morning and too many times during the day, you become reactive to the demands of your inbox. Plan your day well, a lot time for email and if there is action required for email, a lot time to carry out those tasks too. Do not become reactive to what someone else has determined as a priority for their day. Your time is valuable. Learn to manage it well.
2) Exercise Hopefully, this will help me to manage my energy level so I can be more productive and error free in my tasks at hand. Plus, this was one of my resolutions that did not quite make it past the first quarter of 2009.
3) Set my intentions In addition to planning my days or weeks as the case might be, I will set intentions for each task, each hour and each project. For instance, if I plan to work on my blog for 2 hours, what does that mean exactly? I will devote 2 hours to add plug-ins and other design features or I will devote 2 hours, writing 5 blog posts and schedule them as broadcasts over the next few weeks. Be specific and set intentions for your projects or tasks that are in line with your master goal(s) for the rest of the year.
4) Make use of online automation tools I have a couple of newsletters, blogs and websites that have to be updated periodically. Then there’s my Twitter account, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. You get the picture. Maintaining these social accounts are time-consuming, but essential for growing on online business and even networking for an offline business. So I resolve to set aside time to automate these tools as much as I can and then update them real-time at specific well-defined intervals.
Are you willing to go on a sprint to achieve your goals, finish the year strong and feel better about your accomplishments for 2009? I would love to hear about it. Do leave a comment below.
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