This is a guest post written by Greg Rollett from Rock Star Lifestyle Design. I reached out to Greg months ago while first looking at what it was to design your lifestyle. He’s been an awesome resource, down to earth and excited. He gives us some great tips on how to stay on track with our goals here, perfect reminders for wherever you are in designing your life.
Essentially lifestyle design boils down to how effectively you use your time, and the emotions you get from spending that time.
photo by nationalrural
I was sitting in on a mastermind call this week, and the moderator said something that truly clicked with me, and will hopefully click for the rest all of you,
I am about to spend life. Is my life worth spending on “this.”
Now look at what you are doing right now – you could be reading posts, or checking your Twitter account, writing a report, spending time with your family or friends, playing video games, traveling, checking email – you get my point. Now reread the sentence above. Is my life worth spending on this?
Let’s do a quick exercise. Count to 10.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
That is 10 seconds you can never get back. Ten seconds you could have spent getting on the treadmill, writing a post, meeting a new contact, sitting on the couch – you get it now right?
There are countless programs that teach time management and I bet in your 9-5 you were spoon fed a program that was to work with all the employees at the company. At your new freedom business, or internet lifestyle you have been tossed ideas of how to spend your time from outsourcing to inbox zero to GTD.
It Doesn’t Matter
I’ve read them all, taken online classes and attended countless seminars and they have all lead me back to the same place. That place is my Firefox open with tons of tabs, GMail open so I see my inbox numbers grow, Tweetdeck chirping every 30 seconds and a phone that likes to buzz every few minutes.
We all fall back on the systems that are familiar to us. We keep the email open to see new orders come in, or client requests. We hope that a cool Tweet pops up that takes us to a new blog or person. We open links in new tabs with the hopes of reading them in a few minutes and two days later discover that they are still there and if I close it I may never find it again. We bookmark, Stumble and Digg with tags that are great in intention, but when we need that one post for reference for something we are writing we are back in Google doing countless searches for keywords that make no sense to any human and gives webmasters that Tweet that says, “someone just found my site using the keyword ‘how to make love to twitter with a butter knife + mashable + orlando in 2009′.”
Damn that ADD
There’s only about 4.5 million people with ADHD in the U.S. (study from 2006). So what’s the problem with the rest of us?
Information overload is a start. How many blogs are in your RSS Reader? How many people’s Tweets do you look at? How many emails do you get everyday?
Processing this information is crucial to not only your growth, but also to get a hold of your life and come to peace. I don’t think minimalism is the answer. I think it lies in values and priorities. In order to be truly happy and live your ideal lifestyle, you need to do things that align with your values. If you value making money, you need to quit being a social media whore and start getting business. If you value family, what can you do to make every moment in your life more valuable for your family?
The Right Solution For You
As someone who has gone through many programs I have decided that there is no cut and paste system that is going to work for me, but I know a few things that can get people to notice when they are not spending their life to their fullest.
Write down when you catch yourself not doing something you care about. I make little check marks on a scrap piece of paper every time I catch myself web surfing, daydreaming or checking email excessively. This will get you to think of your actions more carefully.
Reward yourself. You need you time and that needs to be implemented into your day. Whether its an hour chunk or a few 15 minute breaks, be sure to give yourself time to relax and entertain your brain.
Get something important done before lunch. Tim Ferriss says to do it as the first thing in your day, but I say give it till lunch. When you eat you will feel more accomplished and will be excited to get back to whatever it is you spend your time doing.
Write important things down and post at your desk. This really changed the way I have done things. I have a personal statement and business vision printed at my desk and I glance at it constantly. What it does is look me in the mirror and ask if what I am doing aligns with these statements and wil progress me closer towards a goal or purpose. It works freakishly good.
Tell people your goals. When you tell people your goals, they are prone to ask you about them in conversation. When they ask about a project you told them about and 3 weeks go by, you should have made some progress right? If not, they are going to call you off and not take your idea seriously. That’s powerful. Show them you mean it and if you work hard you will have something to report.
How Do You Manage Your Time
Everyone has different ideas and views and I want to know what works for you. Do you have an application or a technique that can benefit people? Let us know in the comments. When building a business, learning from the wins and losses of others is one of the best things you can do, so please let’s share and help each other grow.
Greg is helping young people find their passion and grow their brand in the new Rock Star Business Series. Sign-up or say hey to Greg on Twitter.
[...] already covered and even had a guest post on countless tactics of efficiency and how to save time, batching, 80/20, no meetings, singular focus, negative [...]
@Alan – I agree that managing information overload is crucial to your success. One thing I found over the weekend is that you need to start saying NO to information. Marketers like to cram bonus after bonus in your face and in the end you got all this stuff that you will never have the time to go through and apply.
Thanks for the comment.
@Robert – Thanks for letting me take up some of your real estate. Let me know how the checkmark thing goes, it can be real powerful once your mind starts playing that game. You always need to get better and get your mind to do that.
@Ash – sometimes giving up on projects is the best thing we can do. I was at a conference over the last few days and a megamillionaire person said it best, when I stopped having 10 half done projects and focused on 1 “done” project, my business exploded and then I had the opportunity to use leverage to start the other projects.
Thanks for chiming in.
First of all, this post is going to make me not want to complete a project I’ve been procrastinating for the longest time that “needs” to get done, but your quote really resonated with me. This might have to become my new personal motto!
Second, I was contemplating this issue of information overload just the other day. As a relatively new Twitter user, I’m already witnessing myself becoming a bit too overzealous with it. And it’s tough – because of the rise of social media, things like Twitter have become a necessary (and expected) tool, and for good reason. Yet, it’s problematic when I find myself driving down the road, barely paying attention to the road because my Blackberry notification light is blinking away. I’m finding it hard to resist, even though I’m fully aware that I could get myself into an accident at any moment. And that’s scary to see the power these things can have over you.
Last but not least, something that’s helped me significantly is returning to the old pencil and paper route. When I need to sit down and write something, I do a much better job if I close the laptop, grab a notebook and a juicy gel pen, and stick out the Carpal Tunnel! No distractions, just me and my thoughts. And maybe a glass of vino.
Greg, thanks so much for this, those triggers you shared at the end are perfect for an arsenal of getting things done. They speak to everyone, and at all levels which make them all the more potent.
I’m going to use the “check mark when I’m not staying on task” method today, being competitive, it’s going to innately push me to finish what I’m working on. Sweet.
I’ve been developing and using a workflow system for a while now that actually allows me to see and jump back into a stream of tasks easily and effectively. I’ll be sharing it soon here as my “workflow of work”, it might worth your gander and go perfect with these easily implemented calls to action. Nice!
Greg, this is a fantastic post. The element I find most attractive in the lifestyle design discourse is information-processing, something you address directly here.
The first step for anyone aspiring to reach a higher standard of life is to think about how information, in its various forms, affects one’s day-to-day activities. The time involved. The benefits acquired. The clutter. By focusing one’s initial energies on unraveling “information,” one is better positioned to get-things-done, as they say.
Really enjoyed this!