Is it too late, now more than halfway through January, to get on track for an awesome year in 2013?
I don’t think so! And I know Leonie doesn’t either.
2013 got off to a shaky start for me. Not even a week into January, I heard myself telling a friend on the phone, “Bring on 2014!”
I didn’t really mean it. I love the new year and all that it brings. The hopes and dreams, the promise, the potential.
But I’ve had a couple of years that haven’t quite lived up to my big expectations.
This year began with some serious lack of sleep (a long story, involving a 5am start on New Year’s Day, and an unsuccessful attempt to sleep through the noise and fireworks on New Year’s Eve!). And I had no time to do my usual yearly reflection between Christmas and New Year.
I found it hard – in my shattered, unreflective state – to hold much hope for 2013.
Fast forward ten days. I stayed up way too late one night working through Leonie’s ‘Create Your Incredible Year Workbook’ (the biz edition). (I really didn’t mean to be up so late, but once I got started it was too hard to stop!) I now have ten new pages of notes for my biz, and a whole lot of excitement and energy for the work I want to do in 2013.
I finally took some time out earlier this month, after the craziness of December and Christmas, and spent a few days of creativity, reflection and relaxation down at the beach.
I’m still not sure how I feel about making goals. I look back over my 2012 goals (you can check those out in this post) and have to admit that I didn’t hit the mark there at all. Most of last year ended up being focused on trying to resolve my feet and hip pain – and sadly I haven’t even managed to do that yet.
I don’t have a great track record with achieving ‘goals’ that I set for myself, but I do have a few great habits that I intend to continue in 2013, as well as a few more that I hope to create.
My two favourite daily habits that I’ll take into 2013 with me:
Morning Pages – Almost five years after I first started and I’m still writing ‘morning pages’ as often as possible. Maybe not daily, but usually four or five days at least each week. I LOVE my morning pages habit!! You can read more about why I started, what my writing habit involves and why I love it here.
Breakfast Green Smoothie – If you’ve never tried a ‘Green Smoothie’ you’re seriously missing out! There’s something pretty special about this daily habit – starting the day with a green smoothie for breakfast just makes me smile! If you want to know more, and learn how to make your own green smoothies, check out this post.
New habits I hope to create in 2013:
Daily blog writing – If you’re on my email list, you’ll know that weeks can go by without me publishing a blog post.
I’m hoping that a daily habit of writing for an hour for my blog will help to get me closer to my ideal of four to six posts per month. That’s the plan anyway. But you should probably know that my life doesn’t always go to plan!!
(PS. So far in 2013, I’ve managed to do my ‘daily’ blog writing twice. With great results, but clearly it’s a habit that will need some work!)
‘Me’-time! – How badly do we women and mothers need ‘me’-time?! I didn’t realize until my recent escape to the beach just how little of this I’ve had the last couple of years.
Again, I’m trying to get back to those things that make me smile. Getting back to reading novels, to craft projects and a whole lot more creativity in my life.
And reminding myself that no, time spent on my blog and biz is definitely not the same thing as taking time out for me!
15 minutes daily decluttering – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked around our home and wonder just how much more ‘in control’ I would look (and feel) if I’d made a habit of Flylady’s 15 mins a day decluttering when I first learned of the idea.
Sadly, the longest I’ve managed is three days in a row, so I’ll have to work a bit to make this habit stick too!
I just need to remember just how much difference even 15 minutes of decluttering can make. It really does! Those 3 days in a row made a considerable improvement to our messy dining area. I can only imagine what a difference 15 minutes every day would make!
Awesome planners and organizers that I’ll be using in 2013!
I’m a list person! Every day I write my list of what I plan to do during the day. But I’m sure you know, as I do, that just writing a list is not enough to get things done.
So I’m constantly looking for ways to be more productive, and to make time – and use the time I can find – to take action on my ideas.
Those green smoothies help. There’s nothing like a healthy boost to your energy levels to keep you motivated and focused.
Reviewing and tracking my progress is a great help too. (Brilliant when I do it – not so helpful when I forget or neglect to. Funny that!)
Here’s a selection of my favourite yearly reviews and planners from some awesome bloggers:
Create Your Incredible Year Workbook, Planner & Calendar 2013 from Leonie Dawson
2013 Goal Setting & Action Workbook from Live Your Legend
Free Planners from Productive Flourishing
If you’re not sure where to start with getting – and staying! – on track for a great year, you should find some inspiration and guidance there.
Even now, it’s not too late!
Wishing you a happy, successful, productive, creative and truly awesome 2013!!
Brigid
What habits are you keeping or creating for 2013? What are your tips for staying on track with your habits and yearly goals?
Brigid you are certainly spot on when you say that it doesn’t matter what time of year it is when you decide to get your year (and life too) back on track with daily habits. I certainly learnt this when I attended a “Whatever It Takes” weekend on health, wealth and personal development in July 2012!
1) Keeping habits: My morning ritual (moving body, drink water, workout, affirmations, feed body healthy food, feed mind by reading, schedule day in detail, accountability call), my default diary for the week, chore time with the kids after dinner, relaxing before bed (no electronic devices just before bed)
2) New habits to create for 2013: juicing with my new juicer, and more social time with friends (including mixing with new people)
3) Tips for staying on track: baby steps – add one new habit at a time and keep it simple to start with e.g. when I started exercising, I started with short walk each day, now I do a daily bike ride and/or workout b/w 15 min – 60 min most days; but most of all HAVE FUN!!
Kerrie, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, habits and tips!
You’ve got an awesome morning ritual set up there – you’re fitting in so many great habits, and have pretty much every area covered. You may need to inspire me, you know that don’t you?!
I love your tips for staying on track. And absolutely agree with your reminder to HAVE FUN!! I totally agree that all of our habits – healthy food, exercise, working on our goals etc – should be fun. And if they’re not, maybe we need to approach them differently or find solutions that ARE fun!
Thanks so much for all your great ideas!
Hi Brigid, I received an email from a friend who specialises in marketing a few days back. She had looked at my website and offered a ‘few’ suggestions. I thought “I can do those!” and promptly got to work revamping my content. Then I had a thought to match the look and feel of both of my sites, then I checkout out other website templates, then I chose one and began working on both sites FROM SCRATCH.
Then today I get your blog. I followed this link http://www.productiveflourishing.com/free-planners/ and read, “Creative people approach their work differently. Most of us don’t work 8-5, and we don’t have projects that we can plan to get done during the same times each day. The limiting factor for us is not the amount of time we have available, but rather the type of time we have available.” This gave me a big ‘der fred’ moment…
My time is valuable, you know, kids and partner and Masters and business and self-time and social life ya de ya de. These people from productive nourishing are right… and I’ve downloaded and printed off (double sided to not waster paper!) their freelancing weekly project sheet. I’m going to keep tabs on my time and the quality of it… and remain focussed. I LOVE IT!
Thanks heaps, I wouldn’t have found this otherwise!
Jane
Hi Jane! I’m so happy that the planners from Productive Flourishing are just what you need to keep tabs on how you’re using your time. That’s awesome!
Re-reading your comment just now, I had my own ‘der fred’ moment!! With the kids going back to school next week, and suddenly a whole lot more on my plate – if that was even possible – I’ve been thinking about how to fit in the many hours of work I’ll be needing to do this year. Like you, I’ve started tracking my time, tho’ just in a notebook at this stage. And I’m really looking forward to using the Productive Flourishing ‘Productivity Heat Map’ to finally get some idea of when my most productive hours of the day are. I’m hoping that will be part of the key to having a much more productive and successful 2013!!
Look forward to seeing how you make it work, and comparing notes down the track about our huge leaps in productivity!!!