Your reunion is next week and you
never dropped the forty pounds you gained since high school graduation.
The book report on War and Peace is due Monday and you
never read past Chapter One.
You were one of the several million
sweating bullets at midnight on April 14 while you downloaded IRS forms.
Welcome to the Rise and Shine Deadline Club!
We pray for mercy and hope no one
notices the weight we gained, the book we didn’t read, or the headaches we gave
ourselves because of our procrastination.
Given another chance, we vow to never
do this to ourselves again
If you are truly serious this time,
here is a guideline.
1.
Define what the goal (diet, deadline, demand)
means to you.
Is it as important as the demands
everyone else makes of you and your time? Is it important enough to affect
change in your habits? It is not going
to happen magically. It is going to take
work, lots of work, so are you willing to scuttle your ships and get up off
your duff, and do something about it?
2.
Realign
your work schedule.
Make time and portion out your day so
you can make time for your family and obligations, church and work hours, AND
YOUR OWN PERSONAL GOALS.
We each have our own circadian
rhythm, so when are you the most productive or most able to work on your
goal? Scheduling time to work on your
goal is imperative.
3.
Design
your work area.
Preplan for optimal success. If you are easily distracted by your
surroundings – tempting foods not on your diet are readily accessible, your
work or study area is too distracting, then move things, get rid of things, and
find ways to help you focus.
4.
Redline
your output.
Figure out how to get the most out of
yourself. Notice it says “the most” not “more”
out of yourself. Give yourself a daily goal, a weekly goal, even a monthly
goal. Make it the most you can expect of
yourself on an optimal level. Make it
measurable - so many minutes per day to work out, so many portions of food per
meal, so many words read or written per day, so much done by a certain date,
etc.
Remember also to allow for setbacks. Give yourself a week or a month cushion time
before a deadline. It not only allows
for setbacks but for “real life living,” times when you cannot fit in a workout
or a diet plan or a day to do paperwork.
I use an egg timer to keep myself on
task in the little pockets of time throughout the day I can work on my
writing. If I have to read and review a
book by a certain date, I divide the number of pages in the novel by the number
of working days minus one week, so I can finish the book ahead of time.
If you
work on using time to your benefit, you will have lost that weight, read that
book, kept up with your finances.
Before
you know it, you will outshine your deadline!
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