Running, Cupcakes and Life-Coaching: Striving for Perfection and Planning Ahead

Welcome to week 2 everybody!

If you missed out, check out last week’s life coaching post.  Hopefully, you took my advice and got started.

You have goals and a calendar and you’re ready to rock.  Right?

Oh good! So what’s next?

Tip #2: Adjust Your Attitude

Emily sent me this great article- How to Allocate Your Time and Effort.  I read it and immediately loved it because the moral of the story is DON’T TRY TO BE PERFECT.

Phew! That’s a load off.

Be sure to read it…there are some great points there.

In all honesty, I am nowhere near a perfectionist.  At work, my attention to detail is on high and I am a total over achiever, but I make mistakes like everybody else.  Sometimes I skip workouts.  Sometimes we eat takeout.  Sometimes I drink a whole bottle of wine. I procrastinate.  I oversleep. I forget. It happens.

Just take a deep breath, roll with the punches and figure out how to do it better next time.

Tip #3: Figure Out How to Allocate Your time

With your list of goals, sit down with your calendar and look at the week ahead. What is mandatory? Work, eating, family time-those are the things that should have sufficient time allotted no matter what.  What is optional? What is a pipe dream?

After time for mandatory activities is blocked out, where do you have time for your projects?  Try getting up an hour earlier one day to get your workout or blogging in.  If you have time after dinner and before bed, put a small task in there.  While packing every second of every day will just wipe you out, make the most out of the time that you have.

Don’t forget that there are 24 hours in a day… use them!

I used to work two jobs-banking and waitressing.  I would work all day then wait tables at night.  Most days I had at least 90 minutes in between my jobs and could get a workout in.  Working seven days a week made it hard to keep my focus and energy on my goals, but you just have to do it or your life will pass you by.

Tip #3: Plan Ahead

If you want to maximize your days, there are things to you can do in advance to save time.  When planning your week, don’t forget the details.

Make a meal plan.  Choosing your meals ahead of time takes the guesswork and extra time out of each day.  Write it down, check your kitchen, figure out what you need at the store and get it all in one trip.  If you can, do as much prep as possible all at once.  This makes it so you can spend less time in the kitchen.  If you are only washing the knife and cutting board once, instead 10 times, you can use that saved time to do something you want.

Plan your outfits.  Whether you work in a gym or an office, you have to wear clothes every day.  Write down what you’re going to wear, make sure it is all clean and accessible.  If you get out a bed a little late one day, you’ll be happy your clothes are waiting for you.  This counts for workout clothes too! If you work out before or after work and take a gym bag, pack it the day ahead.  This will help you avoid forgetting key items.

Consolidate: Imagine if you ran one errand every day.  You would have to go to your car, drive to the location, do whatever it is you needed to do and drive home.  Multiply that by seven for each day…that’s a lot of time in the car.  I run errands only once a week-grocery store, library, bank, etc.   If I forget to go to the library, then I wait until next week (I have a lot of overdue fines…).   Just like I mentioned above with time in the kitchen, do all of one thing at a time and get it out of the way as to not repeat steps (washing your knife or driving, for example).

Use wasted time: I prefer to ride the bus to work because I spend roughly the same amount of time in transit, but on the bus I can read, browse Instagram or respond to emails.  I don’t any of those things while driving and neither should you!

Other possible time wasters: Waiting at soccer practice to pick your kids up, doctor appointments, lunch breaks.  Use that time to tackle a task.  Anything you can get out of the way frees up your time for your projects and goals.

I guess we’ll stop there.  Those are my tips for the week.  Do you have anything to add?

I can’t help but want to circle back to the beginning of this post and remind you all that PERFECTION IS NOT THE GOAL.  The goal is to be the best version of yourself.  If you get home one night with plans to work on your novel and you feel like watching TV instead, just watch TV.  Don’t beat yourself up over it.  That’s life! And it’s amazing.

my IG post from yesterday morning captioned: No matter how much planning you do, some mornings you find yourself sitting sleepily on the couch looking at Twitter when you should be dressed and heading out the door.

That is the truth, my friends.

Until next week…

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