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Kathi Burns 0:00
Hi there, I'm board certified professional organizer Kathi Burns. I'm really glad you're here. This podcast is designed for busy entrepreneurs just like you who want to take better control of your business and move forward with less stress and more success. If this is your first time listening then Thanks for coming. The organized synergize podcast is produced for your enjoyment, and show notes are found at the podcast dot organized and energized com. Come back often and feel free to add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow me on twitter at organized energy and Facebook. All links are in the show notes. Now let's get into the show. Successfully supported over 3000 coaches, consultants and service providers, including solopreneurs to seven figure superstars in creating their own simple success roadmaps. today. As a girl after my own heart, Laura is going to show us what she recommends to do to plan your day for success. So welcome, Laura, I'm so glad you're here. And I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say about planning our days for success.

Laura Posey 1:05
Thanks for having me, this is one of my favorite things to talk about.

Kathi Burns 1:09
I love it. And girl after my own heart being a professional organizer, it's all about plan plan, plan goals, goals, goals. So you definitely want to see what you have to say. So the first question that I have for you is, why do you think people procrastinate on doing the things that will lead them towards their

Laura Posey 1:25
goals? Yeah, you know, it's that's a huge question, like procrastination is one of the number one things that people say they need to fix when they come to me. And you know that the procrastination is just a symptom, right? It's not that people are born is procrastinators, they just don't have things set up in a way that allows them to work in a steady manner. And so what happens is, when there's something in their environment, when the next step isn't clear for them, they get confused. And as soon as your brain gets confused, it shuts down. And it goes and says, This is confusing. I don't want to do this anymore. What else can I do that I know how to do Oh, look, there's Facebook, I know how to do Facebook, write it or don't just go and do something that it knows how to do. And so the two big things to really help you get through that procrastination, and to get rid of that from your life. Or to be really, really mindful of the way you create the tasks on your task list. You know, people will tell you, Oh, you got to put them on your calendar, and you got to write them in order. And you got to do that. I don't care where you put them, I don't care how you write them, I don't care whether you type them or handwrite them or put them on a gallon or whatever. But you have to do two things with them. One, you have to make crystal clear. Now tasks are actions that you want to take the things to be performed. And so your task has to start with a verb. And it has to start with a really clear verb. When it starts with the right action. Your brain goes, Oh, I can do that. So for example, let's say you're going to write a blog post and you want to go do some research about a particular topic. Well, if your task says research this topic, your brain goes research. That sounds really complicated. I remember doing that in school, and I think it involved a library now. And it goes to find something else that it knows how to do, boom, you're procrastinating. But if you just change the beginning of that, and say, Google, whatever this topic is, your brain goes, Oh, I know exactly how to Google something, I just open a browser, I go to Google, I type it in, and I'm off to the races. So that task has to be really clear. And most importantly, that first verb has to be really clear your brains gonna know exactly what you want your hands to do. The next thing that I see is that a lot, a lot of tasks that people write down are just way too big. Right? Your brain looks at it and goes, that's gonna take forever. Yeah, right. Again, using our example of the research versus Google, right? When your brain sees the word research, it thinks that's gonna take forever. Research is a long process. I might be at this all day. I don't have time for that. I don't want to do it. None of that sounds exciting. I'm out. But again, when you break it down into a Google this topic, oh, I could totally Google this topic. And then write down the first five pieces of information that show up in that Google search. Oh, I can totally do that. Right. It's such a small chunk that your brain looks at it and says, I can do that and so on. If you want to knock out your procrastination, take a look at your task list. Make sure that your tasks are very clear, with a very easy to accomplish verb, and make sure that they're small enough that your brain looks at it and goes, I could check that off really fast.

Kathi Burns 5:18
I really like that I like to use Google as a verb, you know. And, you know, I always I was thinking, Oh, Google, you know, for me, research is easy. Google is like, oh, I'll go off into the internet. But if you follow it up with doing writing, right, the five things that you find right away, then boom, okay, easy. Now I did that. So I need to get the heck off of Google.

Laura Posey 5:42
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it's sort of like creating a little workbook for yourself. Remember, when you're in school, and you had homework, the homework had really clear step by step directions, do this, and then do this, and then do this and then do this. It's like a recipe. I love and you can get your task list to look like that. You can accomplish anything. And it's easy, because they're little tasks, and you check them off. And it's like, oh, yeah, look at all the stuff I got done today.

Kathi Burns 6:08
Yeah, and it feels really, really good to check those things off.

Laura Posey 6:11
Exactly. Yeah, I will just disappear.

Kathi Burns 6:16
Yeah, the task go away. And then and then you reach your goals. Who, right heckling,

Laura Posey 6:21
exactly, it's

Kathi Burns 6:21
a good thing. I know that oftentimes, you know, my clients complain of overwhelm. And I think it's overwhelmed. Because again, like you said, their task are unclear. They don't have clarity. They just think, Oh, you know, as you say, research, Oh, my gosh, no way. overwhelmed, I am going to go do something that I know how to do. So that is fantastic advice. Absolutely. All right. So now, the big topic that all of us are talking about, we're all working from home, right? There's so many distractions. Yeah. Oh, you know, how can you How do you say that people should to avoid these distractions and stay with that laser beam focus? What do you what do you have to say about that?

Laura Posey 7:01
Yeah, so that focus, a lot of it comes from motivation. Right? You know, first of all, we've got to get rid of the procrastination, and the overwhelm, and all of those things that lead us to seek distractions, right. But we've also got to have some motivation to accomplish the tasks that are on our list is sit down at our desk, and do some work instead of go watch TV or do the laundry or take a walk or play with the dog or whatever else you've got going on. And so when we look at the word motivation, the root of the word motivation is the same as the root for the word emotion. Right? So a motivation is all about feeling. And your work has to be emotional, it has to connect to some deeper feeling. And there's lots of different ways that you can connect it to different feelings. So you can think about the importance of your work, and how you're helping people and really get a specific person in mind, hey, this specific client or prospect that you really want to help and think about how the work that you're going to do right now is really going to change that person's life. That's one way to get emotionally connected to the work. Another way to get emotionally connected is to think about, okay, well, if I do this work, I'm going to get paid, right? Like, whatever it is that I'm producing, even if I'm, you know, writing a book, and it's going to take a long time, ideally, I'm going to get paid for that book. And so you can start to think about that money that's going to come in and then think really deeply about what are you going to use that money for? How is that going to enrich your life, and not just the numbers piece of it, but you know, think about, oh, well, I'm gonna make this $10,000 from doing whatever this is, I you know, selling a book or on a coaching course, whatever. And I'm going to take that money, I'm going to have $5,000 of that, just to go pay off this credit card bill that's been haunting me. Or I can put this $5,000 in my child's college fund. And that is going to help my kid go to school and be able to focus and not have to be burdened by all these student loans. And so when she graduates, she's going to be able to just launch into her life, right? Or that money is going to go towards a down payment on my next house or my kitchen renovation, make that create something that that that money is specifically earmarked for that's really exciting and motivating for you. You really want to connect those goals to your life and your emotions.

Kathi Burns 9:41
Absolutely. You know, and I'm a big student of the law of attraction and it's all about you tap into the emotion behind and the feeling behind, why you're going where you're going. And then if you just hold on to that you get to where you want to go. Or if you can't really feel how it's going to be when you're done. You can get started tract very easily. So I am very much sympathetic with that idea. I think it's key to actually getting anything manifesting anything in your life. So love that absolutely,

Laura Posey 10:10
absolutely a without, without that, that strong emotion, that emotion has to be strong enough to override anything that's going to get in your way. any obstacles, any challenges, it's got to be stronger than the poll of watching television. And if you feel yourself starting to get distracted, you know, it's like, well, you know, gosh, I really want to go play on Facebook right? Now stop and ask yourself, why? What is it that I'm going to get over there? And how do I create an emotion over here, that stronger, not just, oh, Facebook is bad, it's a waste of time, that's not helping. But tap into a stronger emotion that's more powerful than the lure of Facebook. And there's a whole biochemical thing that's going on underneath of all of this with the emotions, we're not going to go down that rabbit hole. But you really are hacking your your chemicals in your brain to keep you on track and keep you focused. And the more you do it, the easier it is.

Kathi Burns 11:12
Yeah, I think you're right. And you know, sometimes finding the feeling of how it's going to feel is hard. It's it's debolt, for certain things I found in the past, you know, it's like, oh, I can see it. I can maybe see myself there, but feeling how I'm going to feel when I'm there if I've never been there. Yeah. Do you have any secrets for that? Because that that I think is a big kicker. You know, I can see it, I can kind of put myself into it. But how am I going to feel? I don't know, because I've never been there.

Laura Posey 11:42
Yeah. And so a lot of times, what we do then is we start to think, well, what is something that I've done in the past that I can relate this to? So if I'm, I'm taking a big leap forward in my business, and I've never been to that place. Maybe I can look back and say, well, where else in my life have I made a big change or made a big leap forward? Maybe it's you, you've made a big leap forward in your physical fitness. Or maybe you push through and got a degree while you were working full time, right? Think of another place in your life where you've had that big change, and how amazing that felt how proud you felt of your accomplishment. Right? how strong you felt. Think about all of those things. And know that when you make that next big leap, you're going to feel those same things again. Yeah, yeah.

Kathi Burns 12:32
Because you're all kind of the same emotions, you know, by joy, abundant insulation, you know, so Oh, that's, that's great. He's an anchor event of where you felt what you want to feel again? Yeah, perfect. Perfect. Okay, so let's move on, because I know we're running out of time. Okay, this is a big one. And I want to hear what you do to plan your days for success. What do you use for your Litmus, your checklist? How do you go out.

Laura Posey 13:00
So I use a daily success checklist, here's mine, right here. And it's got some very specific pieces parts to it. So I'm going to cover this up, because these are my goals, and I'll share them. So in the top, here we go, we write down and, and I preprint, these two places right here. So this is my only pull it over here. So these are my annual goals. And I read through those every single day. These are my quarterly projects, these are the big rocks, if you will, that I have to get moved this quarter, if I'm going to hit my goals, these are my daily success habits. So these are the things that that make me better, mentally better, physically, better spiritually. So this has to do with eating right, I practice Spanish and I practice my violin, that keeps me mentally sharp. I close my activity ring on my watch. So I get some physical activity, and then I journal that's a spiritual piece for me. Then we have a each day has a focus hour. So we have our clients focus on one thing each day of the week, so So for me, this is money Monday. And so I do all my financials on Monday, then spend an entire hour working on financials, then we have three project tasks. So something from this project list over here, three things that I can do to make progress on those, then all the other stuff that needs to be done. And then the last piece is a reflection. And we always wrap up with the reflection piece. Look at what are you proud of? What did you accomplish? What did you learn? And what are you grateful for, so that at the end of your day, when you finish that reflection piece, you can shut off your work brain. You know that when you've checked this off, you've done all the things that you needed to do to be successful today and you're done. You're Work part is, is finished and you can step away from your desk, step out of your office and into your life and be completely fully present in the rest of your life instead of going Wait, did I do that? do this? Right? It's all done. And that keeps you hyper organized.

Kathi Burns 15:18
Yeah, yeah. And and, you know, being grateful and having closure helps you to begin the next day as well. Yes, with a heart open and feeling Hey, you know, I got that whole thing done yesterday, now I can start again and you have more energy, I know, much energy around it. I love having the three rocks that you need to move as your quarterlies I think that's really, really good. I'm definitely gonna use your seat, use your sheets for a while and see what happens with that. Now, I know that I think this is something that you are giving to the audience, right?

Laura Posey 15:52
Absolutely, yes, I am. Everybody can get a free copy of it. And I have a whole I put it together so that there's they can download the checklist. There's a printable version and a online fillable version. There's a tutorial video, there's some samples and examples. Everything is right there. And so that just click one button and everything will come up on the page, all the downloads and the video and everything. Just kind of a whole kit.

Kathi Burns 16:21
I love it. And I welcome all you people to do this, um, you know, we're really simpatico because whenever you talk about having, okay, Monday is you know, your money day, I do the same thing, right, but I have my clients umbrella each day with your intention of what they're going to do for that day, whether it's project day, organizing day, interview day, whatever it is, um, you know, kind of having that that arc over your day helps a lot. And you having it for one hour actually seems a lot less intimidating as well. I mean, we can do it for an hour, right?

Laura Posey 16:57
Yeah and I have people put a timer on it. Right? So Monday, Monday, if I don't have an hour's worth of, you know, bookkeeping and Bill paying and, and all of that. Then I'm going to go look at reports. I'm going to look at investments, I'm going to research investment opportunities, and I am going to do nothing but money until that timer goes off.

Kathi Burns 17:19
Fantastic. Fantastic. Well, I think you all should download this and check it out. You know, Laura has a wealth of information. She's been doing this for a long time. Like I say at the top of the thing you know, we have over 1000s and 1000s of clients that she's helped over the years. So grab it, check it out and see how you can move your big rocks forward towards your big goals. And at the end of the year, I bet I guarantee you're gonna get more done.

Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you want to hear more, feel free to subscribe on the platform of your choice. Also, if you feel so inclined, I would truly appreciate a good rating from you to me have a stellar day!