Scheduling Time to Think is Vital to Making Progress

I decided I was going to kick off 2019 by using a 90 Day progress journal. In fact, I did a little unboxing video on it which you can see here.

After the first 7 days, the journal offers space for reflection. And holy heck did I do some thinking.

I started 2019 with all these grand plans and ambitions to achieve so much more this year than the previous two years that I have been unwell. The progress journal was a way to track how amazing I am going to be this year.

It taught me the opposite.

And that was super helpful.

In my first seven days, I didn't accomplish even half of what I wanted to achieve, and it asked me some interesting questions as to why.

Recently, I have been spending a bit of time as a consumer of stimuli. Watching TV, listening to music, listening to podcasts, scrolling through social media. Some of it has to do with work - some of it pleasure.

I've been doing activities such as these to restore balance in my life. I worked too much for too long and became unwell. Now, I am striving to achieve work-life balance.

I am attempting to work between 8 and 10 hours per day each day. Of that time, I am having meetings, writing and sending emails, posting on social media, writing articles, doing behind the scenes work, recording podcasts, recording videos. I am not actually scheduling any thinking time.

My thinking time, I have realised, is invaluable when it comes to my working time. I am not great at on the spot work. For example, I had written most of this article in my head before I even looked at my keyboard. I need to prioritise thinking time outside of my actual working time; otherwise, I am too overwhelmed when I sit down to work because I haven't had the chance to plan things out.

So I'm increasing my working hours by about an hour or two each day where I have time to not actually sit down and do anything, but to plan things out, to draft articles, emails, videos and documents in my head and to think about where I want to go next in my projects.

My next reflection for my progress journal is in 23 days' time, so I will be checking back in with myself then on how my thinking time has contributed to my progress in achieving my goals in 2019.