Realizing that I have two ways I can spend my day, I decided to pay attention to the result of each. How did I feel? What was my mood? What did I accomplish? What did I gain?

One day goes something like this. I get up early. Jump out of bed and begin my morning routine, get dressed without much thought, have my usual bowl of cereal while reading only the headlines on my iPad then I have a cup of coffee as I walk to my home office. I check my email and spend a lot of time responding to what I find there. Organizing my desk and taking care of the obvious To Dos on the top of my desk takes a bit of time as well.

Now I think about the most pressing, urgent, etc. issues. By the way, something being urgent or pressing does not mean that it was important. Typically it is urgent and important to someone else or something I must get done by the due date.

By now, my head is swimming with information from everything I already placed a moment of my attention. I look at my very long to do list that adds more thoughts to my mind. Then other things come to mind. I start doing things I don’t mind doing one after another.

The phone rings and my attention shifts again to that request and so my day goes. I am very busy, doing a lot of work, feeling tired, growing less and less focused. At the end of this day, I can say I was busy, did a lot and accomplished nothing!  I can say that I do not feel good about the results of my day.

Another Kind of Day

Another way that I spend my day, I wake up and lay in bed for a moment to gain my focus and perspective. How am I doing? What must I do today? What would I like to do?  What would help me to take a step to accomplish my vision of success? How would I like to feel today? With that intention, I get up and make sure that I am approaching each step mindfully. My cereal, headlines and coffee are still in the routine but I am more conscious about each step.

Look around my home, I put things away, clean up so that my living space is clear. Now is my time to meditate in a quiet, comfortable space. When I feel calm in my body, have cleared my thinking from the day before and set my space to enthusiasm then I am ready to create my plan for the day. I meditate on my vision and my goals. Where am I now and what can I do today that will have the greatest impact on achieving them? What am I resisting? What steps am I not taking? Who is on my side and can I engage in helping with my goals? With this clarity and feeling grounded I move into my office.

Clearing and organizing my workspace does not take much of my time. I do a quick and cursory scan of my emails, addressing only those that support my goals for this day. The others I will look at later. Now is the time to take on what I call high value tasks and make some magic. I know from experience that focusing on a single high value task to completion moves the dial that much closer to the result I want to achieve. The challenge is not to avoid the task just because it is difficult, pushes my limits or makes me feel uncertain. I take a deep breath, ground, center, focus and begin. It is amazing to me how a very difficult task taken one step at a time unfolds, opens up so that I can see the next step, then the next. None of the steps is as daunting as I expect.

At the end of this day, I am smiling, inspired, assured and energized. I can see the distance I have come. Now I am ready to close the door for the day. Collect up my energy from the days work.  It is time to play.

The first day I described I am justing going through a routine with barely a second thought, doing a lot and accomplishing nothing. The second day describes my way to taking ownership of what I intend to create and making it happen.

If you have ways that you spend your day that support, your vision of success, please share your thoughts.

Best wishes on your success, Kay