Some people resist structures because they feel like it doesn’t give them flexibility. They fall off the wagon and don’t use those structures or frameworks. However, they realize that when things aren’t working for them, it’s typically when they’re not using the structures that they put in place. People need to realize that it’s really the structures that support you in your day-to-day life that help you stay clear of distractions and take back time. When we can create frameworks and structures, it helps us to stay focused and it’s there to support us have a big picture in whatever process we’re doing. There are structures for innovation, for decision, and for prioritization. Learn more about them and how these different structures support you in different areas of your life.
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Structures That Support You To Take Back Time
We’re going to talk about frameworks and structures that support you in your day-to-day life and how they can help you to take back time. I have to first make a confession. There’s a lot of people who think that I’m super structured and super organized. That is absolutely not the case. As a matter of fact, it’s not my nature at all to be structured and organized. I am squirrel, one of those people that can be easily distracted and not very different probably than you in many ways. For a long time, I used to resist structures because I felt like it didn’t give me flexibility and really sometimes I fall off the wagon and I don’t use those structures. I recognized how important they are to me every single time. When things aren’t working for me, it’s typically when I’m not using the structures that I put in place.
What I mean by that is that when we can create frameworks, you’ll see that I draw a lot of pictures. If you look in my book, I have a lot of different frameworks that I use and when I’m presenting I use frameworks. I love using them. I love using them because it helps me to stay focused and able to present in a clearer way because I’ve got the structure to be able to speak around and teach around. At the same time, when I’m going through making a decision or evaluating a process when I’m looking to innovate. When we have a structure, it helps us to get clear and focus our attention on, “What am I filling into that box?” All the hard work is done and all the thinking work in terms of creating the framework is already done. It’s there to support you in whatever the process is that you’re doing. Even a to-do list is a structure that supports you. It helps you take out what’s in your head and what’s consuming a lot of energy and put it into a list.
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If you added a little bit more structure to that list, some people do the one, two, three or ABC method where you’ll rank it. That’s another structure and that supports you in knowing what are your highest-level priorities. You can also structure your to-do list, like I do, into categories. I put them into project categories. That enables me to keep track and have an overall view of what’s going on in all of my projects at one time. Some people use mind maps. That’s another type of structure that can support you to see everything that’s going on and have a big picture. There are frameworks for innovation. There are frameworks for decision making. There are frameworks for prioritization. Making a matrix to determine what are the criteria for the selection and what’s the weighted objects of it and whatnot. There are lots of different structures that support you in each different area. If you’re going to do a marathon, for instance, you have a structure. It’s called the plan. For you, setting aside what you’re going to do in your nutrition, in your workout plan and also in the preparation for the running, these are all structures that support us in different areas of our life.
The same thing if you’re looking to lose weight. There’s a structure that supports you. Whenever we have structures, it helps us to get better results and get them faster. Think about what happens when you don’t have it, then things fall apart. Our thinking goes all over the place and we can quickly get overwhelmed. These structures and frameworks and plans, they help to make sure that we can stay focused and bring our full attention and our best attention to what it is that we’re doing and what it is that we know that we want to do. These structures are there to keep us focused on what it is that we want to do so that we can get the results that we want. If you’re somebody who resists having a plan or having some structure in your life, you resist time blocking or having a nutrition plan or an exercise plan of some sort, I encourage you to embrace it. A client that I was working with, he was having a hard time getting back on track. He was spending more time on other things versus the sales that he needed to be focused on. He knew that, but he still wasn’t getting results.
As a coach, one of the things that we do is we ask people so that they bring their own solution. Even though we might be able to give them the answer, it’s better that they come up with it. I asked him, “What have you done in the past that helps you to get back on track?” He said he goes back to his daily planning. I knew that that’s where he was going to head, but I had to lead him there. The fact is that when he falls back on his structure, then that’s what gets him back into the productivity zone. It gets him back into a working more efficiently and effectively. That’s going to be the same for you. If you’re not using structures, put some structures in place, it’s going to support you. It’s going to aid to your creativity and your flexibility. It is going to take some time, so be gentle and patient with yourself that you may not be able to follow those structures 100%. Putting them into place and getting them there in the first place is a start and then keep working it.
Structures That Support You: Whenever we have structures, it helps us to get better results and get them faster.
If it’s not working, then find a different structure, a different framework. It’s also one size doesn’t fit all. Just because it works for someone else doesn’t mean it’s going to work for you. However, you’ve got to try a couple things in order for you to see what does work for you and you have to try it more than just a couple of days. The resistance happens in the first trial period. Make sure that you give yourself 30 to 60 days to start something new and really see how it works and get it working for you. Then you’ll know after that period whether it’s something that’s going to work or that something else might work better. Thank you for being here.