Hello!

Wishing you an average day!

Doesn’t sound that thrilling, does it?

But as Gretchen Rubin says, what you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.

In lockdown, every groundhog day merges into the next – making the contribution of our every day even more significant.

Strangely, having fewer choices on where to be and who to be with gives us greater control over how we structure our time. (There’s that paradox of “freedom through structure” again).

What would happen if you consciously designed a highly impactful average day, and then repeated it every day for a month…or a year… or a decade?

Sometimes your coach will ask you to imagine your ideal day as a way to generate insight into what’s valuable to you.

“Notice how in your ideal day you’re slowly browsing in art galleries, on your own. How does that contrast to your job running a global support team?”  Hm. Point taken.

Ah, it’s so much fun to daydream about how we’d live if money were no object, or if we moved abroad, or if we’d stayed single…. There’s our ideal day: on the beach, book in one hand, cocktail in the other. But that’s not connected to our real-life average day.

I like to work with clients on distinguishing a fantasy from a dream:

👉 A fantasy is imagining yourself enjoying an outcome without any work.  

👉 A dream is hoping all your big work finally pays off

A fantasy is winning the lottery. A dream is winning an award.

A fantasy is being a published author. A dream is publishing the book you have actually written.

A fantasy is your business taking off overnight. A dream is meeting the stretch sales targets you’ve set for yourself.

The way to turn a fantasy into a dream (and then hopefully – with a good wind behind you – into a reality) is to live your average day, over and over again – including achievable, concrete steps towards your goal.

Wishing you an average day!

See you soon,

Deana  👋

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🎈 Fast Flow | Turning a Fantasy into a Dream (and then a Reality) 🎈

Design a blueprint for a repeatable standard 24h that includes all your essentials plus small actions that keep you moving towards your big work goal:

✏️ What does my ideal fantasy day look like? (Beaches, art galleries, parties, silence….)

✏️ What does this tell me about what I value in life?

✏️ What does my current real-life 24 hour cycle usually look like?

⭕ Waking up / Going to bed

⭕ Meals

⭕ Exercise

⭕ Work

⭕ Family time

⭕ Fun etc

✏️ What would a model 24h look like instead?

✏️ What could I do every day towards my big work goal?

✏️ What time will I do this every day?

✏️ Where will I do this every day?

Once you’re happy with your Average Day design, stick it somewhere you can refer to it often, preferably in a place where you do you time planning e.g. next to your wall calendar, above your laptop, in your diary….

You can also refer back to it when you feel totally off track: what’s the difference between your Average Day, compared to your actual days, compared to your Ideal Day? What changes need to be made?

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Want productivity coaching questions like this every week? This article was previously shared in Flow on Fridays, my email to help you find focus, joy and ease in your work. 💌 Subscribe here. 💌