6 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO PREPARE FOR 2023

Whether you are still pushing to achieve your 2022 goals or you are recharging before the new year, carving the time to look at the past year and plan the new year is essential. There is no sense to keep doing what you were doing if it is not benefiting you or your business. This is what reflecting and planning are all about.

You may say that:''Yes, I know I need to do that, but I do not know how and what things I should be looking at?''. Planning/Reflecting can cover a very wide area from finances, marketing, operations, goals, personal development, team, systems, etc. Today I will share with you 6 areas that you can look into that will greatly impact your time management and productivity.

1. AUDIT YOUR CALENDAR.

People usually use calendars to book appointments or mark important deadlines but they rarely take the time to audit their calendar - look at the past weeks or months and conduct a thorough analysis. The calendar is your data and this data can show you how and where you spent your time.

Look into things like:

• how long were your working hours? - do you want to keep the same hours or change them in 2023?
• how much time did you spend in meetings (staff or outside the firm)? - do you need more or less of those meetings, can they be shortened, or do you need to attend all of those meetings?
• are there any events (weddings, parties, trips, meetings, hobbies, book club weekly meetings, etc), or reminders (cancel subscriptions, book doctor appointments, etc.) that you need to schedule upfront in 2023 so you don't forget?
• did you have enough time for uninterrupted work (Deep Work)? - or do you need to block more focused time in 2023?
• is your calendar very overbooked, meaning you have 2-3 meetings in the same time slot? - do you need to speak with your assistant or team to address it moving forward or do you need to check if you have overcommitted and need to say NO to some events, people, or engagements? Remember, your calendar should represent the actual reality, you cannot be in 2-3 places at the same time so there is no need to have them on your calendar. The calmer is your calendar, the calmer you will be.
• based on the questions above, are there any changes you need to make in your Calendly, Acuity, or other scheduling tools?

2. MAKE and GO THROUGH VENDORS/SUBSCRIPTION LIST.

If you don't yet have one, make a list (in excel or google sheet) of all subscriptions you pay or vendor contracts you have and basic information like the amount you pay, whether is it monthly or yearly, the due date, how it is paid (card, bank transfer).

Review the list and unsubscribe from any subscription that you no longer need or if you do need one, change to yearly from monthly to save money and time. Remember, money saved is money earned.

Unnecessary expenses in business and personal life not only add needless stress but also you use your precious time to earn money to cover those expenses. That time could have been spent elsewhere.

3. INSPECT YOUR COMMITMENTS.

Auditing your calendar is one side of the coin, auditing your commitments is the other.

If you have found yourself stretched too thin in 2022 and barely had the time to breathe in between all of your activities, now is a great time to list all of your commitments and realistically evaluate if you have too much on your plate.

Take a blank page and list every commitment and responsibility that you currently have in these areas: work/business (weekly staff meetings, deciding bonuses, etc.), side business (2nd business, NWM, etc.), coaching (courses, 1:1, group programs, training, conferences, etc), online (weekly blog, weekly Youtube videos, etc), family/home (renovation, picking kids, walking the dog, etc.), religious (attending Sunday Church, preaching once a month, etc.), volunteer (scouts, etc.), hobbies (dancing, horseback riding 3x a week, etc.).

After you have listed everything, take 2 color markers and with one color mark everything that stays in your life and with the other color mark commitments that have to go if your goal is to free up more time. You either uncommit for a short time, uncommit for all or delegate it to someone else.

4. MAKE A LIST OF HABITS YOU WANT TO FORM OR UNFORM.

Like James Clear said: ''You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems''. Habits are your systems. Are those habits serve you in your business and personal life or not?

Inspect your current habits and make a list of all habits you want to form or unform. If you will work to form new habits on your own, pick just 1 or 2 max for 3-6 months and focus on them. Having too many habits at the same time is the biggest reason why people don't form good habits in the first place.

Don't underestimate how ONE well-formed habit can impact your personal and professional life in the long run.

5. BREAK DOWN YOUR Q1 GOALS/PROJECTS WELL.

Trying to achieve your yearly goal is not effective or productive. There I said it. Yes, it is important to have a target for a year but in order to achieve your goal and maintain high focus, BREAK YOUR goal in the 12-week cycles.

There is a number of benefits of having a smaller goal instead of focusing solely on just a yearly goal.

• With a smaller goal/project you feel less anxious. It applied to both: the size of the goal and duration. Focusing on something for an entire year without losing focus is hard. For some people, it is a deal-breaker between achieving a goal and not. When you pick 2-3 smaller projects for just 12 weeks, you feel you can focus for 3 months, and also you can adjust or change the goal when the 12 weeks have passed. Many people set new year's resolutions and don't achieve them so setting another yearly goal can be of itself discouraging if you have not achieved your goals in the past. 12-week projects will help you to break that cycle.
• It is easier to thoroughly break down a 12-week goal than a one-year goal. It is easier to know what you need to do 4 weeks from now than on week 47 of the year (sometime 10 months from now). You will understand goal-breaking better with smaller goals.
• It is easier to form good planning habits. Execution happens daily and weekly and when you focus on a smaller goal, write your tasks daily, and achieve them, planning, as my clients say, starts to click and you understand better the whole process of planning. You gain small achievements each day, your self-confidence, self-responsibility, and self-accountability increase, and later on, you can break even bigger projects and sustain the focus.

6. INSPECT THE TIME YOU SPEND ON YOUR PHONE.

So you probably want more time in 2023? Go to your phone settings and audit how much time you spent on your phone in the past several weeks or months. Nothing works better than an awareness of where our time goes when using our phones. It is easy to neglect something we know nothing about...we may hold a different idea of how much time we spend on the phone, but making the time to look into it will give you a good idea of the actual reality and the changes you may want to make next year (or starting now).

Take a piece of paper and write how much time goes to each category: Social Media (even broken down by platform), messages, Whatsapp, calls, games, news, internet, etc.

Which times of the day do you tend to engage in your phone more - this will give you ideas about what do you or what triggers to introduce to reduce the unconscious pick up of your phone.

Don't make mistakes that many people will do by going to the new year with the same habits, same behavioral patterns, and same broken systems while expecting different results. Work more on sharpening your skills and shaping new habits rather than focusing solely on end goals and you will not only achieve everything you want but you will live a happy and fulfilled life while doing it!