How To Continue Winning Working From Home

I use a giant post-it to help gamify my work from home efforts that could help you to be more productive! You can check out the post-it by-clicking here. The post-it is broken into separate components. The first component on the top left of the “Post-It” is called “winning the day”. Every day my goal is to “win my day”. To win my day I must complete all of the tasks in my Panda Planner. You can check out a link to the Panda Planner by clicking here. I do not complete all of the tasks in my Panda Planner, I write an L aka a loss on my post. When I win the day, I write a W on my post it. This system of putting up my wins and losses helps to encourage me and sometimes gives me the necessary kick in the butt I need to be more productive. When I’ve had a few losses in a row, I know I have to evaluate what is going on and make adjustments. I keep track of my wins and losses every day of the week, no exceptions. You are really either winning or losing every day, that’s the way life works.

I then pick a specific action that I am working on making a habit. I then track my progress on that tactic in the same win and loss style. For example, the current action you will see is “uploading my notes at lunch”. When I keep the time to upload my notes at lunch, I write this down as a “win”. When I don’t keep my time to upload my notes, I write this down as a “loss”. This means if I take a phone call during when I should be uploading my notes I lose. I’m this strict with myself because if I let myself have an exception like “taking a phone call”, I’m more likely to make exceptions elsewhere and lose my progress everywhere else. The next item on the top right of my post is where I keep track of my wins for the week. When I come back from lunch, I always write down what wins I’ve had for the day, NO MATTER HOW I FEEL. This helps to remind me of my progress. For example, one win I wrote down from yesterday is that I did my visualization at lunch even though I didn’t feel like it. On some days, I write down wins that don’t “seem” like “wins”, but that’s the whole point. On some days you “don’t have big wins or you don’t “feel like you are winning”. That’s why writing down the little wins, especially on tough days can remind you that you are still making progress, even if you don’t feel like it. I typically write down 3 wins a day.

In the next section on the right of the post-it is where I keep my inspirational quotes, these are quotes I write throughout the week to inspire me. When I see these quotes, they remind me to keep charging forward no matter what. I have one quote that is my “central inspiration or theme for the week”. For example, “my driving quote for this week is, “tell people what you see, it’s the key, you have to listen to you”. This is a reminder to share what I am seeing with others to help them grow. I can’t just assume they know what I know. I typically have 3 inspirational quotes or more on my post-it, depending on my mood. Next is where I keep my buffer metric scores.

My buffer metrics are a reference to specific tactics or activities that I use to help keep me on track. If I start missing my buffer metric tactics on my post-it, I know I am getting off track and it is a great reminder to help correct myself. Some of my buffer metrics include “being up by a certain time daily”, “visualizing at lunch”, “letting go of one thing a day, and defining what I am letting go”. I put a tally mark whenever I complete one of my metrics. For example, when I visualize at lunch, I get a tally mark. My goal is to visualize at lunch 7 times during the week and I put a tally up when I visualize. When I don’t, I get an O which is like another version of a loss.  There will be times where I perform a tactic and I forget to put it on my tracker, I score this as a .5. This way I give myself some credit for what I did. I also remind myself that I need to always track what I do, no exceptions. At the end of every week, I add up my buffer score percentages and divide them to get an average percentage score for the week. I have 4 buffer metrics every week, so I always divide by 4. You can check out an example of how I score the buffer metrics by clicking here. I also journal on what I learn from my metrics so I can understand where I need to improve my performance on a weekly basis. You can see an example of how I journal on what I learned by clicking here.

On the bottom left section is where I keep a list of items, I know I need to knock out on a weekly basis. For example, every week I know I need to respond to e-mails from my virtual assistant. That’s an item for me to get done on this list. A few other items are “calling my parents- 1x a week”, Hi Mom and Dad, if you are reading this, I love you! Responding to finance and accounting e-mails and making a social media post are other items on this list. Whenever I finish one of the items on this list, I cross them off, so I get that feeling of “I just got something done”. Every week in my 12-week year- weekly plan and review one of my tactics is to “Finish my post-it”. This is in reference to finishing the items under the “items to get done list” I created. This helps me to get in the habit of finishing what’s on my post-it and knocking out items from my “to get done list”. Before the start of every week, I write for 10 minutes to figure out what new items I am going to put on the “items to knock out list” so I can utilize it effectively. You can see an example of the post revisions and additions by clicking here. At the start of every new week, I tear down my post it and I put up a new one. Putting up a new post can be gratifying especially when you have a rough week, it gives you the feeling that you are starting fresh and the last week is gone! That’s how you can use my post-it to help you win working from home, enjoy!