Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Productivity for a Peaceful Mind: How to Plan a Life that Matters

Starting point is 00:00:00 How wonderful would it feel if you actually got stuff done, if you could make real progress on your eternally long to-do list? If you are feeling overwhelmed and forever busy, but you're not actually achieving the goals that you're setting for yourself, then stay tuned for some important lessons that moved me in the right direction. Welcome to the Postcard Academy, a show about travel, living abroad, and location independence for people seeking a more meaningful, freedom-fueled life. I'm your host, Sarah Micatel, an American who first moved abroad on our own at age 18 and who has been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010. I am so glad you're here. My guests and I will share with you how we made our travel living abroad and location independent dreams come true and how you can too, because you will never have this day again.

Starting point is 00:00:50 Make it matter. Last year, I did all the things that I was supposed to do to map out a successful year for myself. I had my annual goals and my quarterly goals and the tasks that I needed to do to make this all happen. And yet I still stalled out. For months, I kept spinning my wheels, wondering why I was moving so slow when other people seemed to be moving really, really fast. And it was really driving me crazy. I knew what I needed to be working on. I just didn't seem to be happening at the pace that.

Starting point is 00:01:29 that I wanted or needed it to. So in a previous episode, I realized that I was a maximizer. Now, psychologists group people into two camps, maximizers and satisfacers. So maximizers, they obsess over making the right choice for the long term and they just overthink everything and just keep going and researching like this and that instead of making a decision. Well, satisfacer's are more practical and they just go with whatever is going. to meet their needs and requirements at the time. So Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon came up with the word satisfacer by combining the words satisfying and sufficing. So in the end, it's the satisfacers who have more satisfaction, even though they're not trying that hard to find the best

Starting point is 00:02:22 thing. So after learning that, I realized that I needed to start making faster decisions. And, And I also read a book thanks to one of my podcasting students that has really transformed my life. It's called The Road Back to You. You can get a free audio copy of it if you are not an Audible member yet by using my link, audible trial.com slash postcard. The Road Back to You is all about the Eniogram, which is this ancient philosophy that divides everybody into nine personality types. I will put a link in the show notes so you can take this test yourself to find out what your type is. You can find this at postcardacademy.com.

Starting point is 00:03:09 Now, of course, we're more than just a personality that a test tells us what we are, but I just find the enegram so insightful. So in the past, I've been self-aware enough to understand my patterns and what I did, but I couldn't figure out why I did what I did or how to change. And the anagram changed this because it reveals what motivates you, what holds you back, what your fears are, who you are at your best. And I will do a deep dive into the anagram sometime in the future. But for now, I want to recommend reading or listening to the road back to you, or at least reading about the aneogram online because, well, it's fun to take assessment

Starting point is 00:03:54 to discover who you are. This is one that you can use this information about yourself to actually create positive change in your life. I'm an anagram nine and we are the peacemaking tribe. We like the world to be calm and balanced. We do not like conflict and are pretty easy going. We don't sweat the small stuff. And we generally go with the flow. We're often daydreaming when people think we are intently listening. We listen to, but we're often, often La La Land. We're procrastinators. We haven't get stuck in the weeds of tasks that aren't that important while putting off the work that will actually help us achieve our big goals. So all the different personality types have their pluses and minuses. And another brilliant thing about the Nagram is when you start learning about

Starting point is 00:04:49 how you tick and start learning how other people tick, it's just, it opens your eyes as to what is motivating other people because it's kind of a shock to realize, oh, what motivates me to do something? It actually does nothing for this other person. So it's great to understand the other people in your lives and why they are doing the things that they're doing. So I love it. I can't stop gushing about the anagram. But yeah, when I started learning more about nines, I thought, oh my gosh, that's me. This is totally my tribe. And then I use that information to get myself back on track. So I know that nines tend to sort of spin their wheels and over research and different things like that. Because we like balance.

Starting point is 00:05:39 We want to make sure that we're weighing all the options. You know, we like to be informed. And so I needed to come up with a plan to actually make progress and pull myself out of the weeds. So I mentioned that last year, I did a good job mapping out the goals that I wanted to achieve. So I wrote down how I wanted to make money. What were my three to five business goals? I brainstormed everything that needed to happen to hit those goals. And I knew that I couldn't do everything at once that I needed to break down my goals by a quarter and then have different tasks set up for each quarter and for each project so that I could hit my goals. But here's where I messed up last year. I wrote my annual goals and projects down. As I said, I broke them down by

Starting point is 00:06:30 quarter, even wrote the tasks. But then I never looked at that document again. I just had everything I needed floating around in my head. And there's a really long to-do list with like a thousand items and then I would just jump around from task to task without completing any of them. So have you had those Saturdays where you had something that you wanted to do? And do you feel like you've been working all day? And then all of a sudden it's 5 p.m. And you're like, oh my gosh, what happened to the day? I feel like I've been just doing nothing but work and I have nothing to show for it.

Starting point is 00:07:03 For me, that is the worst feeling I can't stand it. So I should have been checking in on my progress every week, if not more, often. Now I plan for the upcoming week on Fridays. So I have an ongoing list of action items. So I still have the to do-do list, but I'm not trying to do a thousand items at once. I've got all the things that I want to do in a list in Airtable, which is an online spreadsheet, kind of like Google Docs, but you can do more cool things with it. So I've got my Airtable spreadsheet with all my tasks. And I also have these tasks linking back to the goals that I want to achieve for that quarter. And I have those goals linking back to what I want to achieve for the year.

Starting point is 00:07:53 Business goals, but also health goals, happiness goals. I break these down into mind-body spirit goals. So on Friday, I set my daily intentions for the week. I review my goals for the year. And then I look at my action items list and assign no more than three items. for each day. And I prioritize what needs to get done first and then any date-specific activities. Whatever isn't accomplished moves to the next day. And once you do this for a while, you'll understand what can really be accomplished in a day. We often think we can do like 20 things and

Starting point is 00:08:31 nothing gets done and then we get discouraged. So once you start doing the time blocking for a while and start setting very specific intentions for each day, you'll get a feel of how, much you can manage in the time that you allow and maybe the tasks that you originally set need to be broken up into even smaller tasks. If I have a bunch of little tasks, including checking email, I will bunch them into a 30 minute time block dedicated for admin. And if an idea pops into my head, I will write it down instead of starting to work on it. So I'll write it down and add it to my to-do list or I'll throw it into that admin half hour. And the night before working, I review what I've got coming up the next day. So I see if anything needs to get moved around. Is there a

Starting point is 00:09:19 meeting that I forgot about? And reviewing this at night makes me feel a lot more peaceful about the next day. And it also stops me from wasting hours the next morning from deciding on what I need to focus on. So how many times have you sat down in a chair and you're like, oh my gosh, I need to do this, this and that, what should I do first? And then what happens? You're looking on Facebook or something else as you're trying to decide and then hours go by. So if you're time blocking on Friday and setting your intentions, then the calendar is telling you what to do and you don't need to waste the mental energy thinking. Oh my gosh, I've got a thousand things to do. Where do I start. I have time blocked on my calendar time for not just work, but also exercise, but then also

Starting point is 00:10:08 work and the work I do will be changing depending on the intentions that I set. I've got recurring tasks and then also special events and activities. Some people like to divide up their work days by themes like Monday is for deep work, Tuesday is marketing, Wednesday is for clients, Friday is admin, however you do it, make sure that you're including time for fun on your calendar. In fact, planning your vacations should be the very first thing you do. And during your weekly planning, make sure that you're including time to meet with friends and try new things. This is the spirit part of my mind-body spirit scheduling. Another thing that I started doing is the Pomodoro technique. So Pomodoro means tomato in Italian. And I think it got its name because in Italy,

Starting point is 00:11:03 one of their like timers was in a tomato shape. And that's why he named it the Pomodoro technique. Anyway, that is when you work, the technique is you work for a certain amount of time and then take a break when the timer goes off. So traditionally with the Pomodoro technique, you are working for 25 minutes. I usually do more than 25, but then you take a five minute break, and then you do this four times and then take a 30 minute break. And these interruptions might seem counterproductive to your work, but they actually help keep you focused because if you work for too long without taking a break, what happens? You start daydreaming without even realizing it or you're checking email. At a certain point, your brain just needs to check out

Starting point is 00:11:51 and take a little pause. So if you schedule these breaks, then you're allowing your head to recharge and refocus. And you can go back to work and just be totally in the zone of what you're doing. Another thing that has helped me be more productive this year is changing my scenery. So when I worked in corporate, I loved the rare opportunity when I could work from home because pretty much none of the offices I worked in allowed that. They're not. a little bit old-fashioned. I guess most companies still are. But I would get so much done when I was at home because I didn't have, you know, a bunch of people asking if I wanted to come for coffee and blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I thought, oh, what a dream to work at home. I would get so productive. But now I'm always

Starting point is 00:12:39 working at home. And I actually must being around human beings. And I've also gotten into the bad habit of doing work from bed, which is not good for your body. And I also think it's probably good for your mind to have a separation of bed and work because I never switch off. I feel like I'm always working because my office is my bed. So then I will catch myself working quite really late into the night, which is not something that I want to do. I want to have more boundaries about when I stop working. And I also want to have an earlier bedtime. So now that I'm working from home a lot, I like a change of scene. And so I often will go into a

Starting point is 00:13:27 coffee shop or the co-working space that is near me. And that's another cool thing. I've met a really good friend in town who is from the co-working space. So it's a nice way to get to know new people. I'm still productive at home, but I think it's good to get out. And it's also important to me to begin the morning with a clear mind. Now, when we wake up, I just think it's great if we can focus on what we are most looking forward to in the day instead of all the chores or all the work that we need to do. And I also think it's the best when we don't look at our phone first thing. Now, I keep my phone near my head because I like to listen to podcasts when I'm falling asleep and also when I'm waking up. But for way too long, I would wake up and check my email and worse social media. And then I'm just

Starting point is 00:14:22 like flicking through Instagram or Facebook. And then all of a sudden like 30 minutes has gone by. And my brain feels like garbage. And I'm like, oh my God. This was a horrible start to the morning. I'm not even that engaged in these posts. I'm just mindlessly scrolling out of habit. And then I just I lost that like calm, serene feeling. And I could have spent all of that time walking along the beach. I mean, that just sounds a million times better. And it is. So I deleted the social apps from my phone to just remove that temptation. I don't know if you heard about this study, but Deloitte did a study in 2018 and it found that the average person checks their phone about 52 times a day. And it takes like about an hour. So how would you spend this extra hour if you could get this time back?

Starting point is 00:15:20 We actually have a lot more time than we think we do. And I will dig into this in an upcoming episode with Laura Vanderkim. She is the author of many books because she knows how to manage time. And one of her books is 168 hours. You have more time than you think. All right. So all of this sounds good. but how do we prevent ourselves from falling back into bad habits like me, who planned out a very successful year and then it just all falls off the radar? Well, many reasons, but I know at least for me as an eneagram nine, I tend to put other people's priorities first. I mean, that's just one reason I could fall behind. But if you're somebody like me, you are going to bend over backwards to help other people. whenever they need it, but you won't do the same for yourself. And so we need to learn to stop

Starting point is 00:16:19 breaking promises to ourselves. And also, when we fall off the bandwagon, we tend to think, I failed at that, guess I'll move on to something else, rather than dusting ourselves off and trying again. So we need to be a little more forgiving of ourselves. So when we fall up the bandwagon of what we're trying. We just need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and continue where we left off. And we might also be setting standards that are too high to maintain long term. So if you think of New Year's resolutions and, you know, it's a cliched story at this point that most people never stick to New Year's resolutions. And Laura Vandercom, the author that I mentioned, and says, you know, maybe it's because we're just setting these way too crazy high expectations

Starting point is 00:17:11 of ourselves. Rather than starting small, she says that lowering expectations to the point of no resistance is what makes big things possible. So start with one thing you want to change at a time and commit to doing it for a certain amount of time. So, you know, if we have a potential end date in mind we can do just about anything. Things start to feel a lot easier when we know we're not going to have to do it forever. But once we get into the habit, it might be something that we end up really enjoying. I believe the theory is now that it takes 66 days to create a habit. But like everything, that's debated. Certain things are going to become habit much faster than others. But I say give yourself 30 days or 66 days and try to make something small happen like

Starting point is 00:18:08 going to bed at 11 p.m. If you right now are going to bed at 1 and you want to change that and you can start in smaller steps. Maybe it's not 11 p.m. right away, but you can work towards that. And then there's another theory on habits called habit stacking where you stack a new habit on top of something that you're already doing. So James Clear talks about this in his book, Atomic Habits. And he says to follow this formula, I will this behavior at this time in this location. So Natalie Sisson, who you've heard on this podcast before, follows it in this way. She says, I will meditate immediately upon waking in bed. And that's a habit that she already does. She can already count on herself to be doing this. And so she is stacked, she's going to stack other habits on top

Starting point is 00:19:05 of that. So she does her meditation in bed. And then the next habit that she wrote down is immediately after meditating, I take my journal and write in my three gratitudes. So that's the second habit in her stack. And then right after that, she grabs her yoga mat and starts doing yoga. So that is the third habit that she has written down. After journaling in my three gratitudes, I will do a session of yoga in my bedroom. So she makes this very easy for herself. Her journal is right there. Her yoga mat is right there.

Starting point is 00:19:41 There's no searching for anything. She's following a predetermined path that she doesn't need to pour mental energy into. So think of a habit that you already reliably do and then try to stack on the new habit that you want to achieve on top. of that. And then finally, if you need some extra help, find somebody to hold you accountable. This could be a coach, a friend, a colleague, who is somebody in your life who is working to make things happen as well and who needs an accountability buddy? I'm about to meet a friend for a check-in. We are going to plan our week and then also check in to see if we did the things that we said we are going to do. Work stuff, but also life admin stuff like review.

Starting point is 00:20:25 reviewing credit card statements and paying bills, stuff that we both find horribly boring and awful, but it's a lot more fun if you can do it on a Sunday in a pub with a friend. And whether you are planning your week alone or with a friend, make time to celebrate your accomplishments when you're reviewing what you've done that week. Yes, evaluate what have gone better and your learnings, but also celebrate the wins and make sure that you are planning in enough time to nourish your mind, body, and spirit. I hope that by putting some of these suggestions into practice, your week start feeling less overwhelming and more enjoyable. If you do nothing else, try setting aside an hour on Friday to plan your tasks for the upcoming week and to time-block

Starting point is 00:21:10 them on your calendar. Show notes for this episode can be found at postcardacademy.com, including links to the books that I mentioned. That's all for now. Thank you so much for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.

Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Productivity for a Peaceful Mind: How to Plan a Life that Matters

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