Courage Cast Episode - My Daily Focus Card
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This is courage, cast faith, inspiration and motivation for today. Friends. This is Eric Nordoff in your listening to the courage cast. Today I want to talk about the Daily Focus card. This is something that I've learned recently. It's a productivity tool, and it's from my friend Jonathan Millican. Jonathan taught me this as part of his seven day Siri's that he runs, and I would highly recommend it. Go to Jonathan Milligan dot com, and you can sign up for a seven day productivity. Siri's It's fantastic. This is actually from Day seven, and it's called the Daily Focus card, and I'm just gonna share a little bit about it with you. This is about getting the most important things done and making them than most important thing. If that makes any sense, it seems simple enough that, but our days just don't really reflect this. The loudest thing becomes the most important thing. The most urgent thing becomes the most important thing. Or maybe somebody you're working with a partner or a co worker. They're thing becomes the most important thing. But that's not really the truth. You want your thing to be the most important thing right, So you need to guard that and you need to guard it every single day. And when you do that, the results actually may surprise you. And and this is something that I've had very good success with when I've implemented it over the years. But I'm going to share with you just how it works with this system. This is a little bit different than what I've normally done. So every morning I pull out a blank three by five card, and I've actually started putting this into my blank notebook paper. I've started using a notebook for my day to day plans. I find it's better. I don't want a planner restricting me. Unless there was a planner, that was exactly this way. I am just going to use my my daily planner, it it's really divided it into two pages, and it's Ah, smaller planner. It's not just a regular 8.5 by 11 planner that's a smaller planter paper, so it it kind of feels like I have a three by five card. But the way Jonathan explains that its a three by five card, and then he turns it into what he calls his daily focus card. All right, so in the beginning, I started using a card. But now I put this into my just my paper planner. My notebook. All right, so the card is divided into three sections. The first section is my three wins for the day. These air three focused sessions on one side of the card, the one that has no lines. I draw three boxes and in this case, on my notebook paper, I'm just drawing in at the top left of my notebook. My spiral bound notebook planner that I have open. I draw three boxes. If you're using a card, you draw three boxes on the card that has no lines. Now each box represents my goal of doing three focus blocks daily. I try to get this in before lunch. This is true. Inside each box, I write down the theme of what I want to get done for that focused session. So for me, my focus sessions are 50 minutes. I shut everything off. I do not have anything bothering me. I even put my phone on. Do not disturb. And so for 50 minutes, I set a timer and I work focused on that one thing for 15 minutes. Then I take a 10 minute break, and during those 10 minute breaks I might get up and get some water. I might get a snack. I might even make lunch. But I may even just answer emails and take care of some things that came up during my focus session that I might need to urgently deal with. So anyone can remain focused for 50 minutes. This is easy to do, so three of those before lunch. Typically, I'll do those from 9 to 10 10 to 11 and 11 to 12. Those are sacred times for me. So those are my three wins for the day on the backside of the card, with no lines or on the top left side of my notebook player. Then I move into my daily schedule. So if you have a three by five card, you turn it over the side with the lines and then you draw a line down the middle on the right side of that card. Each line represents an hour, and so all right, nine through five oclock. And then I'll write down any heart appointments and then of course, my three focused sessions. So some people do two sessions in the morning and one session in the afternoon. You can do that. You can do all your sessions in the afternoon, but I recommend doing your most important stuff in the mornings before lunch, because that's when your typically most productive your brain is the most sharp and you really get the best work done. And that's definitely the case for me. I keep my mornings as sacred as possible as many days as possible, right? So that's where you're gonna write down your daily schedule, and you can go until you can have your hours be different. Your hours could be in the afternoon until the evening. It could be the evening until the middle of the night, so far as I'm concerned. But the point is, these air, this is your hard schedule, whatever. Whenever you're gonna do your work, this is what you want to write down. That's on the right side of the card. And for me, I put that at the bottom of my planner on the bottom of my planner on the right side of the left page. If that makes sense. So then, on the left side of the card that's left for any two DUIs that come up during the day. New two DUIs often pop up in my mind, and this is this is completely what happens to me, even during my focus sessions. Typically, I'll have a thought. And instead of like stopping and breaking my focus session breaking my focus, I'll just jot it down on my note book or in my card or in my note in my note pad here on the left side, on the bottom that this is something I need to do, all right? And so what I do is I will do. This will be my my card for the day. This will be my my set of pages in my no pad for the day. On the right hand side, I'm just writing down notes that I need to take If I'm on a coaching call. One of my things, my Focus Sessions is an important coaching call or mentor call or ah, business development call. I will plant my notes on the right side of my no pets, so I have that whole right page for notes and miscellaneous tasks, and then the left side is kind of my focus page on the top. I've got my three big wins I need to accomplish for the for the day. My three focused sessions, the of the bottom half on the left side. I have my miscellaneous, two DUIs, things that come up that I need to do during the day that I need to get done that day or maybe another day. And then on the right hand side of the bottom right corner, I will put my my actual plan for the day, and that's it. That is it. That is all I need to do. So I want encourage you to create your own daily focus card or set up your own way of daily focusing and especially follow the 50 minutes of focus and 10 minutes of email checking and break time and snack time. Whatever you need it to be. Some people do 45 minutes sessions. That's totally fine. They take about a 15 minute break from that. I think it's great. I think it's actually gonna develop your brain to stay more focused. It does from me, Um, and I love I love this focus time. It is sacred. I don't even let my kids interrupt me during that time. This is an especially once they start going to school again. It makes it much, much easier. Friends. I hope this is helpful. And I look forward to hearing what your thoughts are about it in the courageous community, on courageous community dot com and also in the Facebook group. Well, that's it for me friends. I'm Eric Nordoff. I hope you have an amazing day.