Please note that the Monday emails are usually for paying subscribers only. This issue is free to all so you can see what you would receive.
I am super excited to kick off the first Monday focus email for NOW with Nicole Avery. I am excited because not only do I get to support you and keep you accountable for what you are setting for yourself this week, but I am kept accountable to you! I know this will improve my productivity and quality of output for work and also make me keep my boundaries with my health and family.
Before I move on to what my key tasks for the week will be, I will give you a refresher of what it is I am working towards this year. I will keep this in every Monday email and I encourage you to write out each week your goal and habits, if you don’t do it in the comments for this post, then write it down on your to do list. The more you write your goals and habits down, the more you will think about them. The more you think about them, the more likely you are to work on them in a positive way.
My 2021 goal:
to do the inner work to be able to give more to those around me
My 2021 habits:
Meditate in the morning for at least 20 minutes
Participate in a weekly faith-based activity
Write in a gratitude journal daily
Learn and speak Phil's love language well and daily
If you don’t have a goal that you are working towards, check out my post this year on the blog where I take you step by step through how I came up with my goal and outline questions you can ask yourself to determine what it is you would like to work on.
Tasks to achieve for the week to help work towards my personal goal
We hear the mantra of balance everywhere but my reality is that balance on the day-to-day level is impossible to achieve. Balance can be achieved when we take a step back and look at our activities over a longer time period - across weeks, months, or the year. The last few weeks I have been fairly inward-focused as I trained and prepped for my marathon. This week kicks off a swing back to being outward focused and doing more for those around me:
Create a monthly menu plan - this is pure home organisation but now everyone is back at school and extra curricular activities are back on if full force, I need to get back to this after a few weeks off.
Book in weekly time for community activity - so far my faith activity has been home based and I have found an opportunity to do something a little extra each week that is within the community. I need to book that in.
Cook every night this week - Phil did lots of extra kid pick-ups in the last couple of weeks leading up to my marathon on the weekend and now it is time for me to do more for him. He has hit a busy patch with work, so I will be cooking every night this week to take some pressure off.
Tasks to achieve for the week to help work towards my business goal
These three tasks below are a great example of taking one key activity and breaking it up into smaller more doable chunks. I could have simply written as my task “finalise launch NOW with Nicole Avery” but that isn’t really that helpful. These three tasks finalise the launch for NOW with Nicole Avery but it gives me specific tasks to do:
Write the introductory email for NOW with Nicole Avery
Write the first Monday email (this email!)
Import newsletter subscribers from old newsletter to Substack and then hit send!
If for some reason I don’t get through all three tasks this week, I won’t have finalised the launch of NOW with Nicole Avery, but I would most likely have ticked off at least one if not two of these items off my list. Knowing that I ticked off most of my items for the week still gives me a sense of achievement and progress and I can carry that into next week. If I had only written “finalise launch NOW with Nicole Avery” then I would feel like I had not achieved anything.
When working on hard tasks you need positive feedback along the way and ticking items off the to do list can be a great way to do it and keep the momentum going. Make sure you choose tasks that are doable in the time frames you have available to you and are big enough to be meaningful but not too big as to be overwhelming and lacking specific direction.
Tasks to achieve for the week to help work towards my health and fitness goal
I ran a marathon on Sunday (and ran a PB - yay!) so this week is all about recovery. When it comes to health and fitness goals it is easy to focus on the fitness element but without our health, we don’t have much at all. I make it a health and fitness goal so that I give my health the same priority as my fitness. It can be too easy to become fixated on fitness to the detriment of our health. Having a health and fitness goal means I need to make sure I not only exercise but I eat well, sleep well, recover well and look after my mental health. This week my tasks are:
Practice yoga daily
Sleep at least 8 hours a night
Run only towards the end of the week if everything feels good
NOW it is your turn!
I want to hear what your goal is and what tasks you are going to be working on NOW - this week to make progress towards your goal by leaving a comment on this post.
A reminder that you only need to list tasks for the goal that is your prime focus at the moment e.g. either personal, work/business or health and fitness. I only share all three so you can find an area you can relate to and look at the way I am tackling it. But if you would like to list goals for all three you are most welcome to do so.
Also, you can simply list the tasks, you don’t have to write details about them if you don’t want to. I do so to give some insight into how it all fits into my overarching goal.
And you can ask me questions in the comments too! You can ask me questions about:
the tasks I have set
my goals and habits
how to tackle your goal
productivity or organisation tips
online biz issues
I cannot wait to see what you are up to!
Nic x
The graphic serves a great reminder along with the writing!
Hi Nic and all, yes it's Wednesday but still time to kick goals I figure.
Interesting that on Monday I had some good ideas for goals and was going to post them, but felt unsure about making lofty plans as I had a sneaking suspicion that everything was going to come unstuck and today it did. Due to my son's dyslexia we have a lot of challenges with remote learning and it all came to a head today with frustration and overdue work.
SO I am going to make three simple goals for the remainder of the week.
1. Right now I am in the midst of planning for a big relaunch of my business in early 2022 - new name, logo, offering etc (Nic you will be excited to hear this after what I was talking about last year!) So my goal is to sign up for a volunteering opportunity that will help clarify my offering by the end of the week. Keeping mum about what it is for the moment :)
2. I am very focussed on going to bed when I start to feel tired this week and so far it is working. With lockdown fatigue and the very cold weather, I am craving a book, my bed and my electric blanket and so I am trying to be in bed by 1030pm, which is quite early for me!
3. I am also aiming to drastically reduce my number of phone 'pickups' (I can see this through Screen Time app on my phone.) I know I am doom scrolling and seeking comfort and connection through social media a lot this week due to lockdown.