Upgrade Your Daily Tasks

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Quill Pen Do you have tasks that you have to complete on a daily basis? Do you see them as boring, mundane tasks? You can make them more exciting.

This isn’t a post telling you to change your mindset, or your attitude. I’ll leave that to those who are better qualified. This post outlines a simple method to upgrade your daily tasks from mundane to interesting, if not flat-out exciting.

Let’s take writing as an example. We all have to write, even if it is just to make out a grocery list or jot down a phone number. This oft-done chore can be seen as nothing more than that. However, with a simple upgrade in my materials, I have turned writing down any mundane piece of information into a pleasure.

-que lights & music- Enter the fountain pen. No, I’m not using a quill as seen in the above photo (though once I find a suitable feather, I do plan on making one). I purchased a $5.99 Pilot Plumix from Target (you can see it below). It was a cheap and quick upgrade for my everyday writing requirements. Exactly what I needed.

Quill Pen

This little pen has injected some excitement into my writing. It doesn’t matter if I am making out a todo list (of which I have many), taking inventory at work or writing a note for my wife, I enjoy the writing process. I try not to write as fast so that I can enjoy what I am doing, which has also pleasing side-effect of improving the legibility of my handwriting.

While doing research into the various pens that are out there, I have stumbled across various examples of others’ handwriting. Some of these are absolutely gorgeous! They have inspired me to work on consciously improving my script as well. I have long wanted to do so, but never wanted to sit down and do the necessary work. Now that I look forward to writing, spending time doing drills will not be so bad, and will ultimately help me enjoy the process even further.

What can you upgrade in your daily life to make it seem like less of a chore? Maybe fountain pens aren’t your thing (I tried a rollerball pen the other day and loved it!). Perhaps a new kitchen knife that better fits your hand would help you enjoy prepping food when cooking, or a more comfortable seat would make you more inclined to ride your bicycle. Pay attention as you go about your tasks today and see what you don’t like to do. Whatever it is, determine why you don’t like it and see how you can upgrade your tasks!

Taking Stock

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Life can get over-whelming fast, can’t it? Sometimes you just have to take a moment, sit back, and take stock of what’s happened and plan for what’s coming up.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s happened in my life recently:

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  • Dad passed away the week before finals
  • Moved out of Ireland (in two days!) and drove from Kentucky to Colorado
  • Dealt with Dad’s affairs (or at least we got started doing so
  • Realized why we don’t ever talk to any of the family
  • Drove back home Hint: Always make sure the moving truck has cruise control!
  • Unloaded everything, found storage places for it
  • Drove to Lexington and found an apartment
  • Moved into apartment & got mostly settled (this and the previous step took about 4 days)
  • Drove back home & helped prepare for the annual family BBQ (my wife’s family, love em!)
  • Returned to Lexington and prepared to be here for awhile
  • My wife’s mom and one of the nieces came to visit for a weekend
  • Family friend passed away
  • Drove back home for funeral
  • Returned to Lexington again (Coming to lexington to this point is about a 2.5 week timeframe)
  • Finally able to settle down, put the finishing touches on the apartment, and return to the dreaded jobs…

Whew! Lots of unexpected traveling, messy situations and general confusion. That’s life, though, right?

Upcoming

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  • Our finals are coming up over the next couple of weeks, and we’re dreading those. However, it will be wonderful to get them completed and behind us. As long as we pass… -crosses fingers- I’ve never felt so un-prepared for an exam, ever. E.V.E.R.
  • About a week later, school will resume and we’ll be hitting the books (not that we’ve stopped much this year).

    • Then the fun begins…

  • Early September will see us, along with our church group and some of our closest friends, heading to South-eastern Tennessee for some white-water rafting goodness. A fun-filled weekend of water, rappelling, spelunking and hiking. We can’t wait!
  • Still in the planning stages is a road trip to Texas, to visit friends and family. This will be later in the year, during some as yet unknown school break.

Looking back (and ahead), it’s been a full year. Studying abroad, driving half-way across the U.S. (I think half of it was Kansas), moving, spending time with friends and family and so much more. We try to make sure that our enjoyable activities outweigh the bad ones so that we can remain charged and retain our positive attitudes. So far so good!

The Mini Door – Photo

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How do you get into St. Patrick’s? You enter through this door. Not the big door, silly! The small one.
These cut-out doors captured my attention for some reason. I find them quite amazing. We have actually only seen the big doors open once, and I think that was a matter of chance.

(Click on photo to view full sized)

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Targeting A Goal

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We have made our life list and narrowed it down to a year’s worth of goals; now it’s time to start achieving those goals!

I’m going to use my goal of “Be financially self-sufficient” as an example, as I feel that it will be the most challenging of my three. But first, let’s recap:

What makes a goal good:

A good goal is clearly defined, actionable and measurable.
My goal, as written, is not a good goal: “Be financially self-sufficient.” Let’s fix that.

  • Clearly Defined – What do I mean by “financially self-sufficient”? I further defined my goal by specifying that I want my income to not be dependent on an outside company; I don’t want to fear that I won’t get enough hours this week, that the boss will fire me or that the store will go out of business.
  • Actionable – A vague goal does not provide a target to work towards. A good goal narrows your aim.
    This is part of the reason that I combined this goal with another: “Have own successful business.” I can work towards building a successful business.
  • Measurable – You have to know when you have reached your goal. Being measurable draws that line in the sand. To cross my line, my business has to provide enough income each month to cover my budget.

Ok, now that we’ve got a good goal to work with “Control my own income by owning a successful business whose monthly income covers my budget” it’s time to get started!

Plan Your Steps

Figure out how you are going to reach your goal, actually write down the steps. This process can be handled in a couple of different ways. You might want to work from beginning to end: the first thing that you need to do, the second, next after that, next after that, reach your goal. You may prefer to work backwards: reach your goal, the last thing you did, the thing before that, the one before that, the first thing you do. Is it easier for you to picture yourself completing your goal, or working towards it? Whichever it is, start at that picture, and work to the other side of your journey.

To build a successful business, I have to:

  • determine where my strengths are
  • figure out how I can use those strengths to provide value for others
  • determine how best to monetize the providing of that value
  • set up a vehicle (business) through which I can share that value
  • begin providing value
  • expand my efforts until I reach my target income

What is the first step that you need to take to reach your goal? Do you need to find out just how big around LBL is, when and where you are most likely to see a moonbow or what strength you want to build your business around? (Probably not, unless you are borrowing my goal list.) Whatever it is, find out! You will probably be surprised how reachable your goal is.

Schedule Your Plan

With a calendar in front of you, lay out a time-line for each step in your plan. Keep in mind that these are not set in stone. Some of them will be take less time than you think, while others will stretch out longer. Don’t be surprised when things don’t go according to plan and be willing to work with these changes.

During this stage it is also a good idea to see how your different goals fit together. Perhaps your goals are large enough that you don’t need more than one or two. If that is the case, allow yourself to put the others on hold. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Two of my goals are relatively easy to achieve, both requiring more in the way of deciding to pursue them than planning and effort. The financial self-sufficiency goal is much more involved. I scheduled the smaller goals so that they serve as much-needed recreation during some of the harder times as I build my business.

Only One More Thing

At this point, the hard part is out of the way… figuring out what you have to do, determining a time-frame to do it in; only one thing is left. Take out that calendar, look at that first step and DO IT!

Breaking It Down

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You have created your life list of goals and you have seen my list. Now it’s time to start working on them. But wait! Those are long lists! Of course they are, it’s called a Life List for a reason, you can’t do it in just a year.

Let’s narrow it down a bit so that you really can get started…

Which three of your goals do you want to complete in the next year? Three goals gives you enough to work on so that you can change projects when you get temporarily stuck and so that you can push yourself without becoming overwhelmed.

Which three goals?
I don’t know what your list looks like. I can’t tell you what to aim for this next year. Only you can decide that. You don’t have to choose goals that you think are “achievable”, part of this project is to push you beyond what you expect.

Here are my goals for this year are:

  • be financially self sufficient
    • have own successful business
    • sell my artwork
  • circumnavigate Land Between the Lakes
  • see MoonBow

The first goal encompasses two others (maybe a business selling my art?), circumnavigating LBL will take about a week, and seeing a MoonBow will take one night, with the proper timing. As long as I plan and prepare for these, they are all do-able (the second two easily). Without planning and working towards them, though, I won’t achieve any of these.

Even though I have long desired a business of my own, I wouldn’t expect to have one within the year (and am still not quite sure what I will do.) That’s ok, though, because that is a topic for another day. On Wednesday, we will discuss how to plan our goals so that they can be achieved in a year.

Today’s task:

Your Life List is made and you’re raring to get started. You can’t jump in and tackle them all at once, because you will never get any of them finished that way. Today’s task is to select which three goals you want to target for this year. Wednesday we will lay out our plans to achieve these goals and begin working towards them!

My Life List

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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the
things that you didn’t do than by the things that you did do.

Wednesday we discussed the importance of making your life list and you made yours. (You did, didn’t you?) Here is my wife and I’s. We have already completed some of our goals, as evidenced by the mark-throughs. A couple of the lists are only for one of us, but the vast majority are combined goals. The items with a * beside them are continuous goals. Some of the items still need further definition, but at least we have something to begin working towards.

 

    Family

  • Get married to man/woman of my dreams
  • * Best husband/wife that I can be
  • have children – 2-3 in 9 years
  • – decide how want children to end up – this one still has to be defined further
  • visit host family (again/meet)

 

    Spiritual

  • Read all of Bible
  • * Best Christian that I can be

 

    Education

  • * Never stop learning
  • learn to sail
  • learn to fly airplane
  • learn to fly helicopter
  • become fluent in language – able to have conversation w/ native speaker
  • learn Finnish – able to have conversation w/ native speaker
  • start college
  • graduate college
  • take an offensive driving course
  • study abroad

 

    Financial

  • be debt free
  • $10,000 emergency fund
  • be financially self sufficient – not be dependent upon a specific company or two for our income

 

    Professional

  • have own successful business – something we enjoy running that provides enough income to live comfortably off of
  • sell my artwork

 

    Travel

  • visit all 7 continents
  • visit New Zealand
  • stay in bungalo built over ocean on stilts
  • motorcycle trip across the US
  • see the Northern Lights
  • see MoonBow
  • Bike ride across US
  • Visit all 50 states
  • Travel out of US

 

    Recreation

  • Thru-hike AT
  • Thru-hike Sheltowee Trail
  • hot air balloon ride
  • hang glide
  • skydive
  • bungee jump
  • circumnavigate LBL
  • go rappelling

 

    Hobbies

  • take photography class
  • own running/reliable motorcycle
  • knit sweater
  • learn violin/piano
  • earn black belt

 

    Community

  • live in RV
  • Live in SailBoat
  • design/build own house
  • build log cabin

 

    Charity

  • sponsor a child
  • * be generous with time
  • * be generous with money
  • * be generous with emotions

 

    Other

  • have a custom made suit

There is my life list. Monday I will show you how I made it actionable. If you haven’t created your list yet, go back to Wednesday’s post and do that! Monday we will start working on it.

Become A Rockstar

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One of the goals on my Life List is to become financially self-sufficient. By this I don’t mean able to pay my own bills (already do that), but not being dependent upon some company that is out of my control for my income. I don’t want to fear that I could lose my job because the boss doesn’t like me, or that I might be let go because times are hard. I want to build my own streams of income so that I have more control over the financial flows of my life. I believe that entrepreneurship is central to who I am.

To this end, I have been doing quite a bit of research about creating small income streams in my spare time. I currently have one project in the works, with plans for another one after that. (More about this later.)

While doing this research, I have run across a number of other people who share my mindset. They are building businesses in order to pursue the adventures in their lives, whether that is traveling, spending more time with their families or just pursuing a career in something they love.

One such person is Cody McKibben, owner of Thrilling Heroics Consulting. Here’s one of the first things that caught my eye: “You can build an awesome business, you can live a remarkable life, and you can do anything and go anywhere you want!” If that doesn’t sum up what I am aiming for, I don’t know what does.

Cody’s mission this year is to “empower as many would-be freelancers, entrepreneurs, and other do-gooders to take back their power, to realize they don’t have to be just a cog in a wheel and take what life gives them.” This is a goal that I want to be a part of, and I am hoping to get Cody to help me make this blog even better.

If you’re looking to live a remarkable life, head over and see what Cody has to say!