As you are planning out your week ahead, try to assign yourself a day of getting things done! I call it the action day. Believe it or not, it is a day for taking action! Doing as much as you can, as quickly as you can! Power through, blitz it, crank the tunes, just get things done!!
Action day is only for action!
Sometimes we get so caught up in planning for our life or for the things we need to do, that we can lose track of actually taking action to complete the things we are planning for. Planning is great, and you need some time to plan for sure! BUT, sometimes planning can seem like as much of an achievement as action, making your brain think that you have been productive but really you haven’t accomplished the things on your task list. Assigning yourself an action day means that you can use some of your time to plan, but it doesn’t let you slide too far from taking action on some of the things on your task lists.
Action day is not for outings!
Try to avoid doing your errands on your action day. Errands are an easy way to distract yourself from being productive at home, by feeling productive with your outings and your shopping.
Assigning yourself an action day is helpful in that you can take the pressure off being productive EVERYDAY, by ensuring you have AT LEAST one day where you can blitz and be as productive as you can.
Think of your action day as chore day. (I hate the word chore, action sounds like so much more fun!) Action day is not about special projects, it’s not about finally organizing or decluttering a messy space. It’s about getting down and dirty and really tackling the core jobs like cleaning toilets, floors, windows, bathtubs, dusting etc! It’s about using one day to catch up or get ahead of those tasks that really need to be done, but that are so easy to ignore until they become a must.
When you wake up on action day, just get right into it by taking as much action as you can on those pesky tasks! Use every minute that you have!
My action day changes week to week as other things come up. My action day can also change midweek. On Sunday, I may set my action day to Tuesday, but then something else comes up on Tuesday, so I move action day to Thursday. You don’t even need to use ALL DAY! I only have school time to get things done, which puts more pressure on my action time; but it can also make me work even harder for those hours.
I have a task list that I try to work through daily so that things don’t build up too much. On occasion, I don’t always get my dailies done – I know, unbelievable right?? Knowing that I have an action day to catch up is so reassuring in my mind.
The most interesting thing about creating an action day, is how you end up using the rest of the days. You may just start becoming more action focused on the other days of the week. I mean who wants to do all their chores in one day. Some weeks, I actually start using other moments more wisely just to lesson the load on action day!
All in all, it’s amazing how much you can cross off your task list by really focusing on it for a single day or simply a few hours.
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