personal development

Morning Productivity Wake-up Call – Read, Review, Revive, Ready!

For some, getting up can be difficult on the best of mornings. It needn’t be if you ease into the day with a “read, review, revive, ready” session.

No point in prolonging the inevitable... (photo by tizwas01)

There’s nothing ground-breaking about it. Here’s the deal:

Read

If getting out of bed is a pain and you’re more interested in the comfy bed, at least you can wake up with a morning read. Your head may feel fuzzy, but you don’t have to read anything challenging. Maybe a chapter of an easy-going novel will wake your mind up and take you away from the happy feelings of sleep. Just something to let you set off, rather than drift off!

Review

Now you’re at least awake. At this point, a moment of review helps. What are your plans for the day? What do you need to concentrate on to make the most of your time? How would you like to develop and what do you plan to do about it?

Setting your daily goals will get your mind flowing and focus you for the day ahead. And it can still all be done in the comfort of your bed if you wish.

Revive

Now’s the time to strike. You’re wide awake, but you’re still cosy and warm. You’ve got a choice:

Jump out of bed, throw back the curtains and splash your face with cold water;
Jump out of bed, throw back the curtains and commit to a brisk exercise. Just five minutes should do it. Star jumps, running on the spot, throwing your arms through the air like a loon, whatever you like. This isn’t exercise for keeping fit, it’s exercise to make you alert and raring to go!

…you can throw back the curtains after the exercise if you’re worried somebody is going to see you. 😉

Ready

Getting out of bed is even easier when you’ve already prepared for it. I’ve long been a fan of easing into a new day by preparing the night before. I get my clothes ready and my necessary belongings organised. That way, I don’t have a last-minute scramble finding a particular book or working out what to wear. You’re ready before you’ve even started.

Far from promoting laziness, these preparations give me a morning boost, because I’m free to concentrate on more important things. The hassle of getting everything ready in the morning simply adds to your feeling of not wanting to get up. So sort out as much as you can the night before! It makes such a powerful difference that you’ll probably stop with the face-splashing and exercising. Who needs to revive if you’re already feeling perky?

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A “read, review, revive, ready” session saves a lot of time in the long run, since you’ll be less likely to make the mistake of falling back to sleep when you didn’t mean to, or pushing the snooze button for the eighth time in a row…

If sleep, or wakefulness, is proving too difficult even with this method of rising, check out my other tips on improving your slumber and staying awake. It’s the most popular post on this blog for a reason!

A Journal Journey – 10 Benefits of an Academic Journal

Keeping some sort of diary or journal isn’t restricted to your personal thoughts on how a hot date was, what you think of the stupid trick played on you by your so-called mates, and how amazing that low-key gig was last night. Just look at the range of output you get from all the blogs out there.

One powerful way to whip yourself into great study shape is to start writing an academic journal. The process can be as quick as you like and the benefits far outweigh the time you need to spend on it.

photo by lusi

An academic journal doesn’t need to follow any particular structure, but you should take it seriously. It only requires a few bullet points each day to show how you’re solving a problem, how you intend to find your voice, or what you’re doing to shape your future. Feel free to write in whatever way you feel comfortable with. It may take a few days to find a style or setup you’re happy with, but once you work through that, you’ll gain access to the bigger picture and take hold of a new perspective on your working:

You can learn about yourself on a more engaging level;
You can learn from your mistakes;
You’re more likely to pick up on the ideas that work best for you;
Your focus will remain pin-sharp;
What was just a nugget of an idea, merely throwaway at the time, can expand into an elaborate vision when you revisit that thought;
You can plan ahead with greater ease and pick up on flaws and overlaps;
It helps you with the creative and written process;
It helps you analyse at a deeper level;
Your journal is a document of past moments that may be valuable to a great future;
You should gain greater confidence through a journal, compared with just your thoughts.

I didn’t keep a journal while at university. But I now see the value in making the effort. I still don’t write a regular daily journal, but who needs to sit down with a ‘Dear Diary’ nowadays anyway? All I do is fire open a journal on the computer and get down ideas for the day, respond to what’s on my mind and allow the creative juices to flow. Often, it helps me ignore any Internal Editor sneaking around my head too. It means my ‘journal’ is often subject to change. But as it’s a personal document, it makes absolutely no difference.

In time, you’ll end up enjoying the process and realise how beneficial it’s become. And it shouldn’t take up much of your time at all. Bonus!

photo by dinny

Visions & Goals vs. Plans & Ideas

You’ve got a choice. Either strive to follow your vision or simply make do with whatever comes your way. It’s up to you.

photo by Wellstone

Most of us probably start out with the former. Vision is not the same as having a passion. Visions and goals are more easily found. They give reason to what you’re doing. Your vision has likely shaped the story behind why you’re studying Astrophysics, Performing Arts, Geography, English, Law… Whatever you’re doing, it’s unlikely that you’re at university because you chose a course and institution at random.

While you head toward your visions, you make plans and come up with ideas that you hope will turn those visions into realities.

But what if things don’t go according to plan? What if your big ideas weren’t so perfect after all? I’ll tell you what…it doesn’t matter.

Your vision needn’t suffer when your plans have to change. Similarly, your goals can stand firm even if you need new ideas to reach those goals. But vision often gets muddled with plans, even though they are two different things. Sadly, the muddle can lead to ignoring your vision, just because a plan didn’t work out.

Vision is (as I see it, at least!):

Overall aims and objectives;
Perception of the future…a destination;
Movement toward a solid strategy;
A reason to make plans.

Plans are:

Ways of getting closer to where you want to be;
Outlining a way to get from A to B…the route (plans) may change, but the destination (vision) doesn’t;
Building blocks, but not the overall structure;
A reason to carry on;

Light up your vision. Work toward your goals. By doing that, review your plans and ideas as you go along. There are always changes along the way, but it’s up to you to embrace the change, rather than let it get in the way of the bigger picture.

That’s why you’re at university. Grab the opportunities while it’s easy to use such a selection of resources. Embrace the world of now so you can love the world of the future.

I’m not saying visions never change. You may get a flash of inspiration, a switch will flick in your head and you’ll see the world in a different way. That’s all the more reason to embrace the visions that come to you and work your plans around them, not the other way around.

With that attitude, passions can become more apparent and you can find more certainty in what you do. Greater clarity brings a vision closer. Consequently, you will be able to plan better.

What do you think? Are you working toward a particular vision? Has a plan backfired, stopping your entire vision in its tracks? Has a minor idea turned into a spectacular vision? I’d love to hear your stories.

photo by woodleywonderworks

Don’t let minor issues slow you down

Every day, I have to battle stupid little quirks and niggles as if they’re intense uphill struggles. It’s the same for all of us. But how hard are you battling? Can you think of those moments in the day when something upsets the balance for about five seconds…then lets it bother you for five hours?

Without fighting the urge to get angry or the craving to complain, it’s easy to let minor events take control of what we do. In no time, we have no idea why we’re in a foul mood, but it’s certainly knocked out half the good intentions we had at the beginning of the day.

Picture by ba1969

You don’t have to picture 15 different ways of acting out your revenge on the guy who nearly ran you over in the road. Neither do you have to build up an elaborate back story of grief and horror when you face a short setback on writing an essay.

Whatever issues come our way, the battle is to keep them as minor as possible.

Often, a real crisis is more easily manageable than a glitch. A calm urgency can be insanely productive, as can being generally calm under pressure of any sort. But give us something inconsequential that we have a few minutes to think over? That’s a different story!

By all means start counting to ten before your anger gets to you. Of course, take deep breaths and close your eyes to shut out the difficulty. Do whatever you need to start battling an over the top reaction. But once you’ve done this, get busy battling even more to get on with what you should be doing.

Personal thoughts are called personal for a reason. The world hasn’t changed in a split second, but your thoughts can go off tangent in a blink. With a firm awareness of your personal thoughts, you have the ability to turn your focus straight back to what really matters and stop wasting time worrying about everything else.

Once you start battling the quirks with confidence, you’re on the way to contentment with the world…whatever tries to get in your way.

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