Chasing Your Tail By Marie Drever

Do you feel like you’re chasing your tail and at the end of the week you’re exhausted and you feel like you haven’t achieved what you set out to do because you just got busy being busy. Is it all over the shop and you feel like you’re being pulled from pillar to post?

Let me help you with sorting this out and where to start with setting up your very own default diary for the best-balanced life.

What is a default diary?

In its simplest form: a default diary is a calendar of your week with blocks of time preassigned to particular tasks you need to do on repeat. Focussing on one thing at a time so you’re being proactive not reactive, it also helps you avoid the tasks you don’t want to do; it also allows you to focus on important not urgent tasks.

Although there are many diary’s you can do this in, I would recommend google calendar for this process as you can set up reminders plus it’s free & extremely easy to set up.

Rather than spinning all the plates, let’s break it down and look at how it’s possible.

Having balance, rhythm & quality time - everyone is different and runs a different ship! One thing we need to allow in our average week is finding a flow that works best for us individuals.

How do you like to spend your downtime? Rather than searching online or amongst your peers - what do you desire to design?

What this means is Nailing a default diary that’s yours and yours only.

Putting things in that bring you joy and happiness, some things we just keep doing and doing and we despise, while other tasks we love and never make enough time for to enable us to leverage and scale we need to bring in tasks that get you to your goals. Removing obstacles or tasks you don’t like or finding people to delegate them too like house or window cleaning, gardening, cooking, bill paying, wages, BAS or even having a virtual assistant to set up marketing templates or your socials.

We don’t always live in a flow state, but we can strive for it and work towards it. This should be clear in your business life and in your personal life. In the same way you go to the gym (to get fit, for your mental health, weight loss etc) you can be intentional with everything else. What’s the “Why?” behind it?

If you’re a creative person or like to change your environment a structured workplace is not going to work for you and vice-versa. You have to find a flow state that works for you in a productive and uplifting way that creates achievement. If your holistic self isn’t working well, try pinpoint the problem and then once fixed everything will flow better. If your mental health is suffering, you’re eating the wrong things, not getting enough sleep or rest this will have a flow on effect elsewhere.

What can we start to do right now to start putting ourselves into better flow? This is where your default diary comes into play!

Put the path in by choosing certain things in your default diary on repeat & Stop winging it!* Think of it like this, your average week needs to be broken up into three separate parts, like Neapolitan ice cream. Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla! But instead of flavours it’s working on the business, working in the business, and downtime. We need three defined sections in our week so that we can have balance and a lifestyle

Business

• Looking at figures • Marketing • New client retention • Lost clients • Rep meeting • Business goal tasks be actioned • Business coach meeting • Pay bills • Reply to emails

Working in business

• Working on clients • Front of house / leadership meetings • 1-1 meetings • Team training & education

Downtime

• Gym • Walk your pets • Family time • Yoga or Pilates • Time with friends • Holidays • Cooking Unfortunately, we are human, and we drift, we can start out with good intentions and slowly but surely as curve balls get thrown our way our beautifully sectioned Neapolitan ice cream ends up melting and all blaring into a brown mess! This is where overwhelm rears its ugly head

For someone like me, I thrive on structure, organisation and consistency. However, my business partner Jay is your typical creative! He thrives on flexibility in his week and prefers to work in short sharp bursts, whereas I best work when I am able to close the office door and fully immersed myself into a project

So even though we may be attracted to the idea of being more structured or more organised, if that is not how our energy works or what is the best for us, we will find every excuse under the sun to not stick to our plan. You must work in flow; we are not robots.

You have to start by asking yourself the question, have I drifted because I am trying to be something that I simply am not?

There is not a one size fits all approach or solution that can be applied to everyone, instead find out what works for you by testing and measuring

Lastly, when it comes to having a default diary and getting more organised with how we run our businesses and day-to-day life, a lot of people use the word discipline and tell us how they need to be more disciplined, replacing the word discipline with devoted.

Devote yourself to having a business and a life, you deserve it!

For more salon wisdom email ZING Coach Marie Drever marie@zingcoach.com.au or visit www.thezingproject.com.au