For the past few days we've been talking about self control and how it can help you build your home based business faster. I encourage you to read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four. Today, let's take a look at three self control resources you can use to help you along the way.
The first one is easy… use Google Calendar (or any other calendar you like). First, use it to keep track of what you're doing with your time now. Why? It's simple really. You need to know where you are and what you're doing with your time in order to start the self control process.
After you have the areas where you want to achieve self control, enter each little action you want to take daily into the calendar and set a reminder. For example, I want to make sure I take my vitamins and supplements every day. Without a reminder, I'll miss about a third of the time, so when I hear my alarm tone, I'm reminded to take them.
Use your imagination. Reminders can be set for anything.
The next tool is a timer. When I write a post, I set my timer to 70 minutes. This is the amount of time I usually need to finish the writing part of the post. Your optimum time may be different than mine.
When the timer goes off, stop. Take a break and move on to the next task. Come back later for another 70 minutes to find or create the images for the post and to do all of the internal and external linking. I also try to tighten up the writing at this time.
Where self control comes in is when I'm working and I'm ninety per-cent done. My brain says “This will only take a little bit longer.” The thing is, my brain's ‘a little bit' and the real ‘little bit' are usually very different. For me, it's better to stop and come back to the project for another 70 minute block of time.
If you need an app for this try FocusBooster. This app breaks up your time into twenty-five minutes for work and a five minute break. The developer says its based on the Pomodoro Technique. Another tool I plan to evaluate is Vitamin-R. The tool looks like it breaks really big projects into manageable chunks of time which could be very helpful.
The third tool is Evernote. Evernote is my digital mind. It's a place where I can put almost anything I want to keep. Mine is set up so I see my daily affirmation as soon every time I open it up. Here's a post I wrote about Evernote last August. There are other apps and software to do basically the same thing as Evernote. Some of them are: Google Keep, Microsoft One Note, Springpad and Catch.
Here area few other useful self control resources I found while working on this article.
- A well researched page that expands the topic: A list of ten top self control strategies by Jeremy Dean
- Michael Hyatt's recent podcast about building new habits
- A video about self control as a non-renewable resource. Interesting stuff.
One last thing. Self control is one of those things that require constant attention. No matter if it's losing weight, writing something everyday, or anything else you know you need to do, working on a few things at a time vs. trying to change everything at one is a good idea. Start small and build on your success.
If you found this material helpful, please comment, tweet or share it with others.
See you next time.
