You broke your diet? You binged on social media and Netflix? You yelled at your kids again despite your intentions to be a calmer parent? You stopped meditating? You stopped working out? You gossiped again? You stayed up way too late? You slept in way too late? You let your books collect dust? You broke the chain of your new daily habit? You checked your phone first thing in the morning? You did not do what you said you would? You let the gas tank go empty? You went to bed with makeup on? You did not return that phone call? You kept picking up your phone while with family? You kept picking up your phone in your focused session? You got the gift last minute? You forgot to drink water? You postponed that task one more time?
Good! Now you are aware this is not what you want. Forgive yourself and simply recommit. That is the beauty of a new day.
Note: Michael Hyatt uses the term preview not review on purpose because in this practice we are not just reviewing the past, we are also preparing for a better week ahead based on the insights we gain. So without further ado here it is:
The Weekly Preview Practice according to Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt.
I was reading the Arabic translation of an English book that I owned to be able to find better words to use for my Arabic podcast. The translation was excellent and kept the spirit of this favorite book of mine intact. Then I noticed a mistake in translation where the translator missed negating a sentence that the author did. The first thought that came into mind was: oh I have to find the email address of the translator and notify him to make sure he fixes this in the next version! Then, I noticed my thoughts.
My podcast short format artwork, featuring Time Timer
I use timers all day long, they are one of my favorite tools to keep me conscious of time passing and to motivate me to do daily tasks.
My first timer was a digital kitchen timer that I used to track my morning routine and and to get myself started on house chores like washing dishes.
Then I got this big, gorgeous timer for my kids called Time Timer that I am featuring in my photo above to help them visualize what I mean when I say they need to do just 5 minutes of clean-up for example and to manage their screen-time, so when the timer goes off the TV gets turned off.
Today I wrote my work goals for the year on a white cardboard paper to keep them on my desk visible to me all the time like |I did last year.
I spent the first 6 weeks of the year analyzing and reporting last year’s performance and preparing for a kick off meeting presenting all my findings. Now that this task is done I’m back to working on my objectives for the year. Seeing them written in front of me reminds me of my priorities and keeps me focused.
For my workday shutdown routine I follow the 15-minute checkout steps as exactly mentioned in the book Start Finishing:
“The checkout is critical because we usually have a better perspective at the end of the day than at the beginning of the day. We know what we did and didn’t do, and we have a good idea of the next steps we need to take to keep the ball rolling. So while our level of overwhelm might be higher, we don’t suffer the mental cobwebs that cloud the beginning of the day.”
Charlie Gilkey-Start Finishing
The 15-minute checkout has three questions:
What did you accomplish? (Celebrate!) Acknowledge what you did rather than just focusing on what you didn’t do. Always, always, always celebrate what you accomplished. Life is but a series of small steps, and if you don’t celebrate the small wins, it’s harder to build up the momentum for the bigger ones.
Is there anything that you need to do right now to be able to disengage? This question answers that nagging feeling that you’ve forgotten to do something. Check your inbox and your to-do list for those things that have to happen today. Ask yourself what would really happen if you didn’t do whatever you’re considering — you would be surprised how many things can wait until the next day.
When do you need to do the things that you didn’t get done today? There might be a lot of things that came up during the day that need to get done sometime soon, but they don’t have to happen today. If something needs to happen tomorrow or some specific day in the future, put it in whatever app, tool, planner, or calendar you use so that you’ll see it tomorrow. That way your mind can let it go and you can get some peace.
Write your daily big 3 tasks for tomorrow. These are the tasks that will move my key projects and goals forward. Writing them will help me start next day with clarity.
I also love what Cal Newport says when he is done with workday shutdown ritual:
Finally — and I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this — I close down my computer and say the magic phrase: “schedule shutdown, complete.”
Cal Newport
What about you, did any of these steps appeal to you? I highly recommend you consider some ritual to announce you’re done with work and not take its worries with you back home.
Listen to the podcast episode about this in Arabic:
My ideal workday startup ritual consists of the following steps:
Arrive to office.
Fill up my water bottle.
Light up my office candle (stays on for an hour).
Read for 5 minutes from a work related book (finished reading “To sell is human” like this, currently reading “The motivation manifesto”).
Scan my annual and quarterly work goals and weekly tasks sheet.
Do the 10-minute check-in as mentioned in the amazing book Start Finishing by answering:
Has anything significant changed between now and the last checkout? The key word here is significant. Some events do change the course of your day. For instance, your kids might get sick and you’ll need to change your plans to be able to take care of them.
What did you plan for today? This is where you review the plan you made for yourself the day before.
What’s one thing you’re going to start on right now? This step is all about setting the intention to focus on this one thing for your next time block.
Time block my day using my passion planner. I learned this productivity method from Deep Work book, and I believe this is a very important step to keep me focused during the day and mindful of shifts in my schedule and outside interruptions and self-initiated distractions.
I have been choosing a word of the year for 2 years now and this year I decided to choose a mantra.
My word of the year 2019 was Teach because I wanted to start sharing what I learn through weekly instagram videos. My word for 2020 was Clarity which I was seeking through three pillars inspired by the book Clarity First, mindfulness, questions and self-care.
I couldn’t choose just one word for 2021 as I have been thinking about several themes to live this year.
One of the themes is The Practice, which is committing to my creative practice day in and day out as Seth Godin so brilliantly explained in his latest book with the same title. My practice for this year is going to be writing. I want to take my writing very seriously and hone this skill by committing to daily writing on this blog starting Feb 1st 2021. Writing more can only improve my podcast and my learning capabilities because writing will help me synthesize the information I’m consuming.
Another theme I’m thinking about is Life of Focus based on the amazing course I enjoyed by Cal Newport and Scott H. Young. I have been fascinated by the ideas in this course which you’d be familiar with if you listened to Cal’s podcast or read his books Deep Work and Digital Minimalism or Scott’s book Ultralearning. In this course Cal and Scott defined focus as “The ability to guide your attention in ways you desire, not just following the random tugs of the environment.” I believe that our attention is one of our most valuable and limited assets and that’s why I have started my year with the digital declutter challenge. I believe that we need to be stingy with how we spend our attention and that improving our focus is a skill we can learn through practice. Here is this word again.
I have also been trying to commit to tracking my deep work (focused) sessions at work and keeping a tally of them as advised by Cal over and over. Deep work session are 30-minute intervals where I focus solely on one task which requires mental effort, no task switching, no glancing at my email inbox or God forbid my phone. This year I want to contribute more value with less time. Committing to such sessions will improve my focus muscles and my attention quality and help me exaclty do that.
I’ve been also wanting to better redirect my attention to the present moment where life happens after completing The Power of Now Book discussion series (Arabic) in 2020. This way I will feel more alive. My family will feel my attention with them too as I practice being present. My morning meditaiton practice will support that. My improved digital wellbeing -after the digital declutter challenge ends and implementing the rules I’ll set moving forward- will create strict boundaries between family time and work time. I also recently realized that my social media time is work time. I’m not there to scroll. I’m there to share my work that I do here in my blog and in my podcast. It’s not ok to work during family time. It’s not ok to do it when I’m at my 9-5 job. I’d better start setting proper work hours for my personal creative work including my social media.
Practice Focused Attention
Practice: Writing, Podcasting, Meditating & Deep Work consistently.
Focused: Tracking Deep/focused sessions at my job. Creating Boundaries between work and family with digital wellbeing rules.
Attention: With a life of focus and minimized distractions I will have more attention to spend on meaningful connections and be more present wherever I am.
What about you? Have you chosen your word/mantra of the year? It’s such a beautiful exercise, here are some resources to help you that I shared in my newsletter.
I have started a month-long digital declutter challenge on January 1st 2021. This is my 2nd time so my hope is I have learned from some of the mistakes of my previous challenge that I did almost 2 years ago.
As advised by Cal Newport in his book Digital Minimalism and in his course with Scott H. Young Life of Focus these are the steps I followed.
Step 1: Divide the technologies used in personal life into the below:
Optional Technologies (as in being away from them would not get me into trouble): Facebook/Facebook page manager/ Facebook business suite/Instagram/ Netflix/ Twitter.
Mixed Technologies:
Whatsapp after working ours
Gmail: not using it might cause communication hang-ups but also it’s a key source of distraction for me.
Audible/Spotify: they are not mandatory of course but they are key source of learning for me. Please note work email is not part of the challenge as this challenge is about personal life technologies.
Mandatory Technologies:
Whatsapp- during working hours: used for work and meetings updates and also by kids’ school.
Step 2: Remove the optional technologies and set rules for the others:
On day -1 of the challenge I have created the following rules:
Remove Facebook apps from my phone with plan not to check them all month.
Remove Instagram and IGTV from phone with plan to check DMs and comments once a week from laptop in order to avoid the “forbidden fruit” feeling.
Remove Netflix from from phone and only watch it on big TV screen with family or one show episode if alone.
Check Gmail once a day at a fixed time for 15 minutes
Limit Whatsapp usage time and block it between 6pm and 9pm which is family/homework/bedtime routine time.
The Actual of Week 1:
Facebook: I needed to check a replay of a webinar on Facebook that I subscribed to before starting this challenge so I opened facebook on web browser to watch it and wasn’t really the least interested to see what those red notifications were about. I’m also opening it temporarily for few days to follow up on a limited-time group for very useful decluttering challenge where I saved the Facebook group link for direct access skipping newsfeed and can’t see any notification.
Instagram: 100% commitment, at the end f of week 1 I spent 20 minutes checking and replying to DMs and comments on my posts through Facebook business suite on web which feels like an email manager without all the scrolling, Thanks to my friend Nadia for this idea. I also set up auto-reply telling friends I’m away for the month with my email address, so I am not sure I’ll log in to Instagram next week. Confession: I asked a friend to tell me how many followers I got while she was already on her Instagram. It is worth mentioning, however, that I felt relieved a bit of the commitment/pressure to post and engage regularly. I’m gaining back space and renewing my creative energy that I can use for other types of content that matter so much to me like my podcast and blog.
Netflix: 100% commitment.
Gmail: 100% commitment but noticed that I prefer to check it right after lunch break not in the morning, as a transitional leisure time back to work. I noticed also that what really wastes time is what I actually click on in my gmail not gmail itself. Clicks takes me to so many places: shopping, reading, checking statistics of my content, and guess what? Instagram missed me and sent me an email update at the end of week 1 for the number of followers I got! feeling so threatened dear IG? that was funny, i didn’t even realize instagram sends emails, or actually most of us are not giving them the chance to. Back to gmail, I’m trying to be more mindful about not opening new links without reading those opened links in my tabs from the day before. I might also consider feedly again, but not sure yet.
Whatsapp: What’s working: 6pm-9pm Whatsapp block is working so well for me. What’s not working yet: I set out to use Whatsapp 45 minutes only but that was unreasonable compared to my previous behavior of 60-90 minute average so I tried 75 minutes but time was up by 2pm then I tried 90 minutes and time was up by 5:30pm. Then, I started experimenting limited hourly Whatsapp time dividing 120 minutes by 14 waking hours (minus the 3 hours blocked), so I get around 8 minutes /hour and the app I use helps me track that so I’ll try this technique between 9am and 6pm and report back.
A funny cosmic incident happened in week 1. My smart watch galaxy e-fit-which was only allowed to show SMS/Whatsapp sender names notifications plus calls- stopped pairing with my phone! I guess/wish it is conspiring to help me in this challenge, I hope it’s a temp hiccup and that I don’t need to replace it. I’m happy it’s working fine as my steps tracker though.
Finally I am excited to report that I am enjoying my evening times the most with this challenge plus less kids’ homework load during January , so more fun time with kids. I’m putting them to bed then checking my Whatsapp which has become like a treat.
You can listen to this update in Arabic in episode 14 of my podcast below.
