Category: LLUMI MENU

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Productivity

As busy people, days can often fly by and you think to yourself, “I’ve been SO busy, but I swear I haven’t got anything done!”. I find myself getting all of the small tasks done (repetitively), but my important, game-changing projects remain on my to-do list like hovering sharks. I did some research on being (and feeling) productive today. Here’s what I found:

A feeling of productivity and accomplishment allows our minds to work more smoothly, positively and creatively. 
Therefore, if you FEEL that you have accomplished something, it frees up space in your mind and allows you to accomplish more. I watched a video from the guys as Basic Bananas Marketing today and they have some hot tips that I would like to share with you:

  1. Touch things once – these are the small things in your day, such as emails, bookings, phone calls, quick tidy-ups, etc. If you can deal with something in less than five minutes, deal with it immediately and resolve the issue. This avoids clutter ending up on your to-do list. BEWARE: do not go SEARCHING for these small things, or you could fill up your day very easily with them!
  2. Mentally congratulate yourself when you accomplish something – this creates a pattern in your thinking that reinforces your goal-attaining ability and you get ‘on a roll’ by constantly experiencing victories or ‘wins’. If you don’t congratulate yourself, you may feel down and unappreciated.
  3. Do the hardest task first! Get it done and get it off list and shoulders – more productive and creative. Otherwise,we tend to procrastinate and it grows bigger in our mental space (proportionately). By getting the hardest thing out of the way, you impress yourself, use your best energy to get this task done properly and set yourself up to achieve the ‘easier’ tasks as you ride the happiness wave for the rest of the day.

I hope this helps with your day’s productivity!

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The Science of Happiness

You may have seen the new TED talk by Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work, you may not have. I do encourage you to watch the entire thing (it’s 12 minutes long…so brace yourself, busy people!), but I’ve summed it up in the following post (as well as taking ideas from other research).

Happiness isn’t on the other side of success
Does the phrase, “I will be happy if I can just do/have/be…” sound familiar?
It does to me, and I’m betting that it rings a bell to a lot of you – perhaps you think it to yourself, perhaps you hear others say it. What scientific research is now showing is that  if an individual feels dissatisfied in the present, that they are not only less likely to achieve their goals, but if they do – they will not be likely to experience happiness. They just change the goalposts and feel ‘less than’ compared to a new standard. For example: If you work all year to get a new promotion, you hate your current job and expect all things to be better once you get the promotion. There are a few things happening here:
a) You are creating a mental habit of ruminating on the negatives – this is not easy to shake
b) You may become less appealing to your employer – there’s a saying “work for the job you want, rather than the job you have”. BE the employee that everyone would want working with/for THEM.
c) Once you get to your success, you will move your goal targets to the next ‘thing’ and may not appreciate the benefits.

It’s very important to set goals – that’s what our whole business is about! However, it is equally important to look for and value the life and blessings that you have NOW – train your brain to be positive and even more positive opportunities tend to flow your way. Now, this may sound a bit ‘hippy’, but the scientific link between Positive Psychology and Success is growing stronger and stronger every day. Try some of these things for 21 days and perhaps you will be able to notice the difference:
– Writing 3 things that you are grateful for each day
– Meditating or sitting in silence, focusing on one thing
– Journalling
– Exercise
– Random Acts of Kindness

Here is a link to the speech

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Making those BIG decisions

Today, I was offered my old job back. It is a job that I am good at, I enjoy and has great benefits – paid holidays, steady income, and great staff. It isn’t, however, what I feel that I’m really here to do.

It’s the age-old tension between your comfort zone and chasing your dream life. Our comfort zone keeps us safe, provides us with our minimums, but doesn’t provide the excitement, passion and feeling of purpose that taking risks and constant growing and chasing our dreams gives us.

Tomorrow, I make the call that challenges me and leaves me in charge of my own success, so that I can chase my dream and be the example to my son that I want to be. How can I ask people to be inspired and chase their dreams if I do not have the integrity to do this myself? I can’t.

I want to encourage you to evaluate your comfort zone, and places where you may be able to make a few ‘BIG’ decisions to bring your life closer to that version of life that you fascinate and dream about. And then I dare you to act on those decisions.

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‘Zero Budgeting’ Life Application- Get things under control!

In finance there is a practice called ‘zero budgeting’ – basically, it is the allocation of your income to all of the necessities in your life (repayments, bills, hobbies, charity, etc.) as well as other important elements of your finances (such as savings, holidays, superannuation, dinners out, new clothes, etc.) planned out COMPLETELY down to the last cent. The philosophy behind this is that by allocating ALL of your income to concrete locations you:
1. Always have the money to pay for your bills as you have set these amounts aside in preparation.

2. You are conscious of your incoming and outgoing costs, not oblivious. Are less likely to make impulsive ‘splurges’ that you will later regret as you are conscious that you will be taking money away from other areas and causing problems.

3. You start to build great habits of saving and paying any debts and it will become almost ‘automatic’, as you direct debit money into the necessary places as SOON as you receive your income.

4. By not having ‘spare money’ left over after your budget, you are more likely to be purposeful with your money, rather than wasteful and ‘carefree’. This is one of the most important mindsets when it comes to financial management – the unconscious or avoidance of knowing the reality of your financial situation.

This principle is not only useful for financial positions, but also any other situation in life. If you work from home and find that you are not as effective as you would like to be – you can zero-budget your TIME into specific tasks, for example:
9:00am -09:10am Check emails and respond to ‘quick’ emails. Make a list of ‘to-do’s from the email and general tasks for the day.
9:10am-9:20am Write blog post for website/first draft of presentation/proposal etc.
In this way, you will have all of your tasks allocated to a space of time and before you know it, your to-do list will be shrinking before your eyes.

This is a great principle to apply to workouts, also – if you have a tendency to walk around the gym and waste time, allocate your exercises to minute or minute-and-a-half rounds in order to get the most out of your allocated time at the gym.

Feel free to share your experiments with zero-budgeting this week below!

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Step 1 – The 6 Basic Principles of ‘Live Like U Mean It’

When you are thinking about taking the steps to live your life at an optimum, there are some primary basics that must be covered to enable you to progress through the rest of your journey. Each of these principles have extraordinarily beneficial side effects which may also contribute to your over-arching goals anyway. They are non-negotiables and are scientifically-backed in improving emotional and physical health and wellbeing.

1. Move Yourself – A minimum of 30 moderate-high intensity exercise. Again, this is a MINIMUM and, yes, you do have time. There are a lot of people who are just as busy (or busier) than you who exercise A LOT. You just have to prioritise this. If you have trouble keeping up a habit – join a local running club or community team for free. If you have money at your disposal, hire a trainer, join a regular class. Movement wakes your body and gives you important seratonin and endorphins, fights off cortisol (a destructive side-effect of stress), improves your cardiovascular capacity and kick-starts your metabolism. If any of your goals are weight/health/fitness related – this will also help you to achieve these specifically. This principle is number 1 for a reason: It is simply important.

2. Nutrition – A diet that is high in processed foods and sugars as well as saturated fats will rob you of your vitality, impede your body functions and become a barrier to your energy levels and success. This is another non-negotiable. You may sit there and dream up your goal life, but I guarantee you that three McDonald’s trips later you will have zero passion and will be happy to sit on your couch and waste your life. If you would like help with this – there are plenty of companies that deliver groceries and recipes for you to learn to cook your own meals (they are usually healthy, fresh and quite simple recipes).

3. Sleep – 8 hours. Going to bed early is the new black. You don’t have time NOT to sleep – if you cut back on this, you will experience ‘burn out’ and start to believe that you are not cut out for the extraordinary life that you absolutely can achieve. 8 hours of sleep has been shown to contribute significantly to the reduction of depression and increase the individual perception of happiness significantly in less than 2 weeks. All of these basics feed into each other. As you exercise, eat better food and limit screen time, you will also sleep better. When you have slept well, you have more energy to exercise, be purposeful, eat well and achieve your goals. It’s a really cool cycle.

4. Screen Time – We are always connected, it’s the world that we live in. Be mindful about how long you are spending with a screen in your face (be that a phone, television, computer, iPad, Tablet, etc.), as heavy use of these devices has been linked with listlessness, depression, anti-social behaviour and a perceived sense of social isolation. I particularly have a beef with reality TV (live your own life, instead of watching others!) and games (what did Candy Crush EVER add to your life?). You have one life, one go at EACH day – don’t flush it by mindlessly scrolling down endless selfies, recipes that you will never cook, cat videos, etc. Limit your notifications to certain times of day dedicated to mindful and purposeful use of screen time (we all have to check emails, work, keep in contact with people). Don’t let it creep into things that are more important – keep social and family time ‘phone free’ and talk to each other.

We have a small baby and have noticed that he tries to destroy/take anything away from us that we pay attention to. Food/phones/keys/remotes/computers. It’s been very enlightening to look at it from his point of view and realise how important it is to spend quality time with those who are physically in our presence, instead of being ‘half’ there and looking through Facebook.

5. Self Talk – Replace “I need to” with “I want to” – your body physiologically responds much more positively to thoughts that include your ‘wants’. For example, “I want to go to the shops to get some fresh ingredients for dinner” feels much better than “I need to go to the shops to buy some fresh ingredients for dinner” – try it, practice it, make it a habit. If you constantly tell yourself and others that you ‘need’ to do things, inside a small resistance builds and you simply do not want to do it anymore.

6. Keep record – whether you write a journal, keep notes in your phone or discuss your progress over dinner with someone, you have to make sure that you are accountable. Are you spending your time doing things that actually ACHIEVE what it is that you want? How much ‘busy’ work do you do that isn’t getting you anywhere? What adjustments should you make? How will your daily habits add up over time – physically, financially, spiritually, mentally, socially, etc.? These are important questions that should be asked on a daily or weekly basis and reviewed every two weeks to ensure that you are moving FORWARD in your progress.

These are our 6 BASIC principles. These need to be aligned in your life before we start tackling your big picture goals. These are STANDARDS  that are part of a rich and fulfilling lifestyle – do not rob yourself of the opportunity to be feeling your best!