This blog post will just be a quick update on this month’s challenge. I want to delineate a couple specific requirements I am putting on myself as part of the challenge.

• Print out new hierarchy document each weekend – I like to think about the upcoming week during PAT and print up a hierarchy of activities, tasks, and projects to focus on daily and throughout the week. However, this can often be neglected and I just reuse one from a previous week or wing it. Productivity initiation is made much simpler if I have a plan in advance of the tasks I want to complete and the order in which I want to initiate them. I will make doing this the first priority of my weekend.
• Look at and update hierarchy as needed each day – Usually, I take a glance at my google KEEP notes once at the end of each day to see if there is anything that can’t wait to be addressed. I commit to doing the same with my printed hierarchy each day, whether this is to peruse the day ahead or to tweak the schedule based on the current day’s experience.
• Spend 5 minutes on hardest or most dreaded task each day – I will do this the very first thing upon arriving home from work. I give myself permission to spend more than 5 minutes, but I want to spend at least this much time facing whatever it is I most want to avoid in a manageable way each day.

The other requirement I am giving myself this month is with regards to my former monthly challenges. Although I am getting very skilled at creating and maintaining commitments during a challenge, I am less skilled at navigating the aftermath. How can I ensure I will reliably incorporate aspects of the challenge into my daily life going forward?

For this month, whenever I think about a previous challenge I want to do one thing to honor it. This applies regardless of my written evaluation and intention about the subject. For example:

• Push-up challenge – Do at least one push-up between classes I teach during the day.
• Purposeful spiritual connections – Do at least one of these sometime during the day for any length of time.
• Constant smiling – Flash one for 2 seconds whenever I think about it.

Obviously, I expect much of the time when I do this, I will be motivated to do more. The focus is on initiation and momentum. One of the biggest aids I am developing to deal with low motivation during times of depression is to set lower expectations and quickly initiate tasks instead of doing too much meticulous planning or front-loading my agenda.

Namaste.