Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is that creating a scorecard can help you
Speaker 1: pursue your goals and reflect on your progress. What gets
Speaker 1: measured gets done, and creating a ritual to check in
Speaker 1: on how things are going increases the chances that things
Speaker 1: go well. Readers of my blog Laura Vanderkam dot com
Speaker 1: know that I often publish what I call a Tranquility
Speaker 1: by Tuesday's scorecard on well, Monday's not Tuesday's. Tranquility by
Speaker 1: Tuesday is the name of a book I wrote that
Speaker 1: will be out this fall. In it, I share nine
Speaker 1: time management rule that I think will help people calm
Speaker 1: the chaos and make time for what matters. So, since
Speaker 1: I'm telling other people to follow these rules, I think
Speaker 1: fair is fair and I should try to follow them myself.
Speaker 1: Hence the TBT scorecard. On Monday, I reflect on my
Speaker 1: adherence to the nine rules. How many times over the
Speaker 1: past week did I follow Rule Number one? Give yourself
Speaker 1: a bedtime. I look at my time log and report
Speaker 1: if I was in bed by eleven pm each night,
Speaker 1: and if not, why not? Did I follow rule number three?
Speaker 1: Moved by three pm? I report if there were any
Speaker 1: days that I did not do some sort of physical
Speaker 1: activity by midday. I often spend a lot of blog
Speaker 1: real estate talking about rule number six. One big adventure,
Speaker 1: one little adventure. Did I do anything interesting in the
Speaker 1: course of the week. Often the answer is yes, though
Speaker 1: if the answer is no, I find it helps to
Speaker 1: reflect on what happened that kept me from adhering to
Speaker 1: the rule. Sometimes there is a good reason, and sometimes
Speaker 1: there isn't. I reflect on what following or not following
Speaker 1: the rule has done in my life. The goal is
Speaker 1: to understand how the rules play out in my life
Speaker 1: and how I can make good choices in the future.
Speaker 1: I certainly hope you will start keeping your own tranquility
Speaker 1: by Tuesday scorecard if you read the book. But of
Speaker 1: course that's not the only scorecard that can have a
Speaker 1: positive effect on daily life. For instance, if you are
Speaker 1: trying to eat more vegetables, you could build a veggie
Speaker 1: eating scorecard. You'd list the day of the week and
Speaker 1: then list what veggies you ate. At the end of
Speaker 1: each day or each week, you could reflect on your
Speaker 1: food choices. You'd soon start to see patterns like that
Speaker 1: you find it easier to eat more veggies when you've
Speaker 1: just gone to the grocery store and have lots of
Speaker 1: fresh cut up stuff in the house. Maybe you see
Speaker 1: that it's hard to eat well when you're traveling, or
Speaker 1: perhaps on Thursdays because that's the day your team goes
Speaker 1: out to lunch at the burger joint and you have
Speaker 1: often run out of dinner ideas by the end of
Speaker 1: the week and tend to order pizza. Seeing the scorecard
Speaker 1: reflecting that Monday is easily a five servings day and
Speaker 1: Thursday is maybe a one serving day, can prompt you
Speaker 1: to make strategic choices like maybe doing a midweek grocery
Speaker 1: shop or at least bringing some carrots and hummus to work.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you're trying to build a daily ritual of
Speaker 1: reading for at least twenty minutes. You could create a
Speaker 1: scorecard with all the days of the week and a
Speaker 1: checkbox for twenty minutes and a spot for reflections. When
Speaker 1: you start to see lots of checks on weekends and
Speaker 1: very few on Wednesday, well you know that you can
Speaker 1: strategize for building a spot into Wednesday's schedule, or you
Speaker 1: can decide that you just don't care since you easily
Speaker 1: read for forty minutes on Saturdays and it all comes
Speaker 1: out in the wash. Totally up to you, but the
Speaker 1: scorecard creates accountability, so you can make that choice. On
Speaker 1: my TBT scorecard, I reflect in a fairly free form manner,
Speaker 1: but if you would like some more structure. Here are
Speaker 1: some questions you could ask yourself about goals or habits
Speaker 1: you are pursuing. First, what supported your goal pursuit? In
Speaker 1: other words, what's working? Second? What challenges did you encounter?
Speaker 1: What made it harder to pursue your goals? The purpose
Speaker 1: here is not to berate yourself or let yourself off
Speaker 1: the hook. You're just thinking about what you might need
Speaker 1: to change to make it easier to do what you
Speaker 1: intend to do. Third, what was the impact of doing
Speaker 1: the intended behavior this week or of not doing the
Speaker 1: intended behavior? And finally, any insights for next week? That
Speaker 1: last question can help you look forward, because if you
Speaker 1: check in weekly a week after this last check in,
Speaker 1: you'll check it again. What makes it more likely that
Speaker 1: future you will be smiling as you reflect on your progress.
Speaker 1: A little strategy and a well designed scorecard can make
Speaker 1: that future come to be In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and here's to making the moves of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod that's b E than number four then
Speaker 1: Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
Speaker 1: email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot
Speaker 1: com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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