Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that if you are aiming to build some
Speaker 1: reflection time into your life, you could try a very
Speaker 1: simple approach. Identify what was good, what was not so good,
Speaker 1: and what you will do next. Today's tip, like another
Speaker 1: this week, comes from Anne Laura Lecuonche's book Tiny Experiments,
Speaker 1: How to Live Freely in a goal obsessed world. She
Speaker 1: describes a quick five minute reflection tool that she calls
Speaker 1: plus minus next. As she puts it, it is a
Speaker 1: versatile starter kit for metacognition, that is, the reflecting on
Speaker 1: life that many of us feel we should do more often.
Speaker 1: Here's how it works. You make three columns on paper
Speaker 1: or in a digital file. The heading for the first
Speaker 1: column is plus and Law explains that this column is
Speaker 1: for what went well, what you accomplished, what gave you joy,
Speaker 1: and what you are grateful for. Next is the minus column.
Speaker 1: This is for challenges, obstacles, unexpected setbacks. You can also
Speaker 1: list missed opportunities, work that remains undone, mistakes, areas of
Speaker 1: life you didn't attend to, and negative emotions. Finally, there
Speaker 1: is the next column. This is for what you are
Speaker 1: going to do next based on your reflections. In other words,
Speaker 1: given what was done and undone, what was successful and unsuccessful,
Speaker 1: and how you felt, what are your hopes and plans
Speaker 1: for the near future? For all three columns and laws
Speaker 1: as anything goes in terms of context, you can include
Speaker 1: personal and professional content in the same reflection, or you
Speaker 1: could separate these out. You can reflect on any given
Speaker 1: part of your life, like parenting, or on your personal
Speaker 1: life in general. And Laura suggests looking out a week
Speaker 1: at a time, and I love the cadence of a week,
Speaker 1: but you could do this based on a day, based
Speaker 1: on a single meeting, based on a weekend, a month,
Speaker 1: as an annual reviewer, whatever you'd like. Just do whatever
Speaker 1: makes this reflection practice work for you. Now. Most likely
Speaker 1: at least some of the next column will be based
Speaker 1: on what was a plus or minus for you. But
Speaker 1: there doesn't need to be a one to one correspondence
Speaker 1: between reflections on the past and plans for the future.
Speaker 1: And Laura says, not everything needs to be fixed, not
Speaker 1: every problem needs a solution. Acknowledging them is enough to
Speaker 1: move on. I love that point. While you want your
Speaker 1: reflections to be connected to your actions, you also don't
Speaker 1: want to get bogged down by trying to build on
Speaker 1: every good thing and fix every bad thing. What's more,
Speaker 1: you may have hopes and plans for the next day
Speaker 1: or week that have nothing to do with the last one.
Speaker 1: Thinking of the plus minus and next categories just lets
Speaker 1: you look back and ahead in a simple, organic way.
Speaker 1: You reflect constructively and then move forward. If you try
Speaker 1: using plus minus next to reflect, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: how it goes. You can reach me at Laura at
Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Speaker 1: Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.