June’s Theme: Motivation & Relapse Recovery

We are at the mid-point of 2010, which is still hard for me to believe! The school year is almost over and summer vacations are upon us. Given the whirlwind of activity, June seemed like the right month to step back for a moment, reflect on what we have already covered so far and catch up on any lingering projects. I know I have plenty.

While we are reflecting, we are going to address motivation generally, how to stay motivated and more importantly what to do when you have relapsed back into comfortable patterns and you need a boost to get you back on track. We will look at this issue from a variety of perspectives at the business and personal level.

So first, to keep the month on track . . . your Ruly Challenge.

The Challenge: Complete the Ruly Motivation Worksheet, which you can download here. Identify how much “free time” you have this month to accomplish your lingering tasks. Identify from your budget how much “free money” you have. Then, make a list of the items you want to accomplish along with the time or money required for these tasks and your personal level of interest in those tasks. You may wish to revisit your 2010 goals. Rank the final list and come up with an action plan for the month.

The point of the Ruly Challenge this month is not to be superhuman but to give yourself a slight push to use your time more effectively. Don’t overschedule yourself and don’t feel bad if you can’t get to everything. You may discover from this exercise that there are things on your to do list that are realistically never likely to get done. If that is the case, you might need to just let it go, drop it off the list and know for the future that you are unlikely to be successful committing to that type of project. If it is a project that has to get done, come up with an alternative way to accomplish it, perhaps through outsourcing or simplifying and accepting a less perfect solution.

I am going to keep things brief today so you can focus your energies on the worksheet. Please share in the comments the tasks that are bugging you the most or your strategies for getting through a massive to do list.