Prepare to get surprised. Living your ideal day each day is not as difficult as it sounds. It all starts with a decision to be a better you and then knowing and implementing the rest of the steps (don’t worry if you don’t know what those steps are. That’s what this blog post is all about).
Living your ideal day every day comes down to a four step formula that gets easier to implement over time. The best part about this four step formula is that you can always utilize it to live a more ideal day even when you reach your goal of the ideal day.
#1: Craft It
You can’t reach your destination if you don’t know where you are going. The first step of this formula is to simply identify what your ideal day is. For some people, this involves thinking outside of the box. Imagine if there was just one day when you didn’t have to do any work except for the work that you chose to do.
If you choose an ideal day filled with no work whatsoever and a day filled with watching TV, then this blog post isn’t for you. However, if you choose an ideal day where you are only addressing your most important work, then this blog post is for you.
My ideal day has slight variations based on my business’ path. Here are the main things I would like to do every day:
- Write some blog posts
- Do some videos for my Udemy courses
- Do some videos for my YouTube channel
- Play the piano
- Run
- Engage with my social media followers
- Do one Periscope broadcast
Some of these activities get split up and I manage to do them every other day. However, this is a general idea of what type of work I am doing on my ideal day. What does this mean?
Everything else is a distraction.
Bold, italics, and underlined—the whole package. I’ve never done that on my blog before, but I made an exception because this is such an important point. That brings us into the second step.
#2: Outsource Anything That Doesn’t Fit
Just a few months ago, scheduling tweets and following people on Twitter would have been on that list.
No longer. They were distractions that I outsourced a few weeks ago. Although they are important for the growth of my Twitter account, they were distractions nevertheless. Now my Twitter audience grows like normal, but I get a few hours back every week.
That’s how Udemy course creation found its way on the list. I also have more time to expand my audience on Pinterest and sending pins every day. My bad. I meant to say I outsource all of that Pinterest activity. If I had to spend hours growing my Pinterest audience and sending dozens of pins each day, I wouldn’t have as much time to live my ideal day.
So I’m outsourcing a lot of my activity to other people. Does that make me a lazy entrepreneur? It makes me lazy in the same sense as a billionaire. My guess is that most billionaires have outsourced 99% of their businesses. Billionaires still do a lot for their businesses, but no billionaire is a solopreneur of any kind. Their employees do most of the work.
It is easy to perceive someone who outsources most of his/her business as a lazy entrepreneur, but it’s quite the opposite. Many of these people are more productive than anyone else with their time.
Remember, your ideal day is super important. Anything that stands in the way is an obstacle that stands in the way of your ideal day.
#3: Turn Each Activity In Your Ideal Day Into A Habit
I can write blog posts with my eyes closed (but I don’t. That’s no fun). Writing thousands of blog posts across numerous blogs and writing over a dozen books allowed me to memorize the entire keyboard.
That’s what happens when you do the same activity every day for a long period of time.
One activity I listed in my ideal day that may shock people was playing the piano. It’s something I started recently, so I haven’t had much time to talk about it in my blog posts. According to science, it takes a little more than two months to turn something into a habit.
After playing the piano for over two months, it has now become a habit. I never go to bed now unless I play the piano (on vacations, I make an exception). On some days, I am only playing the piano for five minutes. On other days, I am playing on the piano for well over two hours.
What inspired me to play the piano was a reawakening of my passion for music. What inspired me to play it every day was a powerful case study of a girl who dances for 365 days straight. If you haven’t watched the video yet, leave this blog and watch it now. You’ll be glad you did, and the content will still be here.
#4: Always Anticipate Having Less Time
No matter how much I outsource my business, I always feel as if I have less time than I need. No, I’m not spoiled or unproductive with me time. Rather, this feeling makes me more productive. There are two types of people in the world:
Person #1: “I have all of the time in the world.”
Person #2: “I am running out of time. It’s literally like sand slipping through my fingers.”
Person #1 has no urgency to act and achieve. Person #2 on the other hand has a larger incentive. If I believe it will take me six hours to accomplish one of my goals, I only give myself four hours to accomplish that same goal. More action is taken, and I discover ways to streamline the process much quicker than if I were to have those extra two hours.
The less time you have, the more urgent something becomes. Urgency creates effective action.
In Conclusion
Living your ideal day is important. We know that, but living the ideal day every day is not a fantasy. It is quite possible with a mix of direction and effort. This four step formula is the direction you need. Now it’s just a matter of putting in the work.
Right now, I want to hear from you. Which step in this formula do you think is the most important? How do you see this four step formula happening in your life? How close are you to living your ideal day? Sound off in the comments section below!
