Monday morning quarterback? What is she talking about, you wonder. Don’t worry! I KNOW it’s BASEBALL season and not football (American style) season! But this tip is based on football. On Monday mornings, the football fans gather around the water cooler (or coffee machine) at the office to discuss Sunday’s game play by play. They can go into tedious detail for someone who is not into football, but for those who are passionate about the game, this is big part of it. It really proves that you watched the whole game!

The players go through the same thing. On Monday mornings they watch the game play and play and review what worked, what might have been better, where the plays fell apart, and what other alternatives might have been. They look at the game with new eyes–the eyes of the witness instead of the eyes of a player. As the game is being played, the players are right in the heat of it. They must react instinctively and not analyze. There is no time to analyze. They have to see the tiny signs and respond. The signs need to ignite the right instincts, which are what the players train for all season– to develop the right instincts. 

How does this help us increase our productivity? In a big way! You see, most of us go through our week and never stop to take time to analyze our days to see what is working and what isn’t.  Where did we do what we set out to do and where did we not make the grade. 

***If we take the time each week to analyze what is working and what isn’t, and we refine our routine where we find our weak spots, we can take our productivity to a whole new level!***

This is a simple change. It should be done with the eye of analysis, not as a criticism. Like an experimenter. What worked well, what didn’t, what can be changed to increase effectiveness and efficiency.  Learn from what worked and what didn’t. Figure out your why factor. For example, you can be totally following your plan, until around 3 pm. Then for some reason things fall apart. Ask yourself what is it about 3 pm that knocks you off my plan? Is your blood sugar low? Do you need to eat more protein at lunch? Maybe take a walk around the block to get your blood moving? Figure out what is knocking you off rocking your plan and take the steps to adjust so this doesn’t happen.

It takes just a quick review at the end of the day. If you do it daily, you can catch the glitches sooner and make adjustments along the way. If you start this, you will make great strides in your productivity.

This applies to other areas of your life as well. For example, the number one goal for people is to lose weight. They make a plan for their food regime. But no progress is made. If they take the time to figure out where things went wrong, they can make adjustments so they don’t continue with the same problem area every day. A client of mine diets all the time. She complained that it wasn’t working. She meticulously writes everything down in her food journal, so we looked there for a pattern. It turns out she was great all day. The problem was she didn’t sleep well at night and always woke up around 2 am and would go to food for company. This was sabotaging all of her progress. She decided to change her diet to include more protein during lunch. This shift helped her to sleep through the night, thereby avoiding that tempting time to eat when no one is looking. This made a big difference in her results. But if she hadn’t taken the time to review her food journals, she would have never discovered this glitch. 

Where ever you are looking for progress, take the time to review what you have been doing to look for areas that are creating blocks. If you know where these blocks are, you can do something about them–you can make changes. If these blocks remain unseen, then you stab in the dark to try to figure out what is creating the problem. That is incredibly frustrating. Review your plan to see what worked and what didn’t and what you can do to change to move in the direction you desire. This is a simple yet power step in the right direction!

Remember: review your day. Note your successes. Note your challenges. What can you do differently tomorrow to not be side swiped by the same enemy.

Rock it!  Alicia