Design Your Day: Be More Productive, Set Better Goals, and Live Life on Purpose - Softcover

Diaz-Ortiz, Claire

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802412947 ISBN 13: 9780802412942

Publisher: Moody Publishers, 2016

Synopsis

"There are a lot of books about goal setting. This one is special." — Scott Warner, CEO, Gigg

When it comes to productivity, hard work is half the battle. The first half—the crucial half—is planning well. The DO LESS method is a simple way to achieve your goals more often, in less time, and with greater peace of mind.

Learn how to:

• Decide the right goals for you
• Create workable strategies for reaching them
• Harness time for maximum efficiency

From the big-picture down to the details, Claire Diaz-Ortiz walks you through every step of setting and achieving smart goals. She helps you brainstorm goals, choose the best ones, and adjust them to make them realistic. Then she helps you strategize how to reach them, day-by-day, year-by-year.

Whether you want to finish a house project, lose weight, or write a book, Design Your Day—by someone who read 150 books while caring for an infant—is an all-in-one guide to smart productivity. Use Claire’s tricks and tools and you’ll be amazed at what you can do in a day, let alone a lifetime.

About this title

About the Author

Claire Diaz-Ortiz (@claire) is an author, speaker and Silicon Valley innovator who was an early employee at Twitter. Named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company, she holds an MBA and other degrees from Stanford and Oxford and has been featured widely in print and broadcast media. She writes a popular business blog at ClaireDiazOrtiz.com and is the author of the new book Hope Runs: An American Tourist, a Kenyan Boy, a Journey of Redemption. For more information, visit clairediazortiz.com.

From the Back Cover

"There are a lot of books about goal setting. This one is special. It helps you set meaningful goals and gives you simple and effective strategies for achieving them."'scott Warner, CEO, Gigg

When it comes to productivity, hard work is half the battle. The first half'the crucial half'is planning well.

Enter the DO LESS method, a simple way to achieve your goals more often, in less time, and with greater peace of mind. Learn how to:

• Decide the right goals for you
• Create workable strategies for reaching them
• Harness time for maximum efficiency

Whether you want to finish a project, lose weight, or read 200 books a year, Design Your Day is an all-in-one guide to spending time with purpose. Use Claire's tips and tools, and you'll be amazed at what you can do in a day, let alone a lifetime.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Design Your Day

Be More Productive, Set Better Goals, And Live Life On Purpose

By Claire Diaz-Ortiz, Pam Pugh

Moody Publishers

Copyright © 2016 Claire Diaz-Ortiz
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8024-1294-2

Contents

Getting Started: Big Rocks, 9, 
PART ONE: Decide, 
Word of the Year, 15, 
How to Set SMART Goals, 19, 
Fine-Tuning Your Goals, 31, 
Create Strategies to Reach Your Goals, 41, 
Keep Your Goals Top of Mind, 51, 
PART TWO: Organize (LESS IS MORE), 
L: Limit Your Work to Your Best 20%, 57, 
E: Edit the Time You Spend on Work, 69, 
S: Streamline the Work You Do, 79, 
S: Stop Working: Know When and How, 111, 
Conclusion, 125, 
Recommended for Further Reading, 127, 
Notes, 129, 
About the Author, 131, 

CHAPTER 1

WORD OF THE YEAR

For the last few years, I've done something smart. Now, I'm not always doing smart things, so believe me when I say that this is something to write home about. What have I done? I've chosen a word of the year.

I got the idea from a book, and it's worked well to bring my life a greater sense of direction and fulfillment. I'm now such a fan that I'll shout it from my handy nearby mountaintop:

Each year, you should choose a word to represent the year you have in front of you.

Think long and hard about one word that will serve as a guidepost for what you want to do and be in the year to come. And remember that a year needn't start January 1 — you can start your year at any time! One word that will remind you of what's important when you need it most. One word to mean everything you want your year to be, and one word that will be a guiding light when times get tough and you're not clear on what your priorities are.

There aren't a lot of rules. Your word can be a verb or a noun. It can be long. It can be short. A word that has funny sounds in it or a word that rolls off the tongue. Depending on the type of year you're going for, some examples of great words might be: Breathe, Push, Persevere, Give, Abundance, Direction, Moxie, Contentment.

The first year I did this exercise, I needed it badly. I was in a season of overwhelm, and so choosing my word — REST — felt like taking a big old breath of fresh air. Those four letters meant the world to me.

It wasn't all smooth sailing, though, and I made a lot of mistakes during the year. By publicly stating my word, I also provoked some interesting responses in others. Many folks who read about my word of the year talked about it when they saw me — or, even better, mentioned it when they were asking me to do something! A number of times I received a note or call along the lines of, "I know you said your word of the year was REST, but I was wondering if you could ..."

This alone let me know that something about publicly stating my word of the year was working. And not just for me to know my own priorities, but for others to know them as well. (Yes, they may still have been asking me to do something, but they were at least conscious that I was likely to say it wasn't the right year for me to agree!)

The next year, with great deliberation, I chose a new word: RENEW. After a year of rest, I was ready for balance, and looked for a guidepost to help me carefully choose what I would take on in my personal and professional life in this time of measured growth. I wasn't resting, but I wasn't going hog wild either.

This past year, I mixed it up, going digital with my word of the year and choosing not a word, but a hashtag.

#BanBusy

As a digital gal, living in a

Edition details

• Publisher: Moody Publishers
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802412947
• ISBN 13: 9780802412942
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144