Product development coach Elin Vilhjalmsdottir doesn’t stop coaching when she leaves the Potato studio. A bookworm and constant learner, she likes to find and iterate on different self-coaching tools to help reach her goals. Here’s one you can use too…
Highlight of the day
In today’s world we can so easily get wrapped up in allthethings happening around us that we have a hard time focusing on what’s important to us. Distractions and being pulled in different directions can leave you thinking after a busy day that you haven’t come close to accomplishing something that has to do with your goals or is important to you.
Some of us, including me, find it helpful to work towards goals. Speaking from my own experience, setting long term and short term goals has always helped me to keep focus on the path I want to take and not get too caught up in allthethings. Breaking down the long term goals into more achievable short term goals to keep myself from feeling overwhelmed has been working really well for me, so I started asking myself the question “How can I break it further down?” to make sure I stay focused.
That’s when I came up with “Highlight of the day”. I found a similar idea in the book Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky but have combined this with other ideas.
Highlight of the day is all about making time for what is important to you. I’ve structured it to how it fits and works for me. This might not work for you but if I can inspire one person, I’m happy!
Start the day with a plan
For the past couple of months I’ve been starting my day by setting a Highlight of the day. I start my morning thinking about the day ahead, go through my calendar and prepare mentally. I ask myself the question “What do I want the highlight of my day to be?”. It can be anything I like and be very different from day to day, I just make sure it’s small, achievable, time-boxed and helps me work towards my long term goals. Examples can be:
- Go for a walk
Long term goal: Live a healthy lifestyle - Meditate for 5 min
Long term goal: Live a stress free life - Show gratitude to my co-workers
Long term goal: Be kind to others
Once I’ve decided on the highlight I write it down and schedule time in my calendar to do it as I’ve now committed to prioritise it, this is important for me today.
Adapting to changes
Obviously some days don’t go as planned and some days I won’t manage to finish my highlight. That’s absolutely fine, if that happens I’ll simply change my highlight to something else that’s helped me get closer to some of my long term goals that day or just try again tomorrow.
This has helped me keep focus and helped to achieve something that’s important to me everyday. Everyday I’m working towards my long term goals by doing the highlight and I make time for what’s important to me.
I encourage you all to try this out — write down one thing you’d like to be your highlight of the day in the morning — on a post it, in a notebook, on your phone and see if it helps you to stay focused on what’s important to you.
I’d love to hear about how it works out for you — leave me a comment about your experiences!
