Are You Done?

“There’s a question, how do you know when you’re done working?”

My good friend Amy posed this question to me yesterday. We were chatting on the phone late in my work day. She was apologizing for calling me when I was probably still working. I replied that I had already finished my work tasks for the day, so I was done and could keep talking.

Amy’s question struck me. Doesn’t everybody know when their day is done? Isn’t your day done when you punch out and go home? What if it’s not?

It’s the biggest hurdle when working for yourself: deciding what tasks you need to do and then ACTUALLY doing them. By far and away, freelancers and self-employed business builders quote “self-discipline” as a necessary ingredient for success. But how do you know when you’re DONE?

And it’s a bit of a joke that an entrepreneur’s work is never finished. And even if you did finish all your work tasks, you often find yourself working on something business-related while you’re trying to chill out and watch TV in the evenings.

All that said, I can’t be the only person to be finished with my day. So how do I know when my work is done?

In pondering this, I came up with a couple of qualifiers that I answer first (at this point, I’ve done them for so long they’re almost subconscious):

Set working hours: I do my best to get my butt at my desk by 9am and I try to leave by 4:30pm. Every work day. And yes, even though I work from home. Why? Keeping a regular schedule means I’m less tempted to binge watch Mad Men reruns on Netflix.

Make Your To-Do List: Preferably, I do this the night before I work. And now that I’m implementing my first 12 Week Year, I’m planning my whole work week out on Mondays. Why? It breaks my work tasks into manageable chunks and because it’s plotted on a calendar, I know what I can reasonably expect of myself to get finished.

Work One Task At a Time Until It’s Done: I used to be a huge advocate of multi-tasking. Truthfully, it was only a mask for my inability to focus and set intention for my day. After learning the value of how much time we waste switching from task to task, I trained myself to knuckle down and focus. Using the Pomodoro Technique helped a lot because I could delay any desire to stray until my promised break. Why? Focusing on one task means I get it DONE. And I love nothing more than coloring in a little check box to mark it done. And seeing a whole daily-do list of colored boxes? So satisfying!

Only Do What’s Most Important: It’s awfully easy to pile things into a to-do list. Having more things to do makes us feel like our work is important. But the more I learn about time-management and accomplishing what you want out of life, the more I understand how vital it is to only do the most important tasks right now. Why? There are thousands of things that can come up in a day to distract us from accomplishing our goals. Even good things, like loading laundry or chatting with a friend can keep us from getting IT DONE. By striving to do only the most important means I get the big chunks done, and end up with time for the little things later.

Set Intention and Align With Your Visions: Okay, this one is new. I’ve always been a goal-chaser, but it wasn’t until reading “Code of the Extraordinary Mind” by Vishen Lakhiani that I really got serious about setting intention for my day. I’ve had some sort of life visions for myself ever since I was 14. But only in recent years have I successfully put that vision to work for me. And since starting my first 12 Week Year, now more than ever I’m making sure that the things that end up on my daily and weekly to-do lists are the things that will move me closer to my vision. This intentional looking at my life and what I do is resulting in greater confidence that what I’m working on right now is exactly what I’m supposed to be working on right now. And nothing is more motivating than that!

After doing those five things throughout my day and week, I’m left with to-do lists and due dates that are on target. I’m able to focus each day and get stuff done. And I look back on my week with contentment and joy. At the end of each day, my little check boxes happily filled in, I close my Day Runner, I close down my computer, and I relax.

I’m done with my work because I know I accomplished all the best and important things to bring me closer to my vision of A Perfect Day in the Life of Rachel.

This article was originally posted on www.rachelfinder.com