Routines create margin.

  Finding small nuggets of productivity will help us in the short term.  It will solve an immediate problem in our lives.  It will save us some time and hopefully give us more time with those we love.  We have to ask ourselves “why?” do we do what we do.  Sometimes they are rooted in structured maintenance of our lives (i.e. paying our bills).  Hopefully they are linked to what we want to see in the future.  Let’s ask ourselves the next time we write down something we think we “have” to do.  Does this item maintain the status quo of life?  Does commitment to our finances, relationships, spirituality, and health get impacted by this task?  These things are something not glamorized as “big rocks” or “wildly important goals.”  I would submit that many of us need them to create the mental space for our deeper thoughts and ambitions to surface.      
     Those “routine” things are important.  The system I’ve developed over the years is about us, about me as a whole person.  We all play multiple roles in life. The biggest pain of my life was not about the goals and accomplishments but the key routines that may have been missed.  The celebrations, the moments of real connection, and those times where being present was critical.  I heard somewhere something obvious, that we can’t go backwards.  We must learn from things all aspects of the past and make a system for the present that creates the future.Think about one or three tasks that moves your life into the future.  Think about other things (and roles) to keep your margin open for new ideas, more possibilities, and more love for those important to us.