When nothing is going how you believe it should and you are frustrated, the solution is simple. Reboot. It’s something writer Anne Lamott discovered and shared at TED2017 and it went viral for good reason. She said, “almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. That includes you.”
Ok, so you’ve reset, but things still aren’t going well and you’re frustrated. You may be searching for that perfect planner, special software, or magic formula to make things right. There are reasons why it’s difficult to simply start, that’s ok. I’ll pull another quote today to help get this started. Arthur Ashe said it best: “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”
Here are three very simple tips to help you reset the planning part of your life.
Tip One – Draw a line
If you keep a daily log, simply draw a line across the page and begin again. Super simple. Everything after that line is new and fresh. It’s a bit like a childhood line drawn in the sand. All the old is behind that line. There are new possibilities on this side.
Tip Two – Turn to a fresh page
Turn to a fresh page in your notebook. If you’re using the back of a page, turn completely to a new one. This allows you to visually shut off the before.
Tip Three – Hard reset
Start a new notebook. Set the current book aside, you may find you return to it in the future and then with distance it’s possible to either draw a line across the page where you were or even turn to a fresh page.
Yes, that’s it. Painfully simple. When I’ve spent far too long beating myself up for not finishing a task properly or promptly, or find myself frustrated for other reasons, I take a few moments (sometimes more) for me, then jump back in following a simple reset.