Everyone wants life to be simple and easy. But we all know life isn’t simple or easy. Often we can feel like things are running away from us and we’re constantly living in a place of reacting to what is coming at us. This can make life feel difficult and hard. But what if you could take the difficult and hard things and make them manageable and enjoyable?

Life gets busy and it’s easy to get swept away by running on autopilot. Before you know it a year has gone by and you haven’t accomplished any of your goals. This leaves you feeling disorganized, demotivated, and out of control. No one wants to feel defeated and 3 steps behind on everything!

I’ve been there before - when you’re overcommitted, tasks are out of control, and things start slipping through the cracks. Here’s the thing; you don’t have to feel this way all of the time. We all have to regularly reorient and refocus ourselves around what we want to accomplish otherwise we will get drowned out by everything else around us. I’ve found that focusing on 7 key areas helps me regain control and get things done. I’ve outlined these 7 categories below. Take a few moments to look over each section and ask yourself: “Am I succeeding in this area?”

If there is room to grow in any of these areas, I encourage you to follow one of the links along the way and download a copy of DETAILS.

Distributing Time is all about how you use your time to work for you instead of against you. If you’re constantly responding to what pops up around you instead of planning out your time beforehand, you will always feel behind and out of control.

This section focuses on how to:

• Anticipate needs instead of living in a constant mode of reaction.

• Get all of your tasks, ideas, and thoughts out of your head and into a place where they can be acted on and completed.

• Schedule your tasks ahead on days when you’re most likely to get them done.

• Allow margin in your life to focus on what is most important and get rest.

• Setting goals and creating achievable steps to accomplishing them.

Moving from a place of constant reaction to a place of anticipation requires you to communicate with others.

Engage in Conversation provides you with helpful instruction on:

• Engaging with confidence so that you can invest in others and learn from them.

• Speaking with clarity so that you are understood and confusion is avoided.

Being assertive often carries negative connotations. But that doesn’t always have to be the case. In Take the Lead to be Assertive I look at the necessary tension of boldness and thoughtfulness. This tension is how we move forward with our goals while bringing others along with us.

This section outlines how to:

• Have ownership over what you’re doing.

• Give and receive feedback.

• Present your vision in compelling ways.

• Carry yourself with the proper body language.

Knowing what needs to be done and figuring out the best way to accomplish what’s in front of you requires asking the right questions - and in the right way. This section focuses on asking how you can serve in three specific areas: (1) Work, (2) Home, and (3) Friendships. Ask What You Can Do also explores:

• Lists of questions to ask yourself and your coworkers to best assess what needs to be done.

• Evaluating what your goals are in the home.

• Assessing communication with others in the home.

• How to ask the right questions of your friends to deepen your relationship and know how to serve them better.

Relationships are such an important part of getting your life organized because we all have relationships with people. The important thing to understand is how to properly prioritize the people in our lives and invest our time with them in the right way. Initiate Relationships helps show how to:

• Connect with people by simply introducing yourself.

• Learn how to be a resource and help to those you initiate relationships with.

• Find opportunities for mentoring relationships.

If you want to continue to find ways to better yourself and the way that you do things, you have to be someone who is a continual learner. Lead with Learning helps you understand how to:

• Cultivate a thirst for learning.

• Learn from past experiences.

• Learn from others.

• Learn from resources.

It’s easy to get brought down by the difficult things that get thrown at us. We go back into our reactive mode and start seeing things as problems. Search for Solutions will help you see how challenges are really just opportunities instead of problems. It will also show you:

• The importance of a positive mindset.

• How to assess a problematic situation and find a solution.

• How to stay composed.

If you want some clarity around what you do, how you spend your time, and where you are going, I encourage you to click the link below and start working through the book today.

As a bonus, you will also get the following printable resources included with your purchase:

• Daily Planner (Newly revised printable daily planner for keeping your tasks organized)

• Brain Dump Template (Template with categories for triggering things you need to be working on)

• Ideal Week Template (Use for creating time blocks to do the most important things)

• Action Review (Questions for reflecting on past actions and projects)

These resources are all included and explained in DETAILS and will help you move forward with getting organized and getting things done.