A Sharp Tool of Time Management —— Morning Diary

Time management is a tool that modern people need in their busy work and life. Through time management, we can control our time, improve efficiency and set aside more time to do meaningful and interesting things. Time management involves a lot. Today, I want to share with you the sharp weapon of time management-morning diary.

Diary, we are all familiar with it. What can be called a "sharp weapon"? Maybe you wrote it when you were a child, usually at the request of teachers and parents, and it will record something. It would be interesting to leave the diary for adults to read. At that time, the main goal was to improve writing ability and accumulate materials, but it generally did not play a particularly important role in guiding study and life.

The morning diary mentioned here can effectively manage time and improve the efficiency and quality of work and life. What diary will have such a big effect? I started to keep a diary two years ago and began to record it in ordinary words. I feel that my life has not changed much. Until last September, I studied the time management course of Ye Wubin, read the miracle of morning diary (biography of Sato) recommended by the teacher, and changed the method of keeping diary, and the time management effect was truly reflected. Over the past year, I have exercised no less than 1 hour every day on average, and kept practicing guzheng, calligraphy, reading and studying. Of course, I am a nine-to-five office worker, and my working hours are outside this. Being able to allocate and manage time reasonably is largely due to the morning diary. Having said so many benefits, we must let the protagonist play:

Morning diary, first of all, is a diary, but its recording method is different from the "running account" type. We do it in the form of "nine squares", which represent different types of events. The determination of event types is closely related to our own life goals. Setting goals is another important topic of time management. We'll discuss it separately when we have a chance. Here is a brief introduction. First, determine your dreams and life goals; In order to realize my dream, I am paying attention to and implementing several major events, and listing these concerns into a grid, such as work, family, study and interpersonal relationships. These can be divided into one grid, depending on the key points of personal concern. For example, I like guzheng and calligraphy, and I will list "talents" in one grid; If you like making wine and handmade soap, list diy separately. This has the following advantages:

When you see this form every day, you can find out what you have changed or haven't changed for a long time against your own goals.

With the theme of each grid, when writing a diary, you won't be paranoid and completely confused. Generally speaking, filling in the blanks is better than writing, right?

The main function of diary in time management is "planning and reflection". Planning is to make arrangements for things to be done every day, such as the priority of things to be done, the approximate time required and so on. This is also one reason why a diary should be "morning". In the morning, I have a clear mind and a good mood. At this time, it is easy to control the pace of life by arranging a good day's work and life and having a clear clue. Sense of control is a very important psychological feeling. If you feel that everything is under your control, your mood will be happy and things will move forward easily. And "powerlessness" and "disorder" will lead to frustration and affect the mood and the completion of events. Early morning is a time that we can easily control and not be disturbed, which is conducive to persisting in writing. In the middle of the table, I left the common elements of the diary, such as time and weather, and then the "tomato clock" for the day's planning and distribution (tomato clock is also a common tool for time management, which will be described in detail later. If I don't understand, I just need to allocate my time to each job first. Everyone has a "self-fulfilling prophecy" (in communication psychology, it is used to describe the influence of secret environment on people's behavior), which is translated into adult language, that is, people will take the initiative to verify their predictions. Writing down what they want to do in their diaries will give us more motivation to realize it than vague ideas in our minds. If we write "I must achieve this today", our execution will definitely improve! An important function of the morning diary is to make plans and sort events according to their importance and difficulty.

2. Summary

Another important function is "summary and reflection". As the ancients said, "Three provinces save me every day", we may not have time to "three provinces save me", but "one province" is still necessary. Moreover, after we are used to reflecting in the diary, we will naturally jump out of reflection in the process of working and living, thus forming a kind of self-observation and introspection. Why do you make this summary in the morning? One is to save time and summarize at night. If it is planned in the morning, it will be more troublesome to divide it into two periods. More importantly, by the next day, I can remember the events of the previous day clearly, not too subjective, and the diary written will be more objective and logical. The record of each grid in Jiugong is a summary of the previous day's work. After recording, it's best to have a special "punch-in" box, that is, list what you want to accomplish with goals, and then record "1" after completion, and never forget your grades, so that you can see whether you have invested enough time in the goals. Face this punch card every day, self-supervise, and urge yourself well. For example, my goals, such as fitness and piano practice, are all listed in the punch box. By the end of the month, I will take stock of my achievements and send them to my circle of friends by playing monthly cards, so that my friends can also supervise me (playing cards in my circle of friends once a day will disturb my friends, but once a month will be much better). This grid is the contrast area of practice. Practicing every day and watching the growth of numbers will improve self-affirmation and increase benign incentives. In this way, I increased the number of morning exercises from 0 more than a year ago to about 28 times a month. The specific content is different for everyone in different time periods, and it should be determined according to their own situation. For example, I recently found that I often can't help eating at night, so I added "no snacks at night" to my punch card, and sure enough, I ate less calories at night. Here are my punch cards and circle of friends:

Step 3 reflect

Punched on it is quantifiable content; As for the qualitative part, I added lines under the nine squares, such as "Harvest", "Well done" and "Insufficient", and filled in according to my own situation every day. If not, I will leave them blank. Among them, in addition to "three provinces and myself", it is also very important to "like" yourself. If you do well and make progress, just fill in "well done" here and give yourself the motivation to move forward. These can also be adjusted according to their own stage needs. For example, after learning EQ, I think I should pay more attention to emotional control and put "Are you out of control today?" Make a list and rate your emotions every day. Slowly, you can always pay attention to the changes of your emotions, and then control your emotions. If you can detect when you will get angry and say to yourself, "I am very angry and in a bad mood now", you can effectively control yourself and reduce your emotional loss of control. And "praising one person every day" is also the place where I feel I need to improve after learning EQ. I am not good at praising others, and this grid reminds me every day: discover the strengths and advantages of others.

In this way, we use diaries to plan, summarize and reflect, and determine and implement our goals through dialogue with ourselves. Doing the core work of time management is of course more handy for managing time. The targeted grid setting in the diary allows us to move forward effectively according to the set goals.

Second, the choice of diary tools

1, EXCEL table

As for the choice of diary tools, morning diary introduces paper diary, EXCEL table format, and of course all kinds of diary software in mobile phones. Personally recommend EXCEL table format. Compared with paper diary, forms are easy to copy, carry and lose, and many of them are accumulated and compared vertically and horizontally. I have never used the diary software in my mobile phone. In the era of big data, shopping and dating information has been taken away by big companies. I don't want to return my diary to them. I feel very insecure. Diary is to be true to yourself. Without a sense of security, many things are afraid to write, and the effect will be greatly reduced; And writing on a mobile phone is not as convenient as computer operation.

2, an EXCEL workbook, a life diary.

Keep a diary with EXCEL form and make a nine-square grid. Merge three columns 10 rows into a grid, repeat three times to make a cubic grid of one row, and then copy twice to make a nine-square grid. The following lines for reflection can be added according to your own needs. In order to make it easier for everyone to understand, I also cut the header into the picture below.

Copy this table to the end of the line until 30,31,which is a monthly diary table. Then you can copy the following dozens of lists and get the table of the same month next year. In other words, a table has only months, the first column is for one year, and the next column is for the next year. After writing more diaries, I can always see this time last year. What do you want from yourself? Compared with now, is it progress, stagnation or even retrogression? Be clear at a glance. There is another side benefit. Seeing what was done on the same day last year, it is not easy to forget the anniversary! 12, you can keep a diary for n years, and use it all the time, saving money and worry!

One advantage of using EXCEL tables is that you can set formulas, such as dates. After the date of the current month is set to 1, the next day is set to "=*+ 1", which will become the date of the next day, and there is no need to enter it repeatedly (O 13 = D 13+ 1). Similarly, the next day's punching is also set to the previous day. We only need to enter "1" of the current day, or leave it blank, and we will get the result, which reduces the time for input and calculation. The forms on the computer are also easy to find, because we only have the 12 form. If you don't know which month it is, you can find what you want by setting search "whole workbook".

Well, this is the morning diary I want to share with you. Based on my personal dreams and goals, I identified several major concerns and planned and summarized them in a nine-square way. By punching in, specific matters are put into daily actions to improve execution; Combining "praise" and "province" with daily reflection can change the way of action and thinking behind you. Teacher Ye often says, "How to live this life is how to live this life". When we achieve our goals every day, we will go one step further from our dreams, and finally we will be able to live the life we want! Let's try it together!

In order to make the morning diary play a greater role and look at myself from a longer-term perspective, I have compiled the morning diary-monthly review-and welcome everyone to click.

PS: In The Miracle of Morning Diary, there are many wonderful explanations about keeping a diary in the morning, the significance of diary, how to get up in the morning and so on. Interested friends can look for the original.