The Intentional Advantage

Earlier this week, we talked about being protective of your time, and I want to expand on that with Parkinson's Law. This is the idea that work expands to fill the time you've allotted for completion. If you give yourself a week to complete a two hour task… psychologically, you'll be sure it fills up that week. In reality, it's stress and tension that fills up our time, so I'll share a mental trick you can do to make this law work for your advantage.

Time is best spent on the things that are important to you and your goals. Today, I'm discussing the importance of protecting your time and how you can track where you spend yours. After today's episode, you'll have the tips and tools needed to go from multitasking and feeling distracted to monotasking, understanding your peak productivity blocks and owning your time.

What's In This Episode:

• Activity + Rest: The difference and importance of your circadian rhythm and ultradian rhythm.
• Why we need to stop taking pride in our multitasking, and how to start monotasking instead.
• What 'attention residue' is, and how to eliminate it distracting you from beginning a new, focused task.
• Learn how to easily track your time throughout the week with tips, examples and a free download.

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In this week's mini episode, I want to share a story about the person in my life who always embodied his core values - my Grandpa. He taught me that you don't have to shout what you believe from the rooftops when you live your life exemplifying it. After listening to this story, a great question for us to ask is, "Am I living a life where my priorities and values are clear, or do I get caught up in the day-to-day?"

Your core values are an important part of investing in yourself as it helps you define the actions and behaviors you want to hold central to your life. In today's episode I'll give you my easy 3-step process in getting to the heart of your values in your personal life and in your work. I'll walk you through how you can define, modify and use your core values on a daily basis. After today's episode, you'll have the tools you need to be able to clearly state your core values and consistently live your life with them steering you.

What's In This Episode:

• What really are core values and why you need to definitively state or write them out.
• Examples of big and small choices you can make that will align with your core values.
• The easy 3-step process for defining your core values and a free download to help you get started.
• The 2 types of core values you may need to define to allow yourself feel fulfilled & satisfied.
• Using breadcrumbs, or patterns, to understand and cultivate your core values.

To join Tonya's free group, just go to inkwellpress.com/group.

Do you use the word 'busy' as an excuse for not going after your goals or as badge of pride in your daily life? It's important to intentionally reflect on your 'busy' life and schedule in a whitespace retreat. In today's mini episode, I'll share how I plan mine, and how you can enjoy a quick whitespace retreat right now, allowing you to feel a bit more recharged (and ready to plan a full-length one).

Knowing your personality type can help you to understand yourself better and improve how you interact with others. Today, I'm focusing on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and how that introspective questionnaire will help you to set goals, eliminate procrastination, grow your creativity and work more effectively. I'll share my own personality type and how it's helped me to appreciate others, and how you too can work with everyone's strengths as a team at home, work or in personal life.

What's In This Episode:

• 5 ways knowing your personality can help you understand yourself and others better. • How to appreciate different personality types and work with others' strengths instead of having conflicts. • Using your personality type to find your career and passions. • About the MBTI test and how it can help you set goals, stop your procrastination, understand how you interact with others and more.

To join Tonya's free group go to inkwellpress.com/group

We've been talking all about investing in you this season, so in this week's mini episode, I'm sharing my simple truths with you. These are little, personal things I've noticed about myself throughout my life that I wanted to be mindful of and write down. Over time, I've found that they center me and remind me of who I am at my core. I hope after listening today, you'll be inspired to start a note of your own simple truths and use them to know yourself a little better.

Learn how your actions today will affect your future self in today's Ask Tonya Q&A episode. I'm answering listener's questions about how to stop your patterns of procrastination and analysis paralysis so that your ideas and goals are in reach. We'll focus on intentionally taking action and working with our families to create routines now and maintaining harmony going forward.

What's In This Episode:

• My best advice on how to stop your pattern of procrastination, allowing you to put important tasks at the top of your priority list instead of immediate or urgent items.
• A 5-minute rule and more tips on how to banish analysis paralysis, organize your lifestyle and go after your ideas or passions.
• How to instill productivity and mindful living into your kids… and that includes allowing them to understand their options and deal with 'failure.'
• Intentionally transitioning between your roles at work and at home by creating harmony and focusing on each

To join my free group, go to inkwellpress.com/group

Earlier this week in episode 055, I discussed following our breadcrumbs to find our true passions. So today, I'm sharing my story of how my breadcrumbs led me to "accidentally" become an entrepreneur. Sometimes it takes a surprising conversation with a friend about your past experiences to recognize the pattern that's been in front of you all along. Listen to my story, and then I encourage you to look at your breadcrumbs and see what path you're on and where it may be leading you.

We all have stories that we tell ourselves about our life that leads us into patterns of behavior and beliefs. The key here is which patterns or cycles you feed. Today's episode is focused around understanding your breadcrumbs so you can breakthrough and discover your passions. I know it's not as easy as that, so I'll share the best ways you can start getting motivated, along with tips on using your Fridays to work on your long-term goals.

What's In This Episode:

• How to recognize your patterns and reflect on those cycles in the three areas of your life.
• Taking patterns of stress and negativity and turning them into positive routines instead… even if you've been doing it subconsciously.
• An activity to help you connect the four main categories of patterns to their sources, like familial cycles.
• Ways you can actively carve out time so that you're investing in yourself on a weekly basis.
• A free Reflection Worksheet download to help you assess which patterns you can keep, and which you should transform into positive ones.

To join my free group, go to inkwellpress.com/group