If your new year resolution included goal setting, a vision board might be a good option for you, especially if you’re a visual learner. They’re simple enough to create – you just need a poster board (planner or paper), magazines, scissors, and glue. You can also create a digital vision board.
A vision board is a creative collage that allows you to have a tangible visual image of goals you’ve set for yourself. It’s the power of visualization and an extension of manifesting your dreams.
Instructor Risha Roa from The Paper Seahorse in her Create Your Ideal Life: Goal-Setting and Productivity Systems with Analog Tools workshop offered valuable tools to set your intention for 2020.
Step one is simply to think about what you want to achieve and then find images that help you visualize those goals. It can be images from magazines, photos or words and phrases.
Doing a free writing activity can help. Give yourself time to find 3-5 words that are important to you. You can use one for your word of the year.
Think about your vision board and goals you have for the year. How can you make them SMART goals?
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely
Many people make new year resolutions to “be healthy,” but what does that really mean? You need some specific measurable guidelines for yourself or the goal is undefined and hard to measure. Break it down to steps that might include drinking 64oz of water every day or making your meals to consist of 50% of vegetables or you will run three miles each week.
Roa offered a productivity hack in the workshop called 3x3x3. It stands for setting 3 priorities for the week, 3 priorities for the day and three wins for the week.
Other ideas included setting up an If/Then ritual when obstacles get in your way. For example, if you're tempted to check your phone first thing every morning but want to break the habit, decide you’ll do breathing exercises instead. Or, if you want to sleep in instead of running, agree to give yourself a time limit and stick to it.
A review of your organization system includes reviewing what you’re currently using and deciding what’s working for you and what’s not will give you a clue to what new system you might want to try for the new year.
Michele Prit of Tampa who attended the workshop with her daughter said she was looking forward to streamlining the process for her work, family and personal and getting everything all together. Nadia Morgan, also of Tampa said her takeaway from the workshop was to be protective of your time and energy.
Time blocking, completing tasks in a designating time frame helps to have you working at your optimal energy level. Batch/task working can also help time management where you’re working on the same specific task until that’s complete and then you move on to the next “task”. An example might be if you manage several clients' social media accounts, you could design graphics for everyone at once and then write captions another time and then schedule the posts for everyone at once instead of completing the social posts for each client one at a time.
The Paper Seahorse offers a variety of calligraphy, journaling and craft workshops and has two Tampa locations. Their SoHo shop is located at 211 S Howard Avenue and is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. The Ybor location is open Wednesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 .m. and on Sunday from 12-4 p.m. and can be found at 1901 E 7th Avenue, Suite A.
For more things to do in Tampa, connect with 813area, we're your free guide to the city!
Photos courtesy of The Paper Seahorse Facebook page
