Would you like to enjoy more of your life while still remaining a responsible adult, caring for your family, and exercising your faith? What if the solution actually lay in doing less each day, not more? What if I told you the answers you are looking for are found in a small, 140 page book by Claire Diaz-Ortiz from Moody Publishing?
I hope by now I have gotten your attention! We all have a desire to be more productive and accomplish more real work in less time, but we often lack the planning it takes to get there. In Claire Diaz-Ortiz’s newest book: Design Your Day she goes beyond the usual steps of telling the reader to be more productive - she shows us examples from her own life, and the lives of her friends, that illustrate the actual steps to making lasting changes in how we organize our lives.
Design Your Day: be more productive, set better goals, and live life on purpose is a refreshing change from the traditional productivity books widely available today. In her book, Mrs. Diaz-Ortiz shares practical ways to be more productive, while still leaving time to care for our families and our faith. This gem of a book is divided into two sections. Part One: Decide and Part Two: Organize. I recommend reading through the book twice in quick succession. The first time through will give you an idea of how your life might look different if you lived it on purpose instead of just drifting along. The second time through will take you longer as you work through each of the recommended exercises. They will help you find and define your goals and priorities for the season of life you are currently in.
I appreciated Claire’s reminder to look at your current season of life. Not every goal setting plan needs to start on January 1st, and not every goal needs to take an entire year to reach. If you are a Christian you are going to want to take time not only to think about your goals, but to pray over them as you refine your list. Claire’s words of encouragement shine particularly vibrantly in this aspect as she reminds the reader often that the reason we should want to be more productive with work is to be able to live a life of meaning, not just of accomplishments.
Design Your Day is as pertinent to a stay at home mom as it is to the President of a major corporation. Each step taken helps us to regain the best use of our working time so that the chaotic days become the exception and productive meaningful days become the rule. Working through the steps to be more productive while actually doing less each day causes the reader to evaluate how the techniques can be applied to their own work/life situation to create a win-win.
If you feel like you are spinning your wheels and getting nowhere fast, this book is a lifeline. It can help you understand how to separate the list of what you currently spend all of your time on into things to keep, and things to either delegate or just stop doing altogether. We so often need a good friend to help us talk through this process of purging activities from our lives and this book reads as if you were sitting having a cup of coffee or tea with Claire in her own kitchen. Design Your Day is pinpointed accurate advice while still remaining conversational. It reminds us that is is possible to be productive, and still be a caring human being.
I was encouraged by the reminders to take the time necessary on each step, and yet to not drag your feet on the path to change. I do not like to be rushed while trying something new, and as a working and homeschooling mom I need to be able to adapt strategies to my reality. More than in any other time-management book I have read, this one focuses the reader on creating a plan that works in your own life, and not trying to superimpose the writer’s life plan over your own calendar.
In a world that keep telling us more, more, more, Design Your Day reminds us that less is ok. Less busyness, less failure. More meaning.
As you take the steps one by one to reclaim your productive time, you are sure to find something special: joy.
Design Your Day: be more productive, set better goals, and live life on purpose is available from Moody Publishing in either paperback or eBook formats. Visit their website for more details.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product from Moody Publishing in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions are mine. I am disclosing this in accordance with FTC regulations.
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