How to smash your summer and be 1 step ahead for September

In this episode we will look at how to work on your goals over summer while still being able to enjoy the beach and spend time with the family. 

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Transcript

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Good morning everybody, and welcome to the Cambridge Advanced Accelerator podcast. My name is Cheryl, and I'm here to help you with all things related to the Cambridge Advanced exam and getting yourself up to that C1 level. So this week I want to talk a little bit about summer. We're starting to book our summer holidays. Kids are finishing school, teachers, you're finishing up now. And we've got these couple of months, July and August, where we're either looking at relaxing, switching off after a busy uh busy semester at school, or uh we are looking at taking advantage of the summer uh that we maybe we've got a little bit more time to ourselves. Whatever your situation is, it's hot. We're going on holidays. Um, so I want to talk to you a little bit about how to make the most of the summer without feeling guilty about not studying enough. I'm talking about how we can get organized whilst you're on holidays. So I recently went to uh to Lisbon, to Portugal. I went last uh last weekend on holiday, went to relive my youth, go see Lincoln Park at a concert, um uh stayed up till 3 o'clock in the morning. Um when I normally go to bed at 10 a. uh. 10am, no, 10 p.m. But had an absolutely amazing time. Uh lots of lovely food, lots of drinks, even meeting up with uh some students on the course. Mafada was lovely to see you uh if you're listening. Um and then in a couple of weeks' time, so I'm back in Tenerife. In a couple of weeks' time, I'm going to Scotland for two weeks to visit friends, visit family. Uh, I'm taking Ellie to the Highlands and Islands in Scotland because she's never been. We always go over at Christmas when it's cold and horrible and miserable, and we never do any kind of touristy things. So this time, going in summer, we're gonna go take advantage and uh go see the island, the highlands, the islands, whiskey distilleries, uh, some uh some hikes, some wildlife. Um, it's gonna be absolutely um amazing and I cannot wait. However, whilst I'm away, I'm not going to switch off from my goals. I will I will work at a lower rate, so I'm not gonna go at my goals 100% whilst I'm on holiday, but I'm not gonna go down to 0% with my goals because I don't want to come back uh uh at the end of August, kind of going into September, I don't want to come back and um and have to start all over again because as you guys probably know, stopping and starting and stopping and starting, it just takes so much energy to get the ball rolling again, to get moving again. Whereas if we do a little bit to maintain our goals, then the ball is still rolling. The ball is still moving, albeit slower, but it makes it much easier to get up to that 100% to get up to speed again. Now, this could be with lots of different things. This could be with your English goals, but this could also be with your uh exercise and fitness and health goals, it could be with um things to do with your work, with your business, uh, it could be with anything that you can apply what we're going to talk about today. You can apply this to all areas of your life, not just English. This is why it's so so powerful, and I'm really uh excited to share this with you guys today. Okay, so this is gonna take you about half an hour to do, okay? Um, so we are we're just going into July now, so we're gonna sit down and we are gonna plan out July. So, what I want you to do is open up your Google Calendar, okay, or whatever calendar you use. I don't know if iPhones have a different calendar, but open up your calendar, okay. Um, and I want you to have in front of you a list of all the stuff that you need to do in July. Maybe you've got some doctor's appointments. Do the kids have summer camp that you need to take them to? Um, any um uh any major things that that you need to do? Any uh are you going on holiday? Do you have flights booked for certain days? Like any of the big events, have them in front of you. Okay, and the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna stick those into our calendar. So stick your flight times in, your doctor's appointments, dentists, the dates the kids are at summer camp, the times they're at the summer camps, um uh anything, anything like that, put it all in your calendar. Now, if you're working, if you're working 9 to 5, put that in your calendar. Um, we can split this up later. Um, if you are working 9 to 5, you can split this into kind of your tasks during the day because you can use this technique to help you kind of um uh streamline your day as well, but just for the moment block it in, block all the stuff, the life stuff that you have to do. Okay, this is step uh number one. Step number two, I want you to have a think about what your big goal is for the summer, for July, for August. So hopefully the Cambridge Advanced exam or improving your English is one of those goals. Okay, now I don't want you to have 10 different goals. Um, this is not gonna work. Uh, we don't want to overload yourself with uh 10 different goals at one time. We have a saying in English, jack of all trades, master of none. So if you try and do everything, you'll get good at nothing. Okay, so you can do anything you want, but you can't do everything you want. Say that again. You can do anything that you want, but you cannot do everything. You need to choose. Okay, so choose one or two goals maximum for the summer. So for example, this could be Cambridge Advanced exam, improving our English, and maybe it is um your your diet, health and fitness. Okay, um, choose your goals. After we've done this, we need to get organized with our goals. Okay, so we need to look for time in our calendar. Now that we've got the big kind of events into our calendar, we need to look for time and see where we can put our goals. And this is the most important step, and this is the thing that people miss, is they do not put um, they do not put the their goals that they want, they do not schedule it into their calendar. And if it's not scheduled, we don't do it. If it's not scheduled, we tend to think, oh, I'll do it later, I'll do it later, I'll do it this evening, and then something else comes up, we've got uh something unexpected, or we're tired, or things happen, and then that thing, that goal, that thing that we were supposed to do gets pushed to the next day, and it gets pushed to the next day, and then it's like I'll wait for the weekend, and then it's like I'll wait for Monday, and it keeps getting pushed and pushed and pushed. Very, very important that you schedule time, okay? So our goal is prayer preparing for the Cambridge Advanced exam. Okay, so let's look at our schedule each day and see where we can put that in our schedule. So maybe we've got 30 minutes, maybe we've got an hour, but let's put that in our schedule. If you can put it in the morning, even better. Okay. Um I tend to find that the earlier in the day that we can do our big goals, the better, because then you've ticked that thing off your list, you've got that thing done, um, and you don't need to think about it again all day. Uh, if something is scheduled for seven o'clock at night, I don't know about you, but I kind of think about that all day, kind of dreading it. I'm like, oh god, I need to do the thing, I need to study. I said I would study, I promise I study, and you start thinking about it all day. Um, and that can be cause stress, that can make us more tired and less efficient. Um, but if I do it at the beginning of the day, then I feel good. I've like I've done the thing, the thing that I wanted to do. I've done it, I feel good, I don't feel guilty, and it's ticked off the list, and I can move on with the day. So highly recommend if you can do it in the morning, especially if you've got kids and stuff over summer. Do it early in the morning before they're getting up and running around like crazy. Just get it done early in the day. Okay, so now you kind of have your basic plan for July put in. Now don't worry, things change, we add things in, life changes. So this is just our basic overview plan. Okay. What I want you to do now is every week you're gonna spend maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes max on a Friday, okay, planning the week ahead. Just looking at it again, seeing if any new appointments came up, seeing if um you know you have to drop the kids off at a birthday party, um if if any kind of extra unexpected things appear. Okay, so every Friday we want to look at the week ahead. Okay, again, very, very important that we plan um and schedule our study time, okay, or our goals, whatever they may be. So every Friday we're gonna plan the week ahead, and then every day in the morning, we're gonna spend five, ten minutes just reviewing our day. Okay, so every Friday we're gonna review our week ahead, and every morning, just before we start, we're gonna review our day, make sure that everything is scheduled, make sure that everything is realistic timing, um, that we've got everything good to know, good to go, and we know exactly what we're doing. So for me, when I go to Scotland on holiday, um I want to make sure that I'm still doing workouts and I'm still keeping healthy. I normally go to the gym four times a week and do my 10,000 steps every day. So I do not want to suddenly drop off doing that when I go to Scotland on holiday. Um, so I have scheduled in my plan for in my Google Calendar every morning just to do a quick kind of 15-minute little mini workout, like 100 squats, 50 sit-ups, 25 press-ups, do that three times. Um, and that's just going to give me a little bit of maintenance, and it's quick and it's fast, and I get it done in the morning, and then I feel good, I feel I don't feel guilty, um, and I'm doing something towards my important goal. Okay, so for you, you look at your week ahead, you've got your important goal, which is hopefully um passing your Cambridge Advanced exam. Hopefully, we've scheduled that in the morning or as early as you can. Okay, as early as you can get it. Um very important now to think about the most important thing that you can get done for the week and for the day to move you towards that goal. Okay, so if you have less time because you're on holiday, so maybe instead of studying for an hour a day, you only have half an hour. Have a look at what you need to study and think about what is the most important thing. What's the most important thing that I need to get done today? What's the most important thing, excuse me, that I need to get done in the week? Our goal is to do that thing first. So, for example, if you're like, I really need to do a piece of writing this week, I really need to write an essay. The best time time to schedule that would be first thing on a Monday morning. Get that big goal out the week right away. And I want you to have these little goals for every single day. Your little goal for every day and your kind of bigger goal for the week. Okay, schedule these in to your calendar. So where you've put study English or learn English, now we want to put these goals in. So the biggest one, for example, writing the essay Monday morning, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. What are our little goals? What would be the most important thing to get done to help us towards our goal of passing the Cambridge Advanced Exam? Okay, so there are millions of things that we could be doing. We could be reading The Guardian, we could be using our Quizlet sets, we could be doing some reading tasks, we could be doing a mock exam. There is so many things that we could be doing. But for you at this moment, what is the thing that would get you closest to your goal of passing the Cambridge Advanced exam? What would be the most important biggest thing that you can do? And that's what I want you to put on your plan. Okay, when we're busy, when we have less time, we want to think of the number one thing that's going to move us towards our goal, okay, and do that first. If we have time to do other things later, fantastic, great, we can put those in, but we want to have that one thing that we can do as the most important. And if we get that done, then that is your win for the day. That is you ticking that off your list and continuing on with your day, playing with your kids, going to the beach, sunbathing, whatever it is, guilt-free that you've done the big thing that you need to do. Because the thing is, if we don't have these priority tasks, these wins for the day, or these wins for the week, if we don't have these priority tasks, then our brain doesn't stop. We just start thinking, oh, I need to study more, I need to study more, study, study, study. Oh, I didn't finish everything that I thought I was going to do today. I didn't do this, I didn't do that. And then we start feeling guilty, we start feeling bad, we start prolonging our studying and trying to do more, um, we're sailing on the beach with a mock exam. Um, and we're never really kind of enjoying our time off because we're constantly thinking and talking to ourselves negatively about the things that we didn't do or the things that we should be doing. But if you have on your plan every day a win, no, a priority task, a small thing, the most important thing that is going to move you towards your goal. And if you get that done, that is enough. If you have that, then you can shut off that loop in your brain. You can shut off that negative talk or that little voice that's telling you, you need to do more, you should be studying more. You can shut it off because you know that tick, I've done that important thing for today. Anything else is is extra. Okay, so that's why it's so so important. And your win for the day, your priority task, your win doesn't have to be uh I got full marks on reading part seven, or um uh I got 10 out of 12 in use of English part four. Your win doesn't need to be connected to your score, okay. Your win can be I completed my task, I completed my priority task, I did what I said I was going to do. Wins don't have to be scores, okay? Wins can because we can't necessarily control our score, but we can control our actions. So making sure that we keep that habit, do our daily practice, even if it's a small amount of time, but spending that small amount of time on the number one thing that is going to move us towards our goal. Okay, this is the most important thing to do. And you can do this with other aspects of your life as well. Okay, you can do this with your work. If you're um if you have your own business, for example, I do not check my emails first thing in the morning. I do my number one important task. I do that first in the morning while I'm fresh and I get it done and I get it out of the way. If I start diving into emails and Instagram messages and everything first thing in the morning, I'll be there for three hours going off down uh down rabbit holes and solving problems and fixing things, and my my to-do list will be growing and growing, and I and I used to do this, and then I would never get to my important task. My important task used to be uh scheduled for the afternoon, also when I'm really sleepy and tired. It was scheduled for the afternoon um because I had all my admin tasks first, but it just meant that that task kept on getting pushed and pushed and pushed, and then I felt bad at the end of the week because the big things that were moving my business forward were not getting done. So just by moving these to the first thing in the morning, it really made a difference to my business, and it can make a bit of difference to your workday as well. Um, getting smart about things like uh cooking, lunches, um, if you've got to cook dinner for your kids and then for you later on, um, thinking about can we do some batch cooking? Can we on a Sunday sit down and prep the main meals for the week so that when you know that you've got busy times, you've got food ready to go, and you don't need to spend hours cooking things every single night. This can save you huge amounts of time, which then you can use to work towards your goals. Are we exhausted at the end of the day? Exhausted and then trying to do our goal, our our uh our studying? Uh again, moving this to the beginning of the day can help you solve that problem of being exhausted. Um, but if we're exhausted at the end of the day, um could we go for a walk before we do our studying to refresh ourselves? Are we exhausted and then just sitting watching Netflix or scrolling on our phone? I mean, the average person spends a minimum of two hours on social media a day. I think it's more like three hours, minimum of two hours on social media every day. And I mean that's not that's not kids who are 16. That is adults are spending two hours on their phone every day. So when we're saying I don't have time, I don't have time to squeeze in half an hour of studying, you probably do, but we're just not organized with our time. Okay, we've not scheduled that study time in. So we're getting home from work, we're sitting down, we're tired, we're just scrolling our phone and chilling, and then suddenly an hour's gone by and we don't even realize it. Um like I have an app on my phone that automatically locks me out of Instagram if I've been on it for more than 10 minutes, and it's amazing how fast that 10 minutes goes. You're like, oh my god, have I actually been scrolling for 10 minutes? Um, you don't realize it. You don't realize how much it eats your time when you just sit down and chill and scroll on your phone, okay? But if you have your calendar planned, if you have your study time scheduled, um then it's gonna stop that kind of like wastage of time where we just like lose a couple of hours scrolling online, okay? So get organized, think about what your goals are, put everything into your calendar, have one priority task each day, and try and schedule that as early as possible in the day. And guys, let me know how you get on with this. I would love to see your plans. Send me some screenshots of your Google calendars if you like. Um, and enjoy the summer. Relax, take some time off, but don't forget about your goals.