Think about this: What is ONE thing you can accomplish THIS week that will make you want to come home this weekend and celebrate with a bottle of champagne?
This productivity hack is called the “Champagne Moment.”
This is not a concept I came up with, but one I heard from Demir and Carey Bentley, the husband and wife duo behind Lifehack Bootcamp.
Lately, I’ve really embraced planning my week around a “Champagne Moment” — and it WORKS!
Now that it’s April and we’re cruisin’ right into Q2, it’s likely that the excitement of your New Year’s Resolutions MAY have worn off a bit. Am I right? But that’s OK because today’s life hack of a “Champagne Moment” will add some spark back into your daily productivity and help you narrow your focus on what matters the MOST.
So are you ready to get back on track? And what better time than TODAY to hit the reset button?
FIRST, HERE’S A RECAP OF HOW MY GOAL SETTING IS GOING… (AND WHY I NEEDED A CHANGE)
I went HARD in January writing down my annual goals and tracking my daily habit goals.
ALSO SEE: Why You Should Choose Habits Over Resolutions
I took it a step further and wrote down THREE big things I wanted to accomplish each week. Then even further by writing down THREE big things I wanted to accomplish each day.
Then, I had my less important tasks on a never-ending to-do list.
I’ve been using the Full Focus Planner by Michael Hyatt. I LOVE it and it has helped tremendously to focus on the things that matter most.
Even if you’re not familiar with the Full Focus Planner system, I’m sure you’ve heard of writing down your top few things you need to accomplish in a day — and tackling those first.
But my ONE issue that continues to trip me up each day, is the word “BIG.”
Yes, a simple WORD is causing me more anxiety than anything.
The word BIG is everywhere in my planning system.
You have a Weekly BIG Three and a Daily BIG Three so that made me think I had to take on all these BIG tasks each day — and not just tackle one big thing, but THREE of them!
I’m aware “BIG Three” just means most important, but for whatever reason the word “BIG” was throwing me off and I kept piling too much on to make my sure my daily things were BIG accomplishments — when in in my head I KNOW small steps are still progress.
If I did happen to accomplish three big things in a day, then I was exhausted and worn down knowing that I had to get up and do it all over again the next day with three NEW BIG daunting tasks.
Most days it was impossible to accomplish those BIG three tasks, so I went to bed at night feeling like I’d failed.
SO in an effort to stop trying to do so many BIG things in one day, I wanted to simplify my thinking.
And I’m doing that by focusing on my “Champagne Moment” each week.
What is a Champagne Moment?
According to Lifehack Bootcamp, it comes down to focusing on and celebrating ONE top priority each week.
THINK OF THIS:
WHAT could you do this week such that if you got it done, you’d be so happy that you’d stop by the store on the way home and buy a bottle of champagne and pop it and celebrate?
This is an easy exercise you can do weekly to sort out the IMPORTANT things on your list from the seemingly important things your list.
And by focusing on one TOP priority, you’re more likely to follow through with something pretty big and important that you’ll be super pumped about at the end of the week.
This beats piling on LOTS of big things that need to get done, stretching yourself too thin — and in the end accomplishing nothing.
On the plus side, you’ll most likely still accomplish ALL sorts of things that week in addition to your main focus. But you feel way less pressure. And you’re more likely to feel successful, productive and like a champ at the end of the week.
Here’s a video that dives deeper into the idea of a Champagne Moment:
TOP 10 TAKEAWAYS:
- We sometimes have unrealistic expectations of how much we can actually get done in a week.
- Fun Fact: “Priorities” (aka the plural version of “priority”) wasn’t even a word until 200 years ago — meaning you can’t have more than one top priority! We made up the idea of having MULTIPLE most important things.
- Deep work moves your work/life forward in a BIG way. Daily tasks like answering emails, sitting in meetings are SHALLOW tasks and not pushing you forward.
- Your Champagne Moment doesn’t have to be gigantic. Every small step forward pushes you forward in a BIG way.
- Decide on your Champagne Moment on a Sunday night when you’re planning your week.
- Make your champagne moment tangible and attainable.
- Your Champagne Moment isn’t meant to be a dream — it’s meant to clarify your week and help you move the ball forward.
- Aim to accomplish your Champagne Moment EARLY in the week (like by Wednesday) so that you have a realistic deadline, PLUS you can use the last couple days of the week to focus on other BONUS tasks.
- Consider what might get in your way and stop you from accomplishing your Champagne Moment and plan how you will deflect and stay on track.
- If you didn’t reach your Champagne Moment, it just means you overestimated what you could get accomplished, you underdelivered and didn’t show up at your peak level or life just happened. Own it and try again the next week.
WORKSHEET: Click here to download the Champagne Moment worksheet from Lifehack BootCamp.
TELL ME: What could you do this week that would deserve popping a bottle of champagne?