While the college basketball season is just getting started (or so hubby tells me), I’m sure the players are all looking ahead to the “March Madness.” (In case you’re unfamiliar with this, “March Madness” is the nickname given to the NCAA – college basketball – finals, which take place primarily during the month of March.)

Why am I confident of this? Because successful people always have an eye on the goal – in this case, a championship.

Basketball and the Pursuit of a Goal

In fact, the basketball season (or any sports season) can serve as a pretty effective example of the pursuit of any goal.

The NCAA championship is not something a team, or player, does, and it isn’t accomplished all at once. It’s a recognition, a state, of having accomplished something: namely, that of winning more than any other team. (I think that’s an oversimplification of the recordkeeping methods, but you get the idea.)

Moreover, this accomplishment is made, not by winning one huge game, but by winning many individual games over the course of a year. Each game must be tackled individually, and full attention devoted to it during the time it is being prepared for and played.

Any goals we set in our personal lives are accomplished in precisely the same way. We take things one step at a time, fully focusing on the current step, giving our wholehearted attention to the task at hand, while keeping in the back of our minds the idea that we can’t accomplish the end goal — we can’t “win the championship” — if we don’t do this one thing well. Thus, a goal really is simply reaching the end of a clearly-delineated series of tasks done well.

What’s My Next Game?

Now, I’m asking myself: What’s my “NCAA championship”? What’s my “next game“ (in GTD-speak, my “next action“)? How can I do it, and do it well?

My current “NCAA championship” is kind of an embarrassing goal; I just simply need to restore some structure to my life.

So many things have come together in my life over the spring and summer that I literally have no routine, aside from that I prepare and eat/serve three meals at some point each day. I do not have a set getting-up time or firm mealtimes, I do not have a morning or evening routine (even as simple as showering, dressing, and brushing my teeth). It’s hard to establish habits when you’re trying to establish them all at the same time!

I’ve determined that to fix all of my scheduling issues, the very “first game” has to be getting up at a set time. I mean, if I set the rest of my routines first, but then get up late, I’m necessarily throwing them all off — not exactly the best way to set myself up for success!

So, my first step was to “suit up.” In real life terms, that means I just bought a new alarm clock. We have an alarm clock, but:

1) the buzzer is totally obnoxious, so I tend to rebel against getting up to it’s blare, and
2) with a baby waking me erratically to nurse, I’m not always at the same point of my sleep cycle when the alarm goes off, and I have a tendency to be really groggy and not really awake.

This new alarm, the “Peaceful Progression Wake-Up Clock” by Hammacher Schlemmer, is supposed to wake me up gradually with gentle noises, rising light levels, and (if I choose to make use of it) scent, before finally waking me completely to a buzzer which is far less irritating than our current alarm clock. It just arrived yesterday and I didn’t get it set up properly last night, so we shall see. 🙂