PP 721: My Smartest Investment This Year
“You need to find the systems, and the tools, and the processes that work for you.” -Kim Sutton
This week, Kim shares what her smartest investment this year is, (which she resisted buying for so long). Why was Kim opposed to buying it? What made her change her mind? And how did this thing create significant changes in Kim’s life? Listen in as Kim reveals what this thing is, and maybe this can create wonders for you too!
Highlights:
01:37 Health and Productivity
04:40 Get Up and Move Your Butt!
08:38 Find Your Smart System
Resources
- Positive Productivity Episode 718: What Focus Method Works Best For You? Music For The Easily Distracted With Will Henshall
- Positive Productivity Episode 719: Protecting Our Productivity
- Positive Productivity Episode 720: Social Media Sanity Saver
- Positive Productivity Episode 005: Sleep … And Why I Would Rather You Do It Than Listen to Me
Inspirational Quotes:
00:40 “I don’t need to impress anybody with what I drive, I wear, how I show up. I want to be myself at all times.” -Kim Sutton
05:54 “The feeling of a hungry belly overtakes every other thought that I could possibly be having.” -Kim Sutton
09:00 “You need to find the systems, and the tools, and the processes that work for you.” -Kim Sutton
Meet Your Host!
Kim Sutton is a Business and Marketing Automation Mentor, Speaker, and Author. She is the host of the Positive Productivity Podcast. Having been through so much including depression, domestic violence, and lack of self-care, Kim’s mission is to help her clients be positively productive by empowering them to achieve success without the burnout. She believes that positive productivity stems from system+support+self-care. Positive productivity is not about perfection, it’s about having Prioritized Purposeful Actions. Today, Kim is out to help fellow entrepreneurs reclaim their lives and make their business work.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:
Kim Sutton: My friend, if you’ve been with me for a while, you’ve probably already gotten a clue that I am not into materialism. I’m happy wearing clothes from the thrift store, buying my shoes, flip flops at big-box stores. And yeah, I don’t need to impress anybody with what I drive, I wear, how I show up, I want to be myself at all times. But this year, I’ve been putting a bigger focus on me and my house. I’ve been eating healthier, I’ve been exercising, I’ve been making every effort that I can to sleep better, including going to a sleep clinic to find out why I wake up all night long. And all of this comes into the conversation that we’re going to have today. The focus this month has been focus and productivity. And if you haven’t already listened to Episode 718, 719 and 720, I want you to go back and listen to those because I have some tips for you that I hope will help you maximize your focus and productivity without also maximizing your stress, because who needs that?
But getting back to the topic of today, I want to share with you my smartest investment this year. Again, I am not into material objects, but I’ve realized that I sit way too much. I’ve realized that I have no idea how many steps I’m walking in a day, the number of calories that I’ve consumed or so many other factors in my life. And I got a little bug in my head that said, you really should look into the Apple Watch.
Now, I want you to know this is in no way an affiliate promotion for Apple Watches. But on the topic of focus and productivity, my watch has been doing wonders for me. I wear it 24/7. Well, except for when it’s charging. And then yes, this includes when I sleep because this thing checks my sleep. It shows me how much I’ve been waking up during the night, and I was shocked in the last couple of weeks to see that I’ve been sleeping an average of five hours a night for the past month. If you haven’t already listened to it, one of the very earliest episodes of the Positive Productivity talked about how sleep is so important to me and how I’d rather be sleeping than listening to this podcast. And yes, I am absolutely serious when I say that. Because in a period of deep sleep deprivation, and I don’t mean deep sleep. Meaning, like sleeping as deep as I can. I mean, I was in the darkest period that I’ve ever been with, I was only sleeping one or two hours a night. And after I snapped out of that, I made a commitment to sleeping eight hours a night. However, in the past couple months, I realized I’m really tired. Why am I waking up all night long?
Now, as I already disclosed, I am visiting a sleep clinic. We’re trying to get to the bottom of that, but I didn’t realize how serious of an issue it was until my watch told me. My watch told me a whole bunch of other alarming statistics as well including how many times I stand up and move. I was shocked to see that on a day where I may be awake for 16 hours. Some days, I only get up and move four or five times. I can tell you that my bladder suffers as a result of that, and my appetite or my hungry grumpies suffer as a result of that. My relationships with my kids and husband suffer as a result of that. My physical fitness suffers as a result of not moving. Well, my watch is telling me to get up, move your butt, go be active. And I’m so thankful. I know you may be wondering, okay, well, why is telling you to get up and move good for focus and productivity? I’m going to share with you that when I’m sitting here at my desk all day long without eating, without using the restroom, without getting fresh air, my mind becomes cloudy. No, I’m not a doctor. I don’t know if there’s really any medical reasons for this. But I’ve realized that, well, for example, when my bladder gets full, I can’t focus very well. I am more focused on not peeing my pants than I am on doing the work that I am trying to do. When I’m hungry, I get irritable. Asked my husband, I pass, hungry grumpy is on to just about all my kids. And when any of us is really hungry, we are not easy to be around. I get irritated when things go wrong in the business, I get irritated even when everything is going right. I can’t talk to my clients or my business besties with the patients that I like even when they’re being super sweet, and I just can’t focus. The feeling of a hungry belly overtakes every other thought that I could possibly be having. And then there’s the watch’s ability to check my exercise. I have noticed since I started eating right, and since I started exercising that I really don’t need afternoon naps like I used to. Just so you know, I’m doing a keto diet, which means I have significantly cut my carb consumption. This is the longest I have ever gone on a keto diet. In full disclosure, I am not in ketosis right now because I botched it up a couple days ago, but I will get back there.
However, the point I was trying to make is exercise. Plus better nutrition means that I don’t get really sleepy in the afternoons. And then it’s amazing to me despite the fact that I’m only sleeping five hours a night, I have more energy than I remember having four years. And that’s a great thing. Now, the last hack that I’m loving about this Apple Watch is that I have a timer on it. I don’t know if it’s something that comes on the watch, or if it was an app that was on my phone that I installed on the watch. But I have a timer and I’ll tell it to go for 30 minutes. And during that 30 minutes, I will only focus on what I told myself I was going to focus on. I don’t need another tab on my Chrome to track time or to do a timer. I don’t need to open up my phone for a timer. And also, if I just pick up my phone to tell it to start a timer, I risk seeing all the other notifications. But by having the timer on my watch, I’m in the zone, I’m focused. And for 30 minutes, I get stuff done. Take right now for example, I told myself that during this 30 minute block, I was going to do nothing but record episodes. I haven’t been recording episodes like I wanted to lately because of life circumstances, but this is the third episode I have recorded so far during this block. I have at least one more that I want to record. But if I didn’t have this timer going, I may have been distracted in a gazillion other directions.
So my friend, even though I’m not into material objects, and even though I resisted buying this watch for the longest time because I thought it was all hype, I cannot deny that my smartest investment so far this year is my Apple Watch. I’m not going to tell you to go buy one, I’m not like that. You need to find the systems, and the tools, and the processes that work for you. But for me, this is working.
I would love to hear what your smartest investment so far this year has been. Even if you’re listening well into the future, and it’s January 1st, come on over and let me know. You can leave a comment below the show notes at thekimsutton.com/pp721. Now, Until the next episode, go forth and make it a positive and a productive day.
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