Introduction to Winner Day Pages

 

Each Winner Day Page is like a check worth twenty-four hours. During your planning time, you decide how best to spend it. Or think of each Day Page as a personal ticket to success you write yourself. Combined with other parts of the Winner Personal Success Organizer, you now have the tools to create the life you really want to have.

Each day is yours to spend only once. 

There is both beauty and ugliness in life. If you don't have time to see it all, why not see the beauty first?  (Brent Evans) 

"For my part, I live every day as if this were the first day I had ever seen and the last I were going to see.  (William Lyon Phelps) 

Nothing is more highly to be prized than the value of each day.  (Goethe) 

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make a mighty ocean

And the pleasant land.

Thus the little minutes,
Humble though they be,
Make the mighty ages

Of eternity."
    
(E.C. Brewster) 

Life gives you twenty-four hours a day to spend. How much of it do you want? (Brent Evans)

Make a decision to succeed. 

If things aren't working out as well as you'd like, you now can do something about it. Your Winner system gives you added power to achieve your most cherished dreams as well as help solve your most difficult problems. Decide to make the simple, but powerful changes in how you do things that will unleash your unlimited powers to succeed. 

You keep on getting what you've been getting when you keep on doing what you've been doing.  (Anonymous) 

Decide what needs to be done, and then do it! Plan each day with the following determination: 

If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.  (Jonathan Winters)

 

Lighthouse Symbol

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each Winner Day Page includes the same lighthouse symbol found on your Mission Statement page. It acts as a reminder of what you have decided are the most important things in your life. Look back at your Mission Statement often and reflect on your important values, dreams, and desires. It will give you a surge of energy and motivation that is vital to getting full benefit from each day. Fill your planning time with positive thoughts. 

Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit - and man is his own gardener. (James Allen)

 

 Date and Symbol    -  l - ¨- n - O - ¯ - q

Each day has a symbol that represents the day of the week. Look at your yearly calendar on the inside back cover of your Winner binder. It identifies the day of the week that each symbol represents. You will quickly learn them. We use the symbols so the Winner Day Pages are good for a full year regardless of when you start. You will no longer have to begin on January 1 or waste some of your investment. The symbols have the added purpose of helping to organize the Character Trait Development Program built into your Winner. 

The symbols also coordinate exactly with the Forever Wall Calendar by Learning Success. This unusually useful wall calendar allows you to write important dates that come up each year, like birthdays and anniversaries, just once. The same calendar will be good forever. It is designed to give a visual time awareness to the year, and the appreciation of time in general.

 

Character Trait quotation 

Notice the lighthouse is shining on a quotation. Fifty-two key character traits important to success have been identified. They are listed on your monthly calendar pages. A new character trait is introduced each week. The upright, filled-in rectangle symbol signals the start of each new trait. There is a different quotation related to that character trait on each Winner Day Page for a week, giving seven opportunities to reflect on the trait and the implications it has in your life. Each quotation has been selected for its power. Parents may wish to use the quotations as opportunities to talk about these important life concepts with their children, especially if their children are using the Winner program themselves. If you wish to go into more depth, Character Boosters available from Learning Success provides learning/teaching ideas and quotations for each character trait as well as 101 activities and games that could be used to teach any character trait.

 

Theme or note for the day 

Use this space to write how you wish to implement the week's character trait in your life this day, or anything else that is particularly important. It could be an event, project to complete, type of day you want, or maybe just something you want to make sure you don't forget.

 

Priority Matrix

                (picture illustrating matrix)

 

 

 

 

 

Each Written Memory page has a Priority Matrix in the lower right corner. It serves as a visual reminder of how to prioritize your day.

 

A. (Tasks that are Important and Urgent )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some tasks are important and urgent. They need to be done right away or significant losses may occur, or immediate gains may be lost. We have represented it by a locomotive heading toward you on a railroad track. You must act right away!

 

B. (Tasks that are Important but not Urgent)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is represented by a  door of opportunity. There are things we can do that can make a tremendous difference in our lives now or in the future. Can you think of things that if you just took the time would make a big difference in your life? The problem is many of these opportunities do not have clear, immediate deadlines, so they are often left undone. Look back at your mission statement, your values, goals, roles and relationships. What actions could make a difference? These are usually the things you look back on and say, If only .... or I wish I had ....  Try to have as much as possible of your day planned in this category.

 

C. (Tasks that are Unimportant but Urgent)

 

 

 

 

 

  

The trap represents time engaged in activities we are influenced by others to do, but are really not important to us. They can't be found on our Mission Statement. We may wish to encourage others to pursue them if they fit their values, but spending our own time this way could result in falling into a trap that could rob us of precious time needed for activities that more truly fit our values.

 

D. (Tasks that are Unimportant and Not Urgent)

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drain represents the most insidious time waster of all. This time serves no real purpose for us or anyone else. We just let time go down the drain as if it had no importance whatsoever. Look at the priority matrix each day before you decide how you will spend your time.

 

Scheduled time 

The left side of the Day Page is to write appointments and other scheduled time. You may even make appointments with yourself to work on special projects, protect quality time with your family, or just spend fun time. 

Notice that the morning and evening hours do not have times indicated. That gives you the flexibility to write whatever times are important. The hours are listed for the middle part of the day. Add the minutes to each hour as needed, for example 10 would become 10:15 if you had an appointment at that time. Circle each scheduled time, and then fill in the circle if the task was completed, half fill it in if there are things left to do concerning it. Leave it open if the event planned did not take place. Cross out the circle if the appointment was canceled and no follow thru is needed. This gives you a quick visual picture of what was accomplished and what still needs to be done.

 

Prioritized Items 

What should you do with the time you have available? Look back at the lighthouse and the priority matrix. Write down the tasks you wish to accomplish today, then evaluate each one according to the priority matrix. In the small box to the right of each task space write an A if it is important and urgent, a B if it is important but does not have an immediate deadline, a C if it may be important to some people, but does not fit what you have identified as really important to you. You need to decide whether these tasks could best be done by people who are more directly interested in them. Write a D if the task turns out, on further thought, to be impulsive and trivial. Even if you don't have any D tasks identified, it is a good time to look at your time schedule and evaluate whether such time wasters have crept in. If so, decide what to do about them.

 

The next step is to go through the A tasks and number them starting with one according to the order the tasks should be done. For example:  A-1

Do the same with the B tasks. See which C tasks could be delegated, but if you decide to keep the tasks temporarily, number them also. 

There is a small circle to the left of each prioritized task space called a Success Button.

 

Fill in when task is completed. 

Fill in half way if task started, but not completed. 

Use arrow and name if task is delegated. 

Use arrow and date if task forwarded. 

Cross out if task deleted.

 

Notice the first Success Button already has a task written beside it. It says Planned and Ready. It is the most important Success Button of all. Use this button at the end of your Planning and Thinking Time. If you feel physically, emotionally, and spiritually ready to have the day you really want, then fill in your Success Button. Anything less should show on how much of the Success Button you fill in. Try to qualify for a filled-in button each day. Challenge yourself to have as many days in a row as possible that are fully planned and ready.

 

Programs 

This is a place to list any programs you are currently working on. See the instruction sheets for the Program section of your Winner. Examples could be: an exercise program, a book you are reading, a success habit, information to be memorized, or any other organized effort you want to schedule and evaluate each day.

 

Written Memory 

What do you want to remember about today? Consider this page part of your memory systems, an extension of yourself. You could record telephone calls, events of the day (personal history), ideas, reflections, business information, agreements.

 

Notes 

This section is available for whatever you choose. Grocery lists, items mailed, phone messages. Students could write down school assignments. Parents could write items to bring up with their families. A unique idea is to use it as a place to evaluate the day. You could use the same ratings you see for movies. Was it a one, two, three or four star day?

 

Expenses 

This is a place to record any expenses or mileage for the day.

 

See yourself successful 

Planning time should end with a few moments of seeing yourself having a successful day. The power of mentally practicing what we want to accomplish is well documented, and is now used by most athletes. For example, three groups of students were studied on the effects of practicing shooting basketball free throws every day for twenty days. The first group practiced as usual. The second group wasn't to practice at all. The third group was to practice mentally only. At the end of twenty days, the first group improved by 24%, the second group showed no improvement, and the third group (the one that only practiced mentally) improved by 23%. Combine physical and mental practice for best results. 

You might want to conclude your session with meditation or prayer, feeling appreciation for the opportunities you will have during the coming day to live your life well. During such times, the left and right sides of your brain become coordinated, and your capacities maximized. 

The man who is diligent in the planting of good seed will find after a while that he always has something coming to fulfillment.  (Henry Ford 1863-1947)

 It is only by thinking about great and good things that we come to love them, and it is only by longing for them that we are impelled to seek after them, and it is only by seeking after them that they become ours and we enter into the vital experience of their beauty and blessedness.  (Henry Van Dyke)