In Orange County, California, the sun warms your skin like a campfire on a cool evening.

I was visiting for business, but accepted these personal pleasures that came with travel.

So, when the opportunity to ride top-down in a convertible along the Pacific coast to Los Angelos arose, I desperately wanted to take it.

Yesterday, I was high on a big fat doobie of accomplishment, a productivity monster crushing every activity with aplomb. Today I woke up to a sick wife and daughter, a migraine of my own, and two sons who had to finish last-minute school projects that rivaled NASAs space shuttle development program in size and scope.

I felt defeated, exhausted, overwhelmed, and wishing for my day back.

When this happens, you can recover in three ways:

Whenever there’s a new month, there should be a new plan.

With a fresh month, you’ve got 20 or so whole working days in front of you.

You weren’t thinking of just winging it, were you 😉?

You already know this, but “winging it” is not how you achieve your goals. That’s not how you’ll finish this year a success.

People who wing it often wonder how they worked so hard and yet don’t find themselves where they want to be.

On the other hand, high-achievers use every new month as an opportunity to do two things:

It’s a technical term, chimping.

You’ve been chimping everyday and don’t even know it.

Photographers use it to describe the act of looking at your…

I know you.

You’re already thinking about working this weekend.

You’ve got a shit-ton to do, mostly from random crap that piled up this week, but also from everything you couldn’t tackle due to last-minute meetings, an unprecedented number of emails, and constant interruptions from, ahem, Instagram and other social media notifications.

Overwhelm manifests when you have too much to do.

When, for example, you have multiple projects, dozens of emails, texts, meetings, and notifications from everyone who wants a piece of your time.

The problem isn’t with any one of your projects. Nor is it with the distractions.

The problem is that it’s all…