It’s when you’ve just finished a big training that required a huge number of hours for prep that I have to re-prioritize a lot of stuff.
I really can’t take any phone calls at all. I’m sitting here at London Heathrow.
I definitely keep email responses shorter.
I thank myself for hiring a housekeeper….
and
I make sure that the most important things are taken care of with as little interruption as possible.
I’ve just finished one of the most important “live” events I’ve ever done, and I’ve got a couple of multi-week courses going on and those people all deserve connection time, quality material and information and so on.
Not easy, and as Mom always said, “No one said life was going to be easy.”
So much for me…
You…
How Are You Living?
Ask yourself right now how you are living each day? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the vast number of things that you need to do? It does not matter if we are talking about work or your personal life, too many things leaves you in a constant state of being overwhelmed, which ends up pushing your buttons and causing nothing to be achieved as it should be.
Most people live every day in this constant state of being overwhelmed. This happens because your body can’t take in and process all of the information that is required of it. More so, you are on a constant overload in every activity that you do, which just intensifies the worry, frustration and the lack of concentration that you have.
When you are successful at time management, you are able to maximize use of every hour of the day. This means using each hour of your day to do the right things to accomplish all of the tasks that you need to in the most efficient manner. In the CD Program, Time For Love, Time for Money, I show people how to literally produce time. It’s a pretty cool thing and I hope you’ll take a look at it.
Time. There just is not enough of it. That is the first thing that you need to face. There is not enough time in the day to do all of the things that you want to.
You have to make decisions, and smart ones, about what can be done, what should be done, as well as what there simply is not enough time to do.
Read that as some people and some stuff have to get the ax. And that is a bummer.
And that is 100% necessary if you are going to live without overwhelm for the rest of your life. One day? No problem. One life? Huge problem.
5 Things You Can Do Now to Get on Track…
Your goal is always to work on the most important parts of your needs. When you focus on only what is important, you can transform the way that you think and relieve a lot of the stresses that you face.
Indeed, focusing your time on the most important aspects to you means that you are making the very best decision for your time. Focus on the most important aspects of your day, and you will always make the very best use of your time when you do so.
Five Things to Do Now
Here are five things to do right now to get the ball rolling.
- Make the decision that you can not accomplish everything that you want all at one time. You need patience to be a successful time manager.
- Relax your mind set. You need to be able to focus on what you need to do and how to accomplish it. When you can relax your mind from its frantic, overwhelmed state, you are better able to see just what it is that is the most important aspect of your time. Or at least be aggressive like a mad dog and then take 20 minute cat naps after completing a major project. Either will work fine depending on your drive and style.
- When it comes to deciding what is the most important thing to accomplish at this moment, go with what will have the best long-term implications. If you listen to your gut, you’ll stay in bed.
- Make a list. Those that are successful at planning their time are people that have a list of things that need to be done. This way, you can see what is in front of you, make decisions about their importance and not feel like there is no end in sight. Include everything you can on that list that you need to accomplish, small and big. Then, invest the time in organizing it by the most important to the least important. Lists are under rated. I have a good memory for facts and figures, but I can’t possibly remember the stuff that needs to be done today. I put a line through everything I get done and I don’t put a line through ANYTHING that I work on that DOES NOT GET DONE.
- Get a Project Based Planner and plan your work day. Plan out what you need to accomplish in blocks of time.
I made the decision that I’d create a time system planner and make it available to the world. Pretty much all systems are screwed up and unusable. Most everything is hour based and not project based and people who live on the hour don’t make as much money as people who live by the project.
You need to schedule time to accomplish your goals and your tasks. When you do this, your mind is less overwhelmed and you are more likely to achieve the goals that you have, too. This simple step will be the most important aspect to overcoming your frustrations and the overwhelmed feeling you have.
These five things are simple, yes? You can accomplish them right now in a matter of minutes in most cases. Do that and see what your first initial reaction is. You may find yourself in the best position that you have been in over the last few weeks or months.
How the Pareto Principle Factors In..
The Pareto Principle…The 80 to 20 Rule
In a previous issue of Coffee, we learned that in the United States, 62% of the taxes paid to the government come from 5% of the people. 86% of all dollars are paid by 25% of the people.
Sounds insane but it’s The Pareto Principle.
In business, love, life, romance, you name it, you will see a disproportionate amount of results come from a tiny amount of people.
There are a lot of “free riders” out there….and you’re paying for their ride every week when you look at your check. And that isn’t going to change.
The very best sales people outsell all the others by a wide margin… in every business. Most people are terrible at what they do. That “20%” make it so EVERYONE can get paid.
20 years ago I was an associate manager at a restaurant. We had a staff of about 50 or so. Of those fifty I had Julie, Brenda, Todd and Ken who did roughly the same amount of work as the other 20 people on the shift. Thankfully I didn’t stay in management. My idea was to double their salaries and get rid of 1/2 of the other people.
That of course wasn’t fair, had legal implications, you’d have to collect reams of paperwork on someone before firing them, even if they weren’t productive.
This kind of thinking is utterly insane. You don’t need paperwork to see that someone is 50-100% more productive than the person next to them on the same shift…all the time…
Everyone got a 1-5% raise at the end of the year. But Julie, Brenda, Todd and Ken deserved twice that…and I told them so as I departed.
That’s the Pareto Principle in Action.
It is important for you to understand the situation that you are in. How well are you managing your time? For those who study time management, the Pareto Principle applies as well.
So I should be sleeping or resting and eating chicken soup instead of writing the upcoming week’s Coffee today, right? Well, no…because there are thousands of people that want to say hello every week. I won’t let them down. Period. My target is to publish 45 issues of Coffee per year. 45. This year I will hit 50. (I miss one just a few times a year.)
The Pareto Principle says that in most situations, your unfocused energy is only providing you with a mere 20 percent of the results that you have. That means that the other 80 percent of results that you have are derived from a mere 20 percent of the effort that you are putting in.
Perhaps for you it is not actually 80/20 exactly, but it is likely that you are putting a lot of work into achieving just very little with that time.
What does this mean for you? In short, you need to direct your attention to the parts of your day or your tasks that can deliver the most return for accomplishment, rather than worrying about all of the smaller things in the meantime and accomplishing very little.
Your goal is to get as much as you can from your time, as much bang for your buck, without sacrificing too much time to accomplish any one task because you are unable to focus on that task. By focusing, you reduce the amount of time necessary to complete the task.
As you can see, there is much to be gained by managing your time appropriately. When you learn how to do that, you can accomplish much more with your time… find yourself in a better position either in your business or in your personal life and even have extra time to be productive. (To create accomplishments as opposed to just keeping up.)
While it sounds too good to be true, it will take some understanding and restructuring, but the end result is likely to deliver for you the type of rewards that you seek. That is, of course, the one thing everyone wants more of but struggles to obtain: Time!
Are you a Procrastinator?
Procrastinating…You?
Procrastination is the end to your time. It is that because once you begin to procrastinate, it is likely that you will face a long road to getting back on track.
Procrastination is the means of putting off something for another day even though you have the ability and the time to obtain those goals right now.
If you are someone that is known for waiting until the last minute to get the work done, this could be causing you a variety of problems that can be wrecking your day and your time. The fact is, though, most people go through the process of procrastination, in different amounts every day.
When you procrastinate, you are actually not getting to achieve what you are capable of achieving and that can cause you to miss out on many opportunities for success in many ways. Procrastination can ruin your career because it may be the one thing that shows others that you are unable to achieve your goals.
How in the world can you actually get around this problem, then? Start with learning what is happening and knowing how to react when you begin to procrastinate. When you realize that you are procrastinating or about to, you can recognize this, stop it and get back on track to better managing your time.
That’s the behavioral strategy and it’s a good one.
It is also important for you to understand why people procrastinate and in doing so you will be in a better position to avoid allowing it to happen to you, over and over again.
This is all about Lifestorms: Blasting Through Self-Sabotage for Breakthrough Results, available now in our store.
Finally, you need to take the right steps to managing your time so that you can manage the outcomes of your time by learning how to deal with procrastination. It’s a mind set that you can not afford with the limited amount of time that you actually have.
Why Do You Procrastinate?
Procrastination is something that many people, if not all people, actually deal with. You should not believe that this is something that only you go through. BUT you need to take care of as quickly as you can so that you can take back the time you are losing.
Procrastination is defined as putting off doing something that you should be putting your attention onto right now. Usually, people do this when they want to do something else that is favorable, a bit more fun or even just easier…instant gratification…
Is this you? Do you spend long days working hard at what you are trying to accomplish but you are investing your time in accomplishing the easy tasks instead of taking on the larger, more important tasks?
Are you finishing things?
Are you starting things that you’ve decided to do?
A common problem here is that many people can not see the difference between priorities in tasks. For example, you have an important task to complete. You also have an urgent task to complete. Which do you go to first? You should accomplish the important task because it is just that, important!
That’s why writing down a list is so important. You weigh everything out. People who don’t use a list are like shoppers who shop without a list. Go to the store with a list, you buy what’s on the list and you’re out in 30 minutes. Go to the store without a list, you spend 50% more and are out in 45 minutes.
Same thing in life and in business. Have a list? You get stuff done. No list, you start falling into the 80% of the people that don’t produce.
Far too many people look towards accomplishing the things that they think are necessary to complete right now, forgo the important task and then need to find a way or a time to balance the ball in their favor.
Here are some common examples of this. Let’s say you are working at your desk and in walks your boss. They need you to handle an important client. The phone rings, it is another employee, struggling to accomplish his task and wants your help. You get back to work. The other employee calls again. They need you. Which task do you do; the important client or the employee that will keep calling until you help?
The task here that you should be completing is that which is important, the one that needs your full attention and that will get you the most bang for the buck.
Unfortunately, far too many people strive to accomplish that other task because that person has complained, called and got into their head and they now are the loudest voice there telling them what to do.
STOP IT.
What Do You Do?
| Tell them, NO and get back to work on YOUR job. Don’t train yourself to be an idiot. When you react to that person, you change the way that the day is flowing. Now you need to deal with the imortant client, when you are stressed and overwhelmed. You’ll also have to explain to the boss why you made the client wait, why the task was not completed soon enough and in the end why the job was not done completely right (because you could not concentrate, of course.) Are You Overwhelmed Yet?One of the other reasons that many people struggle with procrastination does not have to do with any of these other situations. It has to do with the feeling of being so overwhelmed that you feel like you just can not do it. For example, you have a large and important project on your desk. There are many steps to accomplishing it and it will take time to go through the project, organize and accomplish it. The instant feeling of being overwhelmed attacks. You can feel it in your shoulders, in your head and all of a sudden, you just can no longer focus on the process and you end up facing the fact that today just got very long and complicated. Perhaps you are not sure where you should start the project. You may even feel as if the task is so large or so hard that you do not have the skills or the ability to complete it or complete all of it. Perhaps you do not think you have all of the information and tools to get the job done right. Instead of accomplishing the task, then, you put it off to the side, for another day. Why would you do that? Most people do this form of procrastination because it feels easier to accomplish something that they can do and know that they can do. They feel that the big project is just too hard. Whether you have the intention of going back and completing the project or not, you have now sidestepped the job so that you can gain the comfort and the benefit of completing a job that is easier for you to do. Instant Gratification. Since that was an important job, you realize at the last minute that you need to complete it and the overwhelming worry starts up all over again except; now there is more problem to deal with. Now, time is limited, which means less focus and less ability to complete the job with the same quality that you could have done beforehand even though you think you could not have done so. Important jobs and projects that are larger and harder do not just go away. They can not be shoved under the carpet until the next day, week or whenever you get to it. If you do that, you are likely to never be able to complete the project like you could complete it if you did it today, with your full attention and the time to do it right. Procrastination can cause all types of problems for you. For example, some additional reasons that you may procrastinate include not being able to organize your thoughts and your needs, fearing that you will fail at the task, and waiting for the right time to start on your project. No matter what, it is still procrastination! Many people need to work on improving their situations so that they can improve the overall need that they have for achieving time management skills. For some, being a perfectionist may be the reason that they do not step forward to complete the important tasks. For others, making decisions is not something that they know how to do correctly and thoroughly, which leads to not making any decision at all. All of these signs of procrastination are just that: signs for you to stop doing them and to start taking back control of your time and your life.
How to Make Money as |
You enroll for only $2997 (or choose an easy installment pay plan!) or save up to $500 if you apply TODAY! (See Application Form for full details.)
Then you give me your word (and a signed note) that after you have earned $100,000 in speaking fees, you will pay the balance of $7,000.
I’m going to write letters of recommendation, take phone calls for you from potential clients, help you in ways that only someone in the field can, and be here for you when you need any holes filled in for you.
If we have corresponded or talked in the past…this is who I prefer to work with. But even if we haven’t as long as you have integrity (total integrity) and a strong desire to succeed, you can participate. 
I retain the right to turn down any application for any reason prior to the beginning of the course.
If you want to lead the field, I want to help you. Oh, and if I’m anywhere nearby when you are giving your first speech after you hit the $100,000 mark, I will be there in the audience cheering you on.
Here’s your chance. You’ve always wanted it. You’ve always dreamed it. Whether you are 25 or 75…don’t die with your music still in you…this is the opportunity of your lifetime. Let’s have fun together and make some music!
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