Slice and Dice the Task…
Why You Procrastinate
A major reason for procrastinating on big, important tasks is that they appear so large and formidable when you first approach them. One technique that you can use to cut a big task down to size is the "Salami slice" method of getting work done. With this method, you lay out the task in detail and then resolve to do just one slice of the job for the time being, like eating a roll of salami, one slice at a time. Or like eating one piece of a frog at a time.
Do One Small Part to Start
Psychologically, you will find it easier to do a single, small piece of a large project than to start on the whole job. Often, once you have started and completed a single part of the job, you will feel like doing just one more "slice." Soon, you will find yourself working through the job one part at a time, and before you know it, the job will be completed.
Just Get Started
Once you start working, you develop a sense of forward momentum and a feeling of accomplishment. You become energized and excited. You feel yourself internally motivated and propelled to keep going until the task is complete.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two actions you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, select one big important task and lay it out in front of you.
Second, select one part of the task and do it immediately.
Too Much to Do, Too Little Time….
The most common form of stress that we experience is the feeling of being overwhelmed with far too much to do and having too little time to do it in. In fact, "time poverty" is the biggest single problem facing most managers in America today. We simply do not have enough time to fulfill all our responsibilities. Because of budget limitations, staff cutbacks, downsizing, and competitive pressures, individual managers are forced to take on more and more work, all of which appears to be indispensable to the smooth functioning of our company or department.
Become an Expert
The solution to this problem of work overload is for you to become an expert on time management. There is probably no other skill that you can learn that will give you a "bigger bang for the buck" than to become extremely knowledgeable and experienced in using time management practices.
Be Open to New Ideas
The most foolish manager of all is either the manager who feels that he has no time to learn about time management or, even worse, the manager who, while being overwhelmed with work, feels that he already knows all that he needs to know about the subject.
The fact is that you can study time management and take time management courses for your entire business life and you will still never learn everything you need to know to get the most out of yourself while doing your job in the most efficient way. The Keys to Time Management
The two indispensable keys to time management are:1) the ability to set priorities; and 2) the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing at a time. Since there is never enough time to do everything that needs to be done, you must be continually setting priorities on your activities. Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, "what is the most valuable use of my time right now?" The Best Question of All
This question, "what is the most valuable use of my time right now?" will do more to keep you on track, hour by hour, than any other single question in the list of time management strategies.
The natural tendency for all of us is to major in minors and to give in to the temptation to clear up small things first. After all, small things are easier and they are often more fun than the big, important things that represent the most valuable use of your time.
Start With Your Top TasksHowever, the self-discipline of organizing your work and focusing on your highest value tasks is the starting point of getting your time under control and lowering your stress levels. Action Exercises
Here are there things you can do immediately to get your time under control.
First, make a decision today to become an expert on time management. Read the books, listen to the audio programs, and take a time management course. Then, practice, practice, practice every day until you master time management skills.
Second, set clear priorities on your work each day, before you begin. Then, discipline yourself to start on your most important task and stay at that until it is complete. This will relieve much of your stress immediately.
Written by Brian Tracy and train by Mark Garbelotto.
Three Factors for Financial Success…
What do wealthy people do or have that enables them to accomplish so much more than the average? I believe that these people are successful as a result of what I call leverage. Leverage is the key to maximizing and multiplying your potential for success and financial achievement. Here are three examples of leverage that you can develop to achieve financial independence:
Become an Expert
First, become an expert in your chosen field. Read all the books, take all the courses, listen to all the audio programs. Second, specialize in those areas that are of greatest importance and greatest value to your company or to your customers. And the third key is know your product or service inside out. Aim to be recognized as the industry expert in your field. Remember the person who has the expertise has a far greater contribution to make than the person whose knowledge is just average.
Develop Your Skills
The second type of leverage is skill. The better you are at your job, the more you will be paid. The top 20 percent of salespeople earn as much as ten and fifteen times the average earnings of the bottom 80 percent. There are three keys to developing the leverage of skill. First, make a decision to be the best. Pay any price. Make any sacrifice. Go any distance to become excellent at what you do. Second, engage in continuous improvement. Never allow yourself to become satisfied or complacent at your current level of skill. And third, always strive to exceed the expectations of your customers, your boss, of the people you serve. Always do more and better than you’re paid for.
The third type of leverage is money. Money is a powerful source of leverage and usually follows the development of knowledge and skill in your field. One of the reasons that it takes money to make money is that the accumulation of funds is an essential step in the development of the personal qualities and character that must precede the achievement of financial independence. In other words, you become the person capable of becoming financially independent by accumulating the funds that are necessary for you to achieve it. Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas on personal leverage into action:
First, resolve today to become an expert in your chosen field. Set it as a goal, make a plan and work every day to become a little bit better in the most important things you do.
Second, develop the habit of saving money out of every single paycheck. It was once said that, "If you cannot save money, the seeds of greatness are not in you." The very act of regular saving changes your character and gets you ready to achieve financial independence. By Brian Tracy
Kick Open the Doors…
Anyone who does a great job consistently, over and over, kicks open the doors of opportunity in all directions. Such a person will be hired, paid well, promoted, advanced and given additional responsibilities because there are so few of them.
Make a Decision Today
You can put your life and career into an upward trajectory by making the decision, today, that you are going to become one of the best time managers in your field. And in this session, you will learn how to do it.
Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of."
Time is your most precious resource. It is all you really have. It is your life. As long as you have lots of time, you can do almost anything. But if your time is cut off for any reason, all of your possibilities are cut off as well.
Queen Elizabeth I of England was one of the richest women in the world. She owned half the country. Yet, when she was on her deathbed, she turned to her doctor and said, "I would give all I have for a few more minutes of time."
Start This Very MinuteThe time for you and I to begin to appreciate how valuable and precious each minute is, is right now, not a later time when our minutes and hours are draining away. Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, resolve to become an expert at time management. Work on becoming more efficient every day.
Second, ask "Why am I on the payroll?" Whatever your answer to this question, work on it all day long.
The Law of Abundance…
The Law of Abundance- there is ample money for everyone who knows how to acquire it and keep it. We live in an abundant universe in which there is sufficient money for all who really want it and are willing obey the laws governing its acquisition.
You Can Have All You Want
There is plenty of money available to you. There is no real shortage. You can have virtually all you really want and need. We live in a generous universe and we are surrounded on all sides by blessings and opportunities to acquire all we truly desire. Your attitude, of either abundance or scarcity toward money, will have a major impact on whether you become rich or not.
Make a Decision
The first corollary of the Law of Abundance says that, "People become wealthy because they decide to become wealthy."
They become wealthy because they believe they have the ability to become wealthy. Because they believe this completely, they act accordingly. They consistently take the necessary actions that turn their beliefs into realities. And you can always tell what your beliefs really are by looking at your actions. There is no other way.
The second corollary of this law says: "People are poor because they have not yet decided to become rich."
In the book, The Instant Millionaire, by Mark Fisher, the old millionaire asks the boy who has sought his advice about becoming a millionaire, "Why aren’t you rich already?"
This is an important question to ask yourself. However you answer this question will reveal a lot about yourself. Your answers will expose your self-limiting beliefs, your doubts, your fears, your excuses, your rationalizations and your justifications.
Review Your ReasonsWhy aren’t you rich already? Write down all the reasons you can think of. Go over your answers one by one with someone who knows you well and ask them for their opinion. You may be surprised to find that your reasons are mostly excuses that you have fallen in love with.
Whatever your reasons or excuses, you can now get rid of them. The world is full of hundreds and thousands of people who have had far more difficulties to overcome than you could ever imagine, and they’ve gone on to be successful anyway. So can you.
Action ExercisesHere are two things you can do to apply this law immediately:
First, imagine that every experience you have ever had with money contained a special lesson that was designed just for you to help you to ultimately become financially independent. What are the most important lessons you have learned so far?
Second, analyse yourself honestly and determine your biggest block, your major self-limiting belief that holds you back from becoming more successful financially. Resolve to act from now on as if this block no longer exists.
Trust Your Subordinates….
The Definition of Leadership
Leadership has been called "The ability to get followers." One of the deepest cravings of human nature is the need to feel important, to have a sense of meaning and purpose in life and work. Leaders are invariably those who can tap into the deeper emotions of others and get them to rise above and beyond anything they may have accomplished in the past.
Inspiring Words Lead to Victory
Winston Churchill was able to arouse and inspire an entire nation with words like these: "Let us so carry ourselves that if the British Empire should endure a thousand years, men will still say, this was their finest hour."
Spearhead A Turnaround
Lee Iacocca stepped into Chrysler Corporation when the company was almost bankrupt. Through the sheer force of his personality, his unshakable determination, his appeals to Congress, to Chrysler workers and to Chrysler customers on television, he spearheaded a turn-around that will go down in the history books as one of the greatest achievements in American business.
The key to getting followers in every case is to "trust your subordinates." Many studies have concluded that it is the mutual bond of trust and respect that acts as the catalyst that creates high performance. Not only must you trust your subordinates, but even more important, they must trust you. Act With Integrity
In order to "get followers," your subordinates must have an absolute belief in your integrity. They must believe that you will abide by the highest ethical standards of fairness and justice. Integrity appears over and over as the most important leadership quality. People can only put their whole hearts into their work when they feel secure and they can only feel secure when they can relax and trust you completely. Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to bring out the very best from the people who look up to you.
First, make people feel important. Tell them how important and valuable they are and then give them both the responsibility and the opportunity to do their job the very best they know how.
Second, set a good example. Be an inspirational leader by being a role model for everyone else to follow. The more people look up to you, the better they will do their work and the happier they will be.
Building Long-Term Relationships…
If you could take everything we know about communications, put it all in a large pot, boil it and distill it down into its critical essence, it is about the importance of relationships in successful selling. Building and maintaining long-term selling relationships is the key behavior and skill of the top ten percent of the money earners in sales, in every field, selling every product and service.
The Reason for Success
Most of your success in life will depend on your ability to get along well with other people, and on the quality of your relationships. Psychologist Sidney Jourard, found that 85 percent of a person’s happiness in life comes from happy interactions with other people. The reverse holds true as well: 85 percent of a person’s unhappiness or problems in life comes from difficulties in getting along with others.
Sell to Lots of People
Anyone can sell to a few people, some of the time. But only the very best human relations experts can sell to a wide variety of people, and sell to them repeatedly. The only way that you can make the kind of big money that you are capable of is by selling more easily, and more often, to the prospects you talk to, and by having those prospects open doors to others through testimonials and referrals. All top salespeople build and maintain high quality business relationships with their customers and sell to them repeatedly year after year.
We are all sensitive to the quality of our relationships with other people. We are primarily emotional and we make most of our decisions on the basis of how we feel inside. We may carefully consider all of the logical and practical reasons why or why not with regard to buying a product or service, but in the final analysis we tend to go with our gut feeling. We listen to our inner voices. We obey the dictates of our hearts. We buy on the basis of how we feel about the relationship that we have with the other person. Where there is no relationship, there is no sale. Focus on the Key Variable
Everything that you ever learned of value in the profession of selling, regarding your product or service, or personality, is only helpful to the degree to which it contributes to the building of high quality relationships with customers. Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, become a relationship expert in sales. Focus first on the relationship, above all, and the sale will take care of itself.
Second, take care of your relationships once you have built them. Never take them for granted. Tend to them as you would to a flower garden.
Using Your Inner Guidance System…
You have incredible powers of mind and emotions that give you timely and accurate feedback in every area of your life.
In this newsletter, you learn how to "tune in" to yourself so you can make the right decision in every situation.
Using Your Inner Guidance System
We know that the body has a natural bias toward health and energy. It’s designed to last for 100 years with proper care and maintenance. When something goes wrong with any part of our body, we experience it in the form of pain or discomfort of some kind.
We know that when our body is not functioning smoothly and painlessly, something is wrong, and we take action to correct it. We go to a doctor; we take pills; we undergo physical therapy, massage or chiropractic. We know that if we ignore pain or discomfort for any period of time, it could lead to something more serious.
In the same sense, nature also gives us a way to tell emotionally what’s right for us and what’s wrong for us in life. Just as nature gives us physical pain to guide us to doing or not doing things in the physical realm, nature gives us emotional pain to guide us toward doing or not doing things in the emotional or mental realm. The wonderful thing is that you’re constructed so that if you simply listen carefully to yourself-to your mind, your body and your emotions-and follow the guidance you’re given, you can dramatically enhance the quality of your life.
Just as the natural physical state of your body is health and vitality, your natural emotional state is peace and happiness. Whenever you experience a deviation from peace and happiness, it’s an indication that something is amiss. Something is wrong with what you’re thinking, doing or saying. Your feeling of inner happiness is the best indicator you could ever have to tell you what you should be doing more of and what you should be doing less of.
The MessengerUnhappiness is to your life as pain is to your body. It is sent as a messenger to tell you that what you’re doing is wrong for you.
Very often, you’ll suffer from what has been called "divine discontent." You’ll feel fidgety and uneasy for a reason or reasons that are unclear to you. You’ll be dissatisfied with the status quo. Sometimes, you’ll be unable to sleep. Sometimes, you’ll be angry or irritable. Very often, you’ll get upset with things that have nothing to do with the real issue. You’ll have a deep inner sense that something isn’t as it should be, and you’ll often feel like a fish on a hook, wriggling and squirming emotionally to get free.
Divine DiscontentAnd that is a good thing. Divine discontent always comes before a positive life change. If you were perfectly satisfied, you would never take any action to improve or change your circumstances. Only when you’re dissatisfied for some reason do you have the inner motivation to engage in the outer behaviors that lead you onward and upward.
Listen to yourself. Trust your inner voice. Go with the flow of your own personality. Do the things that make you feel happy inside and you’ll probably never make another mistake.
Action ExercisesHere are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, listen to yourself and trust your own feelings. If there is a part of your life that causes you stress and unhappiness, resolve to deal with it.
Second, identify those areas of your life where you are dissatisfied or frustrated for any reason. What changes should you, could you make?
Third, remember that nature wants you to be happy, healthy, popular and prosperous. Any deviation from those conditions is a signal to you that action is necessary.
Two Key Questions for Maximum Effectiveness…
There are two questions that you can ask on a regular basis to keep yourself focused on getting your most important tasks completed on schedule. The first question is "What are my highest value activities?"
Put another way, what are the most important tasks you have to complete to make the greatest contribution to your organisation? To your family? To your life in general?
Think it Through Carefully
This is one of the most important questions you can ask and answer. What are your highest value activities? First, think this through for yourself. Then, ask your boss. Ask your co-workers and subordinates. Ask your friends and family. Like focusing the lens of a camera, you must be crystal clear about your highest value activities before you begin work.
The second question you can ask continually is, "What can I and only I do, that if done well, will make a real difference?"
This question comes from Peter Drucker, the management guru. It is one of the best of all questions for achieving personal effectiveness. What can you, and only you do, that if done well, can make a real difference?
This is something that only you can do. If you don’t do it, it won’t be done by someone else. But if you do it, and you do it well, it can really make a difference to your life and your career. What is your answer to this question?
Every hour of every day, you can ask yourself this question and there will be a specific answer. Your job is to be clear about the answer and then to start and work on this task before anything else.
Action ExercisesHere are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, make a list of everything you do at work and then select your most valuable tasks from that list.
Second, resolve to start in on your highest value task and stay at it until it is 100% complete.
Problem Solving Discussions….
Solve Problems and Make Decisions More Effectively in Discussions With Other People
Your ability to communicate is the most important skill you can develop to get on to the fast track in your career. Perhaps the most important thing you do in business is to solve problems and make decisions, both by yourself and with other people. A major reason for meetings in the business organization is problem solving and decision making. The key to effective problem solving and decision making discussions, is for you to all go through the process systematically.
Clarify the Problem
Right at the beginning, you ask the question, "What exactly is the problem?" Clarity of definition will resolve 50% of the issues before they go any further
Think About the Future
When discussing a problem, be sure to focus on the future over the past. Ask the question, "Where do we go from here?" "What do we do from here?" "What are our options for the future?" Too many problem-solving discussions end up focusing all of the attention of all the people present on what happened in the past and who is to blame. The effective executive uses this type of communication to focus on where the company and the individuals are going, and what can happen in the future – the only part of the equation over which anyone has any control.
A second element in effective problem solving communications, is for you to talk about the solutions instead of talking about the problems. It is for you to keep the attention of the individuals in the meeting focused on the possible solutions and what can be done rather than what has already happened.
The discussion of solutions is inherently positive, uplifting and has a tendency to release creativity amongst the group. A discussion of problems is inherently negative, de-motivating and tends to inhibit creativity. You can become a positive thinker simply by becoming a solution-oriented person rather than a problem-oriented person. If you get everyone in your organization thinking and talking in terms of solutions, you will be astonished at the quality and quantity of ideas that will emerge.
Putting These Ideas Into ActionFirst, take some time to be absolutely clear about the problem that is under discussion. Give some thought to what an ideal decision or solution would accomplish. Instead of focusing on the situation as it is, talk about the situation as you would like it to be.
Second, keep the conversation focused on solutions, on what can be done in the future. The more you think and talk about solutions, the more positive and creative everyone will be and the better ideas you will come up with.
