Tips & Insights for Top Performance

• 15Jan

  Maximize Your Time: 10 Tips for Extreme Productivity

  Effective Habits, Energy Management, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Time Management No Comments

  1) Know your work style and use the tools that match. If you work well with technology, use your computer and PALM for scheduling and organization. If you are a visual person, consider using a paper calendar and written to-do list. If you are a people person, develop a team around you to compliment your strengths. If you work alone, find time to focus and remain distraction free. If you are a morning person, attack the most important tasks early in the day.

  2) Use ONE calendar. Sometimes people will have several calendars. One for family and one for work; one electronic and one paper. Keep ONE calendar for everything. Use different colors or type styles to differentiate categories.

  3) Make a to-do list at the end of each day. Your mind naturally begins to work on the list as you sleep. When you awake, you are ready to work, are very productive and organized. Estimate how much time each thing will take you and only put on your next day’s to do list what is reasonable to get done.

  4) “Eat That Frog” first. This is a Brian Tracy concept to do the hardest thing you have to do all day, first, before you do anything else. Doing this will provide you with the feeling of success in having a ‘burden’ off your back and give you momentum to accomplish the remaining tasks.

  5) Have a clear goal and read it daily. When you have a goal you know what to focus on and work toward. If you do not have this at the front of your mind, it is easy to get caught up with the urgent things of the day or trapped in reacting to e-mail, phone calls, interruptions and other people’s emergencies.

  6) Have a “power hour”. Designate one hour each day to close the door, shut down e-mail, turn off the ringer on the phone and guard yourself from interruptions. Have a pre-picked project that you will work on during this time only. Make sure to go to the bathroom, get a drink, and do whatever else you need to in order to ensure you do not leave once this hour starts. Give yourself 30 minutes after this hour to return calls, e-mails and care for people with whom you need to follow-up that you missed during the POWER HOUR.

  7) Touch it once.  Sort through, e-mail, mail, papers, etc. and make a decision. File it, toss it or put it in a place for action. Sorting bins are helpful for this. Label your bins, folders, e-mails, etc. with things like: read, file, do this week, urgent, bills, etc. Paper, soft copy (computer), and e-mail folders should all have matching labels.

  Have daily habits. After you develop a routine of things that are simple but important, your body will naturally do them. This is important because we can get distracted by our regular routines and use them as vices to interrupt, procrastinate and prolong important things that really need to get done. If you start your day right, you will be ready to do those urgent and important tasks, increasing your everyday productivity.

  9) Prep. Have you ever been amazed on cooking shows how they make a complicated dish in 10 minutes? OK, part is edited TV time, but they also have everything preped for quick assembly. Why not do the same? Prepare your information packets and new client folders, turn common documents into templates, set up e-mail distribution lists for teams, etc.

  10) Maximize car systems. Listen to a book on CD/tape to maximize your windshield time and learn. Have a bin to put important things in rather than having them all over the car. Have a trash bag to catch the liter. Always have a bottle of water in the car with you; dehydration causes fatigue, memory loss and low concentration. Make sure your contacts are portable (palm, planner, business card file book, etc.) so you keep people and numbers at your fingertips (call if running late or caught in traffic, if you remember something while out and a quick call can take care of it). Enjoy relaxing, breathing and taking in the day while driving (rather than cleaning, talking on the phone, etc.)

  Be the master of your domain. When you implement a few simple productivity strategies and develop them as time saving habits, you will quickly enjoy the benefit of more time and energy and overall increased productivity.

  Tags: "Eat your Frog", extreme productivity, productivity, to-do list, work style

• 01Jan

  A Four Step PLAN to Success (part 2)

  Effective Habits, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Personal Growth No Comments
  A = Adjust

   

  Assess your environment and decide what things you need to change. Your environment around you makes a difference in your ability to work towards and implement your goal. Look at what things in your environment could hold you back from your goals and what things in your environment can help you accomplish them. What do you need to add and what do you need to get rid of? Right now, actively make these changes so that your environment is ready to support you in accomplishing your resolution. (Your environment may include the following: relationships; feelings; thoughts; health; time; energy sources; personal space of home, office, or car; and other things that you surround yourself with.)

   

  N = Network

  Ensure that someone or something around you knows your goal and will help you measure your progress. There are many Web sites that help you track and assess your goals, including as http://www.goals.com or http://sparklepeople.com/index.asp. Many other online tools that are topic specific, like http://www.foodfacts.com/public/nm_community.cfm work well. Perhaps you are more comfortable building a support system: either find someone who knows you well and with whom you are comfortable designing how they can support you, or arrange for an accountability buddy with whom you are in “competition” as you both strive to meet your respective goals.

   

  When you use the four P.L.A.N. steps (PREPARE, LIST, ADJUST, and NETWORK) to outline your goals, you are setting yourself up for success. It is challenging to change behavior and that is what New Year’s resolutions usually are about.¹ But, when you are thorough and diligent about planning on the front end, you can almost guarantee results on the back end. Now, the only thing left to do is implement the PLAN! You can do it. Charge into 2010 and keep working on your PLAN.

  1 COMMON RESOLUTIONS: Spend more time with family & friends; exercise more, lose weight or eat better; quit smoking; enjoy life more & have fun; quit drinking; get out of debt, stick to a budget, save or earn more money; learn something new; find a better job; help others; become a better person; be more patient at work and/or with others; get organized.

  Tags: New Year's resolutions, plan, SUCCESS

• 30Dec

  A Four Step PLAN to Success (part 1)

  Effective Habits, Goal Setting, Personal Growth No Comments

  New Year’s resolutions, otherwise known as “good intentions,” are those things that are set at the beginning of the year when people feel they can wipe the slate clean and get a fresh start. It is said that 80% of all News Year’s resolutions fail. A survey conducted by Gail Kasper, LLC (www.gailkasper.com) finds that 51% of people don’t have New Year’s resolutions, and of those who do, 79% don’t have a plan to achieve them, leaving a small 9% of Americans serious about achieving their goals from the onset.

  The truth is, resolutions can be accomplished. You just have to follow these four P.L.A.N. steps, and you can make your resolutions a success this year!

  Simply follow the four-step P.L.A.N.:

  P = Prepare

  Visualize what you want. Sit down and really think through what it is that you want to accomplish. Plan with the end goal in mind.

  • Write your resolution/goal in the first person, as if it were already done.
  • Set a deadline of when you want it accomplished.
  • Write down the result of your accomplished goal and the reward you will give yourself when you meet it.
  • Now, walk backwards in your mind and write down at least three measurable mini-milestones. Do this so you can check your progress along the way. Prepare your mind and have a visual aid to keep in front of you so that you will be focused and committed in this next year.

   L = List

  Be clear about the commitment you are taking on and make some key lists to support your efforts.

  • What personal behaviors need to change to make this goal a reality?
  • What steps will you have to take to make it happen?
  • What are the barriers that might prevent you from accomplishing your goal?
  • What will you have to stop doing to make your goal a success?
  • What is in your control and what is out of your control? What can you do about each?
  • What are the “costs” you will have to pay to accomplish this resolution (e.g., if you are trying to lose weight, forfeiting potato chips)?
  • What are your strengths and weakness? How can you utilize them or watch out for them?

  Review your lists to make sure you are really willing to pay the cost, are committed to changing your behavior, and are ready to do what it will take to follow the plan.

  Tags: New Year's resolutions, plan, SUCCESS

• 18Dec

  Goal Setting That Sticks!! (part 2)

  Effective Habits, Energy Management, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Personal Growth, Time Management No Comments

  3.  Write goals in 1^st person, with emotion and as if they were complete. For example:

  • I have a balanced and peaceful life working 40 hours a week earning $100K in a field I love, AND have 3 quality hours each day to spend with my family in addition to feeling great because I am healthy (energy), fit (140lbs.) and having fun (weekly activity).
  • Accounting Solutions Inc. is proud to be the #1 leader in the Raleigh area to provide a one-stop for all small business accounting needs as evidenced by being the top choice for 40% of companies under 50 and servicing over 500 local companies. (December 2007)

  4.  Break it down and develop a plan. If you want to accomplish your goal, break down the yearly goal into monthly milestones. What will it take each month to move you closer to your goal? Each month, break it down into weekly goals. What will it take each week to accomplish your monthly goal? Each week, break it down into daily goals of what it will take to accomplish your week’s goal. While this may seem like a lot of work, it is simply creating a road map for you to follow straight to goal success. It is overwhelming and often difficult to see the measurable tasks that need to happen daily to make your goal happen. By breaking it down, you are able to push and make sure your goal is realistic and attainable.

  5.  Review daily. Post it in 3 spots where you can read it daily. Brian Tracey reports the single most effective thing you can do, though, is hand write your goal each day until it is done.

  Why set goals?

  • increase in energy and excitement as you start moving toward your passions & goals

  • more powerful as you are making life happen rather then letting life happen to you.

  • greater focus and direction and greater purpose.

  What are you aiming for today? What are you excited about? Where do you want to be heading? Craft your goal today!

  Tags: Goal Setting, Goals, increase energy, plan

• 16Dec

  Goal Setting That Sticks!! (part 1)

  Effective Habits, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Personal Growth, Time Management No Comments

  If you look around at the “successful” people in life, they are setting goals.

  Often we are resistant to setting goals. There are many reasons, pessimism that they won’t work, fear of failure, lack of time, lack of thought, etc. The irony is you cannot arrive in a place you have not planned to reach. Either you can let life happen to you or you can be intentional about heading someplace. Flexibility and letting things take their natural course have their place, but if you have no destination picked, you are subject to what life will give you, rather than pursuing with passion what you want.

  In the upcoming year, what do you want? Below are 5 tips to make your goals stick:

       1.  Visualize an inspirational goal. As you think back over the past year, what are you proud and excited about? What worked for you? What did not happen that you wanted? What did not work? As you think about the past, begin to think about the future (life, business, etc.). Where would you like to be one year from now? Visualize what it would look like if your life was exactly how you wanted it in one year. What would be happening? What would be different? Allow yourself to visualize your goal. A vision that gets you pumped up and excited is something you will work hard for. Begin by writing your vision of what your goal would look like when it is complete.

      2.  Be clear and concise. Given your visual of what you want your future to look like, what will it take to make that happen. Put this into the form of a SMART goal statement.

  • Specific – precise (i.e. 20% over quota)
  • Measurable – way to check progress (i.e. 3 trainings)
  • Achievable – It is possible. (keep fantasies in check)
  • Realistic – Challenge yourself to stretch and grow.
  • Timed – Have a completion/ success date.

  Tags: Goal Setting, Goals, successful, visualize

• 11Dec

  The Power of Passion (part 2)

  Effective Habits, Energy Management, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Personal Growth, Time Management, Work/Life Synergy & Balance No Comments

  Why have passion? Is it possible that everyone has a passion or are some people just more “emotional”?

  Passion is seen as you look out into the world and selflessly allow yourself to be an instrument, using your gifts and talents. As you do this, you will begin to see your reflection and therefore more readily identify your passion. After you identify your passion, by experiencing the lit fire inside, you are able to focus in and use those gifts and talents more – your purpose and passion are united and drive the most fulfilling adventure of your life!

  The reward of living a life of passion is incredible! Once you have tasted it, you will crave for its return. It is an amazing overflowing of your heart, body, mind and soul. You have energy, direction, purpose and focus. As humans we all want this, but sometimes it seems too hard to achieve, so we give up, and decide to just enjoy what life gives us.

  “What life gives us?” I ask. Don’t be fooled, we are not here on earth to be floating down a river on an inner tube, just passively taking in what life has to offer. You will not find passion in that inner tube. You might hit some rapids and get a little taste of it here and there, however if you want to know what living a life of passion means and is, you have to go look for it.

  Life can dish out some hard knocks, tough lessons, challenges and adversity. How you handle those are up to you. You see, there is a quote that states, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do with it.” The more you can look at life as a lesson, something to learn from and a gift, the happier you will be. The more you are living in your purpose and passion, the easier it is to see things from this perspective. Do you want to have this synergy in your heart, body, mind and soul? Do you want to be content, overflowing with joy and being of value to the world?

  Jack Finds Passion
  Jack became tired of stumbling through life. He did some investigation and found out a few things: he enjoys the outdoors, being invigorated by the fresh air, strategic thinking, and intellectualizing. Earlier in life, when he was playing golf he was engaging a few of these passions, an appreciation of nature, strategic thinking, and intellectualizing. He had stopped playing golf because of a lack of time. The irony is that after picking the hobby back up, he seems to have more time and energy.

  At work, he also noticed that his job had become dull because he was not reading the statistical reports like he did when he had first started his job. Back then, when he read the reports, it motivated him and got him excited about driving strategies that would save the company time and money. So, he started reading the reports again and found himself more engaged at work. The momentum helped him do things faster, be more positive and actually finish up on time many days so that he could get home to his kids.

  Since Jack was getting home on time, there was a little break before dinner when he could go outside and play with the kids: he loved throwing the ball and teaching little Jake how to ride his bike! It even inspired him to equip the family to embrace Saturday morning rides on the local park trail.

  As Jack realized that his passions were being outside in nature, using his intellectual abilities and creating solutions and strategies, he found that these same things showed up in every area of life. It was exciting and compelling! He was happy, fulfilled and had found a synergy in every area of his life.

  You now know what passion is. You now know the benefit of inviting passion into your life. Take the time to explore your personal passions and to integrate them in your life. Passion is a phenomenal gift. If you want to LIVE life to the fullest and enjoy it along the way, take time to discover your passions. Put them into your daily life. You will find you have time for everything you did before and more.

  Tags: discover your passion, live life to the fullest, passion, power of passion, reward

• 27Nov

  Prioritize: Empty the Full Plate / Eat Salad First!

  Book Reviews, Effective Habits, Energy Management, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Time Management No Comments

  Brian Tracey has a great book, Eat That Frog. This book is awesome for illustrating the basic concept of prioritizing. In order for you to get your plate empty you will have to stop and assess what is the most important thing for you to get done. Our to-do lists do not usually include unimportant things to do. Everything is important. (The urgent things don’t even make the list, they just take up time so we don’t even get to the lists). Then, when we just start chipping away at to-do lists, we often eat desert first. We do what feels good but is not really most essential to our performance.

  Tracy’s concept is to get the most important thing you need to get done first; this is your frog. Do it before you do anything else (including urgent things – unless it is a real emergency). Your frog is the #1 thing on your to do list. As you get that done, you will have more energy for everything else on your list and will be able to accomplish more in your day in addition to having greater results as you take care of the most important things first.

  Action:

  • Make a “to do” list nightly.
  • Prioritize the list.
  • The #1 item is your frog. Complete it before you do any other projects.
  • Make it your goal to complete the next 5 top priorities before moving on to anything else on the list.

  Tags: "Eat That Frog", Brian Tracey, prioritize, to-do list

• 30Oct

  The Power of Saying “No” (part 2)

  Business Coaching, Effective Habits, Energy Management, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Personal Growth, Time Management, Work/Life Synergy & Balance No Comments

  2.  Set filters for each of your Essential Eight areas. You want to list your Essential Eight in order of priority, and set a filter for each (take the purpose/goal for each area and then be clear on what fits and what does not). Take special note of the proportion each area is getting. If priority one is family, two is work, three is health, and you have committed 100% to work, with no time allotted for family or for personal care, several negative things will happen. Your health will suffer, which will then jeopardize your physical ability to complete your work. Your family will also interrupt and demand superhuman feats for you to squeeze their needs onto your already full plate. These filters will help you discern to what things you need to say “No” to in order to maintain balance.

  3.  Evaluate what is on your plate. Considering each of the Essential Eight areas and your priorities, determine what your needs are. Do you need it or not? Consider your balance so you have some big projects (meat), some personal care (veggies), some daily necessities (good grain/fillers), and a hobby/fun thing (dessert). These are the things to which you are saying “Yes!”

  4.  Say “No” to the things that do not meet your filters. These may be the least important things on your list, or new things that come up in your life. Remember that whenever you say “Yes” to something you are saying “No” to something else. If you say “Yes” to a weekend project at work, you are saying “No” to your family time that weekend (You may not have to specifically tell your family “No” but that will be the result). If you say “Yes” to volunteer at the evening carnival, you are saying “No” to your workout, which could result in your being more tired and lethargic, and therefore less productive the next day.

   

  When you say “No” you have more power to say “Yes” to what is important. Remember that “No” can mean “Never,” but it can also mean, “No, not right now.” Let yourself have some space to do what is important. You will experience the power of balance and boundaries, which will result in you being more effective and productive. You will enjoy less stress and more peace with your life.

  Tags: Essential Eight - priority - maintain balance -

• 23Oct

  The Power of Saying “No” (part 1)

  Business Coaching, Effective Habits, Energy Management, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Personal Growth, Time Management, Work/Life Synergy & Balance 1 Comment

  We are in a season in which activities and demands are picking up. There are more schedules to manage and more pulls on our time. In general, we want to be helpful and accommodating to people. As a result, we hate to say “No.” People often do anything to avoid this word: We will avoid people, redirect conversations, make excuses, be non-committal, or simply say “Yes” to things we know we will have a hard time following through on. The reality of the situation is that we simply cannot do everything. When we keep saying “Yes” to things, we are adding on more stuff to our plate, which causes stress, frustration, and an overwhelmed feeling. Even though we would like to answer “Yes” to everything, in order to have a peaceful life that contains quality, balance and basic sanity; we must learn how to say “No.”

  How do you do it? When you say “Yes” to a new activity, you have to say “No” to remove something else that is already on your full plate. Here is how:

  1. Be clear on your priorities and what is important. If you are not clear, you will not have a compelling reason to say “No” when you feel drawn to accept a new item on your plate. Try to strike a balance with the Essential Eight: family, friends, work, health, budgeting, fun, physical space (home, office, car), and personal growth (spiritual, educational, personal development). For example, for family, you could commit to spending five hours a day taking care of your family and making sure their needs are met, and for work you could commit to spending eight hours a day working on projects that produce an income of $5000/month in order to provide for your family.

  Tags: stress - frustration - overwhelmed - peaceful life - Essential Eight

• 17Oct

  Stop Procrastinating

  Business Coaching, Effective Habits, Energy Management, Goal Setting, Performance & Productivity, Time Management 1 Comment

  As you do the things I have talked about: harness your energy, budget your time, say no, get a hobby, etc. you will begin to see a shift in how much time you have. We cannot make more time, only use what we have most efficiently and effectively. You cannot be on all the time, so planning for breaks and scheduling for a maximum of 12 hours of “things” a day is key.

  When you know what you want to do and are clear on how to get there, you have ½ the battle won. The only part that is left is the momentum to get into action and then accomplishing what has been laid out. This is where some people procrastinate. There are 100’s of ways people do this, from straightening, playing computer games, talking, distracting themselves, etc.

  The best way to get into motion is just to start.

  Action:

  1. Make your to do list the night before, so your mind can subconsciously process it all night.
  2. Eat your frog first (the most important thing you have to do; do it before anything else).
  3. Notice when you start procrastinating; write the “strategy” you used on a procrastination list that you have pinned up in a noticeable spot. (naming your tactics will help you stop them quicker)
  4. Make a game. Determine either a reward or a punishment if you get X task done in X amount of time.
  5. Make yourself accountable. Let someone else know what you will get done by when, and send it to them, work on it the same time as them, etc.

  Tags: Energy - time - procrastinate

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