How to Set Goals: 80/20 Rule for Goal Setting | Brian Tracy

 

https://youtu.be/cdiApKj3QPg

Here's some great advice from Brian Tracy on goal setting

4 Practical Ways to Accomplish More in Less Time

Our modern world stresses heavily on improving productivity, better management of time and resources, and producing results, to the point that countless books and articles that discuss such topics in detail have been written and published.

This post is about practical ways to accomplish more in less time.

Apply These Fool-Proof Techniques

Write down your goals and to-do lists.

Let's say you've been thinking of monetizing one of your hobbies, like quilling, knitting baby bonnets and beanies, or repurposing old jeans to denim tote bags. One of the first few things you should do is to jot down the costs of materials needed and other overhead expenses.

You might also factor in whether you'd like to sell your handmade creations in a bazaar or craft show, a gift or souvenir shop, or online. You need to set up different ways of accepting payment, so handling your cash flow will be as convenient as possible.

Master/discipline your moods.

I've been a freelance writer and proofreader for roughly 15 years. I'm aware that a common dilemma faced by freelancers, when faced with a particularly tough task, is to seek a distraction. I turn on the TV, hoping to catch something interesting "for just an hour," until that one hour extends to an entire afternoon of mindlessly watching sitcoms or soap operas.

Mastering one's moods simply means not giving in to sudden jolts of laziness, excitement, irritability, or impatience.

Curb your whims and desires.

Maybe you're a stay-at-home mom who works part-time doing data entry and writing blog articles. You know you can't just accept a spur-of-the-moment invitation to have lunch with your friends when you have looming deadlines.

Figure out your "why" (motive for doing things) so you can find out "how."

You may be active in your church and looking to go on mission trips, but because of limited funds, you haven't gone anywhere.

However, you know that all you care about is the opportunity to reach out to people. So you decide to join another ministry in your church, which is handwriting encouraging letters and notes on blank cards and mailing them to the elderly in seniors' homes, deployed troops, and prisoners.

Set Priorities Through Omission

Get a piece of paper and write down 15-20 life aspects and activities that occupy your time. Use a red pen and put a check next to five items on your list that you consider to be "non-negotiables," such as career, family obligations, finances, volunteer work, or participation in a certain group or organization.

Next would be putting a plus sign next to five items that can be classified as secondary activities. This could be hobbies, or anything you do for fun or recreation. They may or may not bring you additional income, but if they help relieve stress or provide ways for you to relax, then it's reasonable to make time for them.

And then, narrow down your list by eliminating 3-4 activities you only do occasionally or randomly. Next, cross off 2-3 more items that you realize are mere "time wasters," like spending hours on social media, binge-watching Netflix shows, or keeping tab on celebrity gossip.

This is not to say that you must abstain totally from such activities. But if you normally spend an hour or more on most days of the week on social media, simply cut back by scheduling time during weekends (e.g. two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays).

Use Dovetailing in Order to Accomplish More

Unlike multitasking, which tends to be detrimental in the long run because one ends up compromising the quality of one's work, dovetailing is the habit of fitting together two tasks that can easily go well together.

A good example of dovetailing is asking your kids to set the table while you heat dinner inside the microwave. So is jotting down your grocery list while waiting at the doctor's or dentist's clinic.

You can also keep yourself fit by lifting a pair of dumbbells while enjoying your Netflix shows, or doing a series of squats, steps, lunges, sit-ups, and push-ups while listening to podcasts or your favorite music.

Have More Time by Delegating

All of us are highly skilled at a few areas but hopelessly inept at others. If you wish to continually improve or grow in those areas, carve out more time for them by delegating the tasks you're not good at to others who are better equipped to handle them.

To illustrate, if you manage an online business, you can focus on improving your products while outsourcing tasks to a freelance SEO copywriter. You can also pay a bookkeeper to handle invoicing and receipts.

If you're a busy working mom, consider hiring a baby-sitter or pet-sitter at least twice a month so you can have dates with your spouse, or have a few hours to yourself to read, do needlework, or enjoy a home-made facial. You can also pay a couple of college guys hoping to make some extra cash to clean your yard or vehicle.

After spending almost 10 years working on improving her craft, Ronali G. dela Cruz has finally settled with a writing style that she describes as motivating, inspiring, and encouraging. She aims to communicate evocatively by expressing the heartfelt needs and concerns of most people: self-esteem, a sense of achievement, emotional support, and security in social situations. Ronali firmly believes that everyone is capable of cultivating winning habits and learning practical life skills to meet one's goals and expectations, leading to a happier and more fulfilling life.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Ronali_Dela_Cruz/505461

How to Work Smarter, Not Harder - Brian Tracy

 

https://youtu.be/iPE7_L1wRj8

Here's some great advice from Brian Tracy about working smarter

Maximize Your Time: 10 Tips for Extreme Productivity

1) Know your work style and use the tools and systems that match. If you work well with technology, use your computer, phone, and apps for your scheduling and organization. If you are a visual person, consider using a paper calendar and a written to-do list. If you are a people person, develop a team around you to complement 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, one for work, one for personal appointments. Keep ONE calendar for everything. Use different colors or type styles to differentiate categories. Personally, I am very visual and remember things better when I write them down, therefore I have a paper calendar for my appointments, but due to the need for dynamic communication I have a Google calendar to support my scheduling, which might appear like two calendars, however, this calendar is a mirror of the paper one and has everything on it. While it is extra work to have both, it is one calendar (paper or digital) with all the information. 

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 task will take you and only put on your next day to-do list what is reasonable to get done. 

4) "Eat your frog first." A Brian Tracy concept*: 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 the momentum to accomplish the remaining tasks. 

5) Have a clear goal; write it down 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. This means e-mail, mail, papers, etc. Touch it and make a decision. File it, toss it, or put it in a place for action. Sorting bins are helpful for this. Sorting bins often have labels like: read, file, do this week, urgent, bills, etc. Also, if your subject lines in e-mails are accurate, it is easy for both you and the recipient to find the e-mail. Paper, soft copy (computer), and e-mail folders should have matching labels. 

8) 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) Pre-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 pre-prepped for quick assembly. Why not do the same? Prepare your information packets and new client folders, turn common documents into a template, set up e-mail group/ distribution lists for teams, etc. 

10) Maximize car systems. Listen to a book on audio 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 litter. 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 (e.g, phone, planner, business card file book) so you can keep people and numbers at your fingertips (so that you can call if you're running late, caught in traffic, etc.). Enjoy relaxing, breathing, and taking in the day while driving (rather than cleaning, talking on the phone, etc.) 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. 

*Tracy, Brian. Eat that Frog! 21 Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time. San Francisco: BerrettKoehler, 2001

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Christy_Geiger/2434143

6 Tips to Organize Your Thoughts

Anything can be organized, even your thoughts. We say that we can't help the way we think, but we can! There may be things in life that we have no control over, but our thoughts are not one of them.

When a thought comes to mind, you make the choice to accept or reject that thought. Your choice may be conscious or subconscious, but either way it's your choice.

Our brains function basically like computers. They are constantly processing information; incoming thoughts and outgoing actions. At times, so many thoughts are floating around in our heads that we can't keep them all straight. If we don't purge the excess in some way, we become overwhelmed, and process this information in a much slower, less efficient way than we would like.

The list below provides 6 tips to help organize your thoughts. My hope is that these tips will provide some relief for the barrage of thoughts that come from our fast-paced lives. Clutter is clutter, whether it comes in the form of things in our homes, or the thoughts in our brains. We need to purge clutter from our brains, just like we purge clutter from our homes.

Document your thoughts - This seems like a simple idea and it is. There are times when we have ideas, or thoughts about a multitude of things. If you don't get those things out of your head and documented in some way, you're in danger of forgetting them, or becoming overwhelmed. Use the medium that works best for you such as - pen & paper, text message, voice message, phone app, etc.

Sort your thoughts - After you document all your thoughts, tasks, concerns, ideas, questions, etc., sort them into their respective categories.

Prioritize your thoughts - Due dates and deadlines are priorities based on importance and urgency. Many times, due dates and deadlines determine our priorities. Other times, our troubles cause us to worry, and those thoughts become our priority. Taking an action on those worrisome thoughts, however small it may be, can possibly reduce the stress, so you can purposefully re-prioritize the thought for another time.

Reframing a thought - Reframing refers to changing the way a thought, concept or idea is considered. This can be helpful when you are problem solving. Looking at an issue in a different way may provide a viable solution.

No multi-tasking - It's been determined that multi-tasking is counter-productive. When you try to perform more than one task at a time, your brain spends more time trying to switch between tasks, or thoughts. Focus on one thought at a time for optimal productivity.

Mental clarity - Sometimes we need a break. Thinking can be exhausting. In order to organize our thoughts, we need mental clarity. There are many ways to achieve mental clarity and it's different for all of us. Taking a walk in the fresh air does it for me. Meditation works for some, while exercise does it for others. Find something that works for you and practice it regularly.

Sally E Morgan is the owner of SOS: Simple Organized Solutions LLC. For more information on how SOS can eliminate stress and create peace of mind in your life, go to,

http://www.sossimpleorganizedsolutions.com.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Sally_E_Morgan/680809

How Do You Do So Much?

I'm sure we've all had occasions when we've looked on in awe and wondered, perhaps out loud, how someone's able to fit in as much as they do. While we're still pondering tonight's dinner menu they may well have been to the gym, organised the food shop, made several important calls, volunteered at a local charity and completed an important piece of work.

How do they do so much?

- Being organised is the key to getting things done. Without organisation things can become too random, dipping in and out of tasks with very little focus or planning. Lists can be an efficient way of introducing order and method, so enabling things to be sorted by degree of urgency.

- Some things are too big or complicated to tackle in one go. Input or a contribution may be required from a third-party, so being efficient is about passing things on quickly so that each person can tackle their part. Keep an eye on what's going on and where individual tasks are up to.

- Delegating is a valuable tool in a busy life. Being precious and insisting on doing everything yourself may feel like an important position to protect, but not everything needs to be jealously guarded. Let others help, share in the story and maybe come up with new, even better ideas. It motivates everyone when they're included as part of the team.

- Don't wait for everything to be perfect before you start. There's no need to practice-run every possible scenario or set of circumstances in advance. Often things come together well enough once you begin. Allow your mindset to be flexible and receptive to different possibilities and enjoy where it takes you, unless it's one of those times when it's essential to follow very specific criteria.

- Double up. Some social arrangements could, under normal circumstances, potentially be combined. Eating out, seeing a show or concert and catching up with friends may successfully maximise your time and create almost a party atmosphere. Equally business networking combined with a game of golf pulls together two areas of life, as does exercising or enjoying a hobby with family or friends.

- Hire help. Certain routine or mundane tasks like ironing, cleaning and gardening may be worth outsourcing. It may be worth paying good money to free up your time for other things. Equally, tasks outside your area of expertise may be better done by someone else, rather than having you spend hours agonising over your accounts, admin or design work.

- Learn to say 'no' appropriately. When we work for ourselves or are new to a location, are keen to fit in and be accepted it can be tempting to say 'yes' and agree to everything. Sometimes we need to review what we're already committed to, or we may run ourselves ragged, trying to accommodate everything and everybody.

- Take regular breaks and recharge. A twenty-minute break gives enough time to eat a healthy snack, hydrate, maybe get outside for some fresh air. Often people find that they then return to work with a clearer mind and renewed enthusiasm for the job in hand.

- Remember to give yourself credit for each achievement. Rather than systematically working your way through your list, instead pause to appreciate each stage of the journey, every task completed.

And sometimes might it be relevant to ask yourself why you do so much, why you allow your time to be so fully occupied. Some people are constantly busy because they need to be in control and are loathe to pass on work to others for fear it may result in them being cut out of the loop, it may allow others to be seen to do a better job or have their mistakes and shortcomings discovered.

FOMO, fear of missing out, having something to prove, trying to be indispensable, not wanting to let go of the reins and filling every second with meaningful activity can all create their own stress.

But then, there are those people who are eager to try everything that's on the menu, can't wait to sample every option that's on offer. Whilst not wanting to dampen their enthusiasm too much, it's also important to take time to rest, savour, rehearse and make the best choices for you. Enjoy doing one thing at a time. You can always return another day and try a different delicacy.

Susan Leigh, counsellor, hypnotherapist, relationship counsellor, writer & media contributor offers help with relationship issues, stress management, assertiveness and confidence. She works with individual clients, couples and provides corporate workshops and support.

She's author of 3 books, 'Dealing with Stress, Managing its Impact', '101 Days of Inspiration #tipoftheday' and 'Dealing with Death, Coping with the Pain', all on Amazon & with easy to read sections, tips and ideas to help you feel more positive about your life.

To order a copy or for more information, help and free articles visit http://www.lifestyletherapy.net

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Susan_Leigh/399535

The Science of Productivity

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfjvYzr-3g

Here's some great simple tips on improving your productivity