work for that brief 15 minute period without worrying about anything else.
This technique will often get you launched into the task and completion will
be much more likely.
To get the most out of this technique, you must make an appointment with
yourself and write it down. Then, when the designated time comes, have
your tools and materials at hand and begin the 15-minute work session.
At the end of the 15 minutes, you may feel like continuing to work. If not,
put it aside and schedule another 15-minute appointment at another time.
And then keep your appointment with yourself.
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13. Resist the tendency toward perfectionism
Since perfectionism is a major reason for procrastination, decide not to
worry about doing the job perfectly. Just get started and work steadily. You
can always go back and make corrections and revisions later. Nothing
worthwhile has ever been done perfectly the first time anyway.
Not long ago, a friend of mind started a consulting business. I asked him
how it was going. He told me that he had not done anything yet because it
was going to take a full month before he got his brochures, business cards
and letterhead back from the printer.
I told him that his brochures, letterhead and business cards would never get
him a nickel’s worth of business. What he should do was to write his new
telephone number on the back of his existing business cards, or get some
made up quickly at a quick copy place, and then just get out and talk to
prospective clients. I told him that this would do him more good than all the
brochures he would ever design.
He phoned me a week later and told me that this advice had transformed his
thinking about himself and his business. He had started calling on
prospective customers that very day and was already doing business and
making money.
14. Pick one area where procrastination is hurting you.
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Select a single identifiable area where you know your tendency to
procrastinate is holding you back. Pick the most important area and resolve
to conquer that specific example of procrastination.
Set priorities on your areas of procrastination and then concentrate singlemindedly
on the one area where overcoming it can make the greatest
contribution to your success. Always attack the most difficult tasks first.
Challenge yourself to confront the hardest parts of your work and then get
them done before anything else.
15. Develop a compulsion to closure.
Once you have launched, and begun to work on your task, refuse to stop
until it is completed. When you develop the discipline to start a major task
and then stay with it until it is finished, you will be laying down the
foundation for a life of persistent, purposeful work. Force yourself to finish
the last 5% of the job. That is the part that is worth all the rest in terms of
personal satisfaction.
It is amazing, and somewhat sad, the number of people who overcome
procrastination sufficiently enough to get started on a task, but they never
carry it through to completion. As they get closer and closer to the end of the
task, they find more and more reasons and excuses to put off the last 5% or
10%. This is the reason most university theses and dissertations to complete
Masters or Doctoral Degrees never get completed and submitted. A person
may spend years of study in college and leave without the degree because he
was unable to push through and complete the last 5% or 10%.
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You only experience the joy, satisfaction and exhilaration of finishing the
task when you bring it to completion. As you wrap up the last detail, you
feel a tremendous sense of relief and accomplishment. Your brain releases
endorphins and you get a surge of happiness and well-being. But this is only
possible when you complete the task 100%.
16. Maintain a fast tempo.
Fast tempo is essential to success. Resolve to work at a brisk pace. Walk
quickly. Move quickly. Write fast. Act quickly. Get on with the job.
Consciously decide to speed up all of your habitual actions.
It is amazing how much more you will get done when you push yourself to
move faster rather than moving at your normal pace. In fact, if you
continually force yourself to work harder and faster, you will start to feel the
magic of the “flow experience.” When you get into this “flow,” you will
experience an enhanced feeling of confidence and competence. When you
are in “flow” you will start to plow through enormous quantities of work in a
much shorter period of time than you’ve done in the past.
Deliberately organizing your life, work and tempo so that you regularly
trigger this experience of “flow” is a key to great success. All truly effective
people enjoy this mysterious flow of energy on a regular basis. It is activated
by consciously speeding up the tempo of your work and keeping up the pace
until you lift off, like an airplane clearing the ground.
Time Power
Your Greatest Challenge in Time Management
It takes courage and self-discipline to break the habit of procrastination. It
takes hard work and determination. But the rewards are great. You will
experience greater self-esteem, self-confidence and personal pride. You will
achieve life long success. By overcoming procrastination and becoming a
focused, effective person, you will accomplish more than anyone else
around you and more than you can possibly imagine today. There is no other
decision that will be more life enhancing and satisfying than your decision to
“Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!”
“Concentrate …for the greatest achievements are reserved for the man of
single aim, in whom no rival powers divide the empire of the soul.” (Orison
Swett Marden)
Action Exercises:
1.
Select one major task where procrastination is holding you back and
resolve to learn all these methods and techniques by starting and
finishing that one project.
2.
Make out a detailed list of every single thing you will have to do to
complete that task; think on paper;
3.
Select the most important single item on your list and gather
everything you will need to start and complete that item.
4.
Set a specific time when you are going to start and work single
mindedly on that task until it is finished.
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5.
Break your largest tasks and goals down into bite sized chunks and
concentrate on starting and completing one part of the job at a time.
6.
Accept 100% responsibility for starting and finishing your major task;
refuse to make excuses or rationalize putting it off.
7.
Visualize and see yourself working with a sense of urgency; program
your mind by repeating the words “Do it now!” over and over.
Chapter Nine
Keeping Up
“Mastery is not something that strikes in an instant, like a thunderbolt, but a
gathering power that moves steadily through time, like the weather.”(John
C. Gardner, Jr.)
We live in a knowledge-based, information-driven society. Successful
people today are simply those who know more than their competitors. One of
your most important responsibilities is to keep up with your field, and stay
ahead of the pack by continually taking in new information and ideas.
The amount of knowledge in every field today is doubling every five to
seven years, sometimes every two to three years. This means that you must
double your knowledge on a regular basis just to keep even. The basic rule
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today is that, “To earn more, you must learn more.” You are earning all that
you possibly can today, with what you now know. If you want to earn more
in the future, you will have to learn and apply new knowledge and skills.
You must be continually absorbing new information if you want to achieve
and maintain excellent performance in your field. If you want to be the best,
you must pay the price in terms of reading, listening, learning and growing.
Your outer life will always be a reflection of your inner life. If you want to
improve your life on the outside, you must begin with yourself, by
improving yourself on the inside.
One New Idea Can Make the Difference
One new idea or piece of information can change the direction of your life.
For example, think of the Nobel Prize for Superconductivity.
Once upon a time, a group of IBM scientists working in the IBM
laboratories in Switzerland reached an impasse into their research on
superconductivity. They could not find or develop the formulas they needed.
They finally gave up and put the work aside so they could concentrate on
other activities with more immediate commercial applications.
One of the scientists on this project decided to take a break and go down to
the company library. While he was browsing through the reading materials,
he came across a French journal on Applied Ceramics. In that journal, there
was an article discussing several experiments that had been done in
conductivity with ceramics. He suddenly realized that this was the key that
Time Power
they had been looking for. The article and the information contained in it
approached the subject of superconductivity from a completely different
direction than the one they had been working on.
He immediately took the article and the information back to the laboratory
and began applying it to their experiments. Within 12 months, they had
discovered the secret to superconductivity. Not long after, they were
awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. They are now recognized and
esteemed as two of the most important scientists of the 20th century.
By keeping their minds open, and by continually reading and gathering
information from difference sources, they found the one piece of information
that they needed to make all of their other knowledge and information work
together to achieve a single large goal.
When Your Mind Collides With a New Idea
It turns out that every change in your life comes about when your mind
collides with a new idea, like a billiard ball colliding with another ball on a
pool table. This is why people who regularly expose themselves to new ideas
tend to move ahead more rapidly than those who do not.
Most of life can be explained by the Law of Probabilities. This law says that
there is a probability that virtually anything can happen. In many cases, this
probability can be calculated with considerable accuracy. Most of the
calculations in the worlds of finance, investments and insurance are based on
estimates of probability of some kind.
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Increase Your Probabilities of Success
Your aim should be to increase the probabilities that the things you want will
happen to you, and that you will achieve the goals that you have set for
yourself. One of the ways that you increase the probabilities of success in
any endeavor is by using your time in an excellent fashion. When you set
clear goals, make detailed plans of action, establish clear priorities and then
focus single-mindedly on your most valuable tasks, you dramatically
increase the likelihood or probability that you will be successful.
In the information age, the more ideas and information that you take in, and
expose yourself to, the more likely it is that you will come across exactly the
idea or insight that you need, at exactly the right time for you. As a result,
you will greatly increase the probability of success in whatever you are
doing.
Keeping Up and Getting Ahead
Here are a series of ideas that you can use to keep up with, and get on top of,
your job, career and field of expertise.
1. Readers Are Leaders
Read at least one hour per day in your chosen field. One hour per day will
translate into approximately one book per week. One book per week will
translate into approximately 50 books over the next twelve months. If you
read an hour a day, one book per week, you will be an expert in your field
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within three years. You will be a national authority in five years, and you
will be an international authority in seven years. All leaders are readers.
Over the years, I have shared this simple concept with many thousands of
my seminar participants. I receive a continuous stream of letters, faxes and
emails from people all over the world who tell me that their lives have
changed profoundly as the result of developing the habit of reading for one
hour, or more, in their fields each day.
Give It a One Month Trial
Try this out for yourself. Give yourself one month to test whether or not it
works. In all likelihood, one month from now, if you read one hour each day
in your field, your whole life will begin to change. “Reading is to the mind
as exercise is to the body.” When you read in your field every day, you will
become brighter and more alert. You will become more positive and
focused. You will become smarter and more creative. You will see
possibilities and opportunities in the world around you that you would have
missed completely in the absence of your reading.
The average adult reads less than one book per year. According to the
American Booksellers Association, 80% of households have not bought or
read a book in the last 12 months. If you read one book per week, 50 books
per year, that will add up to 500 books in the next ten years. This habit of
regular reading will give you an edge in your field, and move you ahead
faster toward the front of the line than perhaps anything else you can do.
Time Power
Just think, if you were reading at this rate, to become more effective and
productive, do you think that this would affect your income? Do you think it
would affect your career? Do you think that this amount of reading would
affect and change your whole life? Do you think it would give you an edge
over your competitors? I think the answer is obvious.
2. Read Magazines and Trade Journals
Read the business and trade publications that contain articles and stories that
are relevant to your field. Subscribe to them all. They only cost a few dollars
