Your job is to identify the biggest single problem or difficulty that is holding
you back and then focus on solving that before you get sidetracked by
smaller problems and difficulties.
2. Identify Your Limiting Step
Determine your limiting step in the achievement of your goal. In the
accomplishment of almost any goal, or the completion of any job, there is
usually one step that determines the speed at which you get from where you
are to where you want to go. This is the bottleneck or chokepoint in the
process. Your ability to identify and remove this bottleneck can often move
you toward the achievement of your goal faster than any other single action.
In almost every production process, in the achieving of almost any goal, in
increasing of your income, doubling your sales, losing weight, there is
usually a limiting step or constraint that sets the speed on how fast you
achieve it. One of the most important techniques for efficiency and
effectiveness is to concentrate on alleviating this constraint between where
you are and what it is you want to accomplish.
The 80/20 Rule applies to this principle of constraints, or limiting factors, in
a special way. In this case, the 80/20 Rule says that, “80% of the reasons that
you are not achieving your goal are contained within yourself, or your
company.” Only 20% of the constraints on your ability to accomplish what
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you want are contained in external circumstances or the environment around
you.
The starting point of personal effectiveness is for you to first of all to define
your goal, and second, to ask yourself, “What is it in me that is holding me
back?” When you look into yourself, you will almost always find that it is
the lack of a particular skill, quality or behavior that is your main constraint
on achieving a particular goal or result. This is the “what” that you need to
work on before you do anything else.
3. Determine the Knowledge and Skills You Will Require
Identify the additional knowledge or skill that you will require to achieve
your goal. What else do you need to learn? What else do you need to know?
What is the most important additional knowledge, skill or experience that
you will require in order to achieve the goal that you have set for yourself?
As speaker Les Brown said, “In order to achieve something that you have
never achieved before, you must become someone that you have never been
before.” In order to accomplish bigger and better goals, you will have to
develop new skills and acquire new knowledge. You cannot achieve more
than you are achieving today without developing yourself to a higher level.
Remember, knowledge is power. But only practical knowledge that can be
applied toward getting desired results is true power. Ask yourself, “What
practical knowledge do I need to acquire in order to move more rapidly
toward the achievement of my goals and the accomplishment of my tasks?”
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Sometimes the practical knowledge you require is in marketing and sales.
Sometimes it is the skill of managing people. Sometimes it is the knowledge
of strategic planning or organizational development. Often it is knowledge
that is hard to identify, but discovering the critical knowledge you need and
then going to work to acquire it, can have an inordinate impact on your
results.
4. Determine the People Whose Help You Will Need
Identify the people whose help, support and cooperation will be necessary
for you to achieve your goals, both personal and business. Whose help do
you need? Who can help you to get to the goal? Who can block you from
achieving your goal? Who do you need to work in cooperation with to
achieve your goal in a timely fashion?
Often when you set a goal that is going to take a lot of your time, you will
need the cooperation and understanding of your family. If you want to rise to
a position of prominence in your company or industry, you will need the
cooperation of your boss, your coworkers and your subordinates.
Think through the people whose cooperation you will require and what you
can do to get them to want to cooperate with you. What is in it for them?
How will they benefit from helping you to achieve your goals? Always start
with what others need and require and then work back to what it is that you
need and require.
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Ask Yourself the Right Questions
Here are some final questions that you can ask to keep yourself clear,
focused and on track in the achievement of your goals and objectives.
First, you should ask regularly, “What am I trying to do?” Exactly what is it
that you are attempting to achieve as the result of your work and your
efforts? Vagueness and fuzziness in your answer to this question makes it
almost impossible for you to achieve your goals on schedule.
Second, you should ask, “How am I trying to do it?” Is your current method
working? What are your assumptions? What are you assuming that might
not be true? Could there be a better way to achieve your goal than the
method that you are currently using?
Third, you can ask, “What are my real goals?” How do these goals affect
my personal life? Why am I doing what I am doing? It is absolutely essential
that you be clear about the real purpose behind your goals if you want to
remain motivated and energized in your pursuit of them.
Fourth, and perhaps the most important, is for you to ask, “What is my aim
in life?” What is my aim in my work? What is my aim with my family?
What do I want to accomplish as the result of being alive?
Perhaps the most important question of all is, “What do I really want to do
with my life?”
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These are questions that you should ask yourself over and over again to keep
yourself on track.
Develop Absolute Clarity
The starting point of time management is for you to achieve absolute clarity
with regard to your goals, in every area of your life, and at every level of
your business. Like a photographer, you must continually focus the lens of
your time and activities on exactly the most important things that you are
trying to accomplish, and the reasons that you want to accomplish them.
All time management skills require a clear, unambiguous agreement about
goals and objectives. Decide exactly what it is that you are trying to achieve,
and focus single-mindedly on your most important goals and activities. This
is the first step toward excellent time management.
“There is one quality that one must possess to win, and that is definiteness
of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to
achieve it.” (Napoleon Hill)
Action Exercises:
1.
Clarity is essential! Make a list of 10 goals for the coming year in
every area of your business and personal life. Write in the present
tense, as if you have already achieved the goal?
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2.
Review your list and ask, “What one goal, if I achieved it, would have
the most positive impact on my life, right now?” Write this goal at the
top of a new page.
3.
Set a specific deadline for the achievement of this goal. Set sub-
deadlines if necessary.
4.
Make a list of everything you can think of to do to achieve this goal.
As you think of new activities, add them to the list. Keep doing this
until your list is complete.
5.
Organize your list into a plan. Decide what is most important. Decide
what must be done first, before something else can be done.
6.
Determine the obstacles you will have to overcome, the additional
knowledge and skill you will require, and the people whose help you
will need. Be specific.
7.
Take action on your most important goal, and resolve to do something
every day that moves you one step closer to achieving it. Never give
up!
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Chapter Three
Getting Yourself Organized
“Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your
hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark.”
(Orison Swett Marden)
The difference between average people and highly effective people is that
highly effective people are much better organized when they work than
others. Excellent personal and professional organization is a hallmark of
highly effective and well-paid people.
Fortunately, organizing is a skill, and all skills are learnable. You can learn
to be an extremely well organized, efficient and effective person. When you
do, you will produce vastly more in the same period of time than the people
around you.
One of Murphy’s Laws is that, “Before you can do anything, you have to do
something else first.”
The one thing that you have to do first, before you can do any productive
work, is to get yourself organized completely. The core function of good
time management is planning and organizing yourself, and your work, for
maximum productivity. It is only possible to get the best out of yourself
when you have brought together everything you need before you begin
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work. You must then determine a place for everything and make sure that
everything is in its place.
Plan Everything In Advance
The top 3% of high achievers are all persistent, continuous planners. They
are forever writing and rewriting their lists of goals and activities. They
think on paper and are continually analyzing and reevaluating their plans.
I used to wonder why it was that so many successful people seemed to spend
so much of their time planning. Over time, I learned that the more time you
spend planning, the better and more foolproof your plans become. By
continually reworking your plans for achieving your goals, your goals
become increasingly believable and achievable.
As you think and plan each step, your confidence in your ability to
accomplish those goals increases. When you break down even the biggest
goal into its individual parts, and then organize those parts into a step by step
series of specific actions, the task seems much more manageable and under
your control. The more you plan, the more you program your goal deeper
and deeper into your subconscious mind, where it takes on a motivational
power of its own.
Get a 1000% Return on Investment
The payoff from good planning is enormous. It is estimated that each minute
spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution. To put it another way, your
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investment in planning pays you a 1000% return on the time and energy you
invest.
In life, all that we really have to sell is our time. The more productive our
time usage, all things being equal, the more we will eventually be paid. Your
job is to invest your time where you can get the highest ROE or “Return on
Life.” Where else can you get a 1000% return on your investment?
Sometimes people say that they are too busy to sit and plan. The fact is that
even if you force yourself to plan out everything in detail, you will find it
hard to spend more than a few minutes per day in the planning process. The
only way that you will ever create the time you need is by planning your
activities carefully in advance. Remember, you save 10 minutes for every
minute that you spend planning before you begin.
The Reason for Most Failure
Peter Drucker said, “Action without planning is the reason for every
failure.” If you look back over the major mistakes you’ve made in your life,
they will almost all have one factor in common. It was that you rushed into
the decision or situation without giving it enough thought. You either did not
get enough information, or you did not take the time to weigh and balance
the pros and cons before acting. In every case, the failure to plan carefully
can be very expensive.
At the same time, you will also find that almost every one of the most
successful accomplishments of your life, from planning a business start-up
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or a business project, all the way through to planning a vacation, was
accompanied by a good plan, worked out thoroughly in advance.
The more time you took to think through what you had to do, and the likely
consequences of your actions, the more efficient you were, and the more
satisfying was the end result.
The fact is that the better and more complete your plans are before you
begin, the greater will be your likelihood of your success once you start.
There is an old saying, “Success is tons of discipline.” One of the best
exercises of self-discipline is for you to take the time to think through and
plan out everything you do before you begin.
Four Ideas for Personal Organization
Here are four ideas you can use to help yourself in getting organized:
1. Neatness Is a Key Habit
Remember that neatness is a key habit for personal productivity. You can
dramatically increase your productivity and output simply by cleaning up
and organizing your workspace. You’ve heard it said, “Order is heaven’s
first law.” Order is earth’s first law as well. You need a sense of order to
feel relaxed and in control of your environment and your life. You actually
get a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction each time you put some part of your
life or work in order.
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When you clean up your desk or office you feel more on top of your work.
When you clean out your car you feel more in charge of your personal life.
When you organize your purse or briefcase, or even your home and your
closets, you feel like a more effective human being. Your self-esteem goes
up. Your self-confidence and self-respect increases. You feel more powerful
as a person. You generate more energy and feel an increased determination
to get on with the job.
2. Stand Back and Evaluate Yourself
Here is a good exercise for you: Stand back from your desk or work area and
ask, “What kind of person works at that desk?”
Look in your purse or briefcase and ask, “What kind of a person would have
a purse or briefcase like that?” Look at and in your car. Look in your closet.
