Do This to Double Your Productivity
When it comes to productivity, we often tend to think of it as how to get more done in less time. But getting more done doe not necessarily mean we will get the real results we want. In my view, productivity should be more about getting the most important things done, in the time when you are most energetic and at peak performance.
To accomplish that, a simple yet often neglected method is to form the habit of prioritizing your daily to-do list. I’d like to share a quick prioritization method I learned from a Brain Tracy’s book that has at least doubled my productivity.
Simply put, given any number of daily tasks, before we do anything about them, we first give each task or to-do item a tag, such as A, B, C, D, or E. Here is what each of them represents.
A - means this is a “A-list” task. It’s the most important thing for our goals, especially for the long term.
B - means “better get it done”. It’s something we should do, things other people or circumstances depend or wait on us. Or, if not done, it will surely cause us trouble or take more time to fix later.
C - means “carry on” task. It’s what we normally do to carry on with our life, to continue our work or projects, or routine tasks that we need to do, or daily chores etc.
D - means “delegate to someone else”. It’s for things that really should be given to someone else to do, and they also include things that we should check on others for status or results.
E - means “eliminate it”. This is something we simply shouldn’t do at all.
Once we have prioritized our tasks with these tags, sort them out and we will have a list starting with A tasks, then Bs, Cs, etc. With GoalsOnTrack, you simply give each task a Tag “A”, “B”, etc. Then on Dashboard page you can easily sort them by the tags.
Here comes the most import part of the whole idea. The real trick is to never work on B tasks, without first finishing A tasks. Never work on C tasks, without first completing both A and B tasks. So on so forth.
The benefit of working your daily to-dos this way is that you will get the most important things done first, when you are most energetic (because you haven’t wasted your energy on other less important or unimportant things yet). What’s more, if you happen to only complete half of your list, you still end up having the more important half done.
By routinely following this method, and making it a habit, you will immediately find your productivity and meaningful results you get at least doubled, if not more.
How To Define A Tangible, Reachable Personal Finance Goal
By Trent Hamm
First of all, what exactly is a goal? A goal is the result toward which effort is directed; in other words, a goal is the outcome of a period of directed activity. Goals can be over any timeframe: for example, I often set very short term goals, such as finishing my grocery shopping in thirty minutes with no extra items in the cart beyond what’s on my list. I also have very long term goals, such as writing a check for my dream home at age 45 and retiring several years after that.
Goals are great because they put a carrot at the end of the stick, guiding you down a path that leads to something you truly want to accomplish. However, the truth is that we often set goals we cannot meet - and the result of that is not only the lack of reaching a goal, but the sense of failure that comes along with it. We beat ourselves up over the fact that we can’t lose that extra twenty pounds and keep it off and our sense of self-worth goes down.
Why does this failure happen? Obviously, there are as many causes for failure as there are grains of sand in the desert, but the root causes generally boil down to several groups, three of which I’d like to focus on:
A goal that isn’t clear Setting a goal of “saving money” or “losing weight” merely sets you up for failure because it isn’t clear what success actually is.
A goal that’s overly optimistic Optimistic goals are great, but setting goals like paying off your home in a year when you owe more than your annual income is probably not going to happen unless you’ve got some sort of trick up your sleeve.
A goal that’s too distant Again, distant goals are wonderful, but they require diligence. Merely setting a goal isn’t enough.
In each of these cases, you can head off potential challenges to reaching the goal by putting in extra effort when you define the goal right off the bat. Let’s work through an example to see how you can do this in your own life.
Let’s say your goal is to save money for a house; a fine goal, indeed. However, it has some problems that make it difficult for anyone to achieve.
It’s not clear and specific Whenever you define a goal, you should make sure it answers a few basic questions with as much specificity as possible: What? When? How?
What is the goal? Obviously, to save money for a house. But what kind of house? What will it cost? Where will the house be? Will it be pre-owned, or will you build your own? How much of the down payment do you plan to cover?
When is the goal? When do you want to be moving into that house? One year? Five years? Ten years?
How will you get there? Where will this money for savings come from? Right now, you’re not saving, so you have to define what exactly will change in order for you to begin saving at the rate needed to meet the specifics you’ve already set.
Using this process will transform the goal into something specific, ideally with specific savings goals each step along the way (weekly or monthly). These sub-goals are typically called milestones and can often be thought of as goals themselves: my goal for this month is to save $X, for example.
It’s too optimistic Is it within the realm of reality for you to meet the goal you set? This is more of a balancing act than anything - you want to make it so that you’re accomplishing something, but you also don’t want to make it impossible. For example, going from barely breaking even each month to saving 40% of your paycheck will be extremely difficult for much people, so set the goal lower.
It’s too distant Obviously, the best way to handle this is by setting milestones, particularly ones that at first give you a little bit of room to figure out how it’s going to go. For savings goals, I generally find that a gently graduated approach works well: saving $X the first year, then saving more the second year and so on. This way, you find success at each point along the way.
So, using these tips, you can change your goal to something much more specific and tangible: “I am saving money for a $200,000 house in Iowa. I want to move in in five years and I want to have a 10% down payment in hand, so I will need to save $20,000 in five years. That breaks down to $4,000 a year, or $333 a month. For the first year, I’ll save $300 a month, then add $20 a month each year after that. I will put this in a savings account that earns 5.05% APY interest.”
This time around, you have a goal that’s clearly defined, with specific action points for you to follow. You can now start working towards this goal immediately, instead of it being nebulous and easy to postpone and forget about.
The 5 P’s of Successful Goal Setting
If you’re one of the millions of people who set financial New Year’s resolutions only to lapse a few days, weeks, or months later, now is a perfect time to reboot.
The process of setting and reaching financial goals should be something we practice year-round, not just at the beginning of each year. Yet in our busy lives, it takes determination and focus to take time out to think about our ambitions and how we’re pursuing them. Perhaps that’s why so many people plan and set goals only at the beginning of a new year — because the holiday season offers more downtime to think about the big picture and our life’s direction.
When it comes to planning, the time you spend can pay big dividends. It could become your down payment on a first-class ticket to greater financial security, better health, closer personal relationships, a more satisfying work life — and even (for those of us pressed for time now) greater chunks of leisure time.
Students learning a foreign language must learn, forget, and relearn words three to six times before they permanently commit the translation to memory. Setting financial goals is much the same. Most people set a goal, fail to reach it, and somewhere down the road try again. Success is most likely to come after a series of false starts.
Why does that happen? We all learn from our past disappointments, so we come better prepared to succeed with each new assault on the goal. Timing also plays a part. The Buddhist proverb, “When the pupil is ready, the master will appear,” seems to apply here. There are simply times in our lives when we are better prepared to incorporate our past experiences and ongoing motivation into a winning formula for success.
Have your financial goals been derailed because you were blindsided by the stock and real estate market crashes? When picking yourself up after missing a goal, there are five basic tools — the “5 P’s” — you’ll want to use to improve the odds of victory on your next attempt:
- Passion — You’ve got to want the goal badly enough that you won’t allow yourself to become discouraged when the finish line proves hard to reach.
- Persistence — Cliché as it may sound, if at first you don’t succeed, you have to keep trying. Any goal worth attaining is worth pursuing even through repeated setbacks.
- Planning — If the road to defeat is paved with good intentions, the road to success is smoothed with actual planning. Successful businesses begin with a well-thought business plan. Successful goal setters likewise require a carefully considered plan to reach their goals.
Each plan should include:
- Ways to break the main goal into smaller, easier-to-accomplish parts
- A realistic timetable
- Strategies and resources (including mentors) you can utilize
- A system for tracking your progress
- Fallback positions for when you encounter potholes and detours
- People — The Boston Marathon attracts 25,000 participants and roughly half a million spectators each year. The number of qualified entrants and the large, cheering audience handing out cups of cold water do not make the 26.2-mile race any shorter. But the support and enthusiasm of the crowd and the momentum of the pack do provide most runners an extra boost on their journey to the finish line.
Family, friends, and coworkers can likewise give you the extra boost you require to reach your goal. Whether they are running alongside you, cheering you on from the sidelines, or handing you advice based upon their own scrapes and triumphs, enlisting the help of others dramatically increases your chances of success.
- Positivity — Mental attitude can carry you forward even when circumstances aren’t breaking your way. Is reaching for a goal a burden, a responsibility, a sacrifice, even a punishment? It can be, if you decide to think of it that way. But you can also picture your path as an adventure, an opportunity, a competition, and a growth experience. The task is the same regardless of how you view it. The outcome, however, is far more likely to be positive if you remain upbeat and optimistic at each step along the way.
Four Steps to Success!
Author: Jim Rohn
Let me pass on to you these four simple steps to success:
Number one is good ideas. Be a collector of good ideas. My mentor taught me to keep a journal when I was twenty five years old. I’ve been doing it now all these years. They will be passed on to my children and my grandchildren. If you hear a good health idea, capture it, write it down. Don’t trust your memory.
Then on a cold wintry evening, go back through your journal, the ideas that changed your life, the ideas that saved your marriage, the ideas that bailed you out of bankruptcy, the ideas that helped you become successful, the ideas that made you millions. What a good review. Going back over the collection of ideas that you gathered over the years. So be a collector of good ideas for your business, for your relationships, for your future.
The next step to success is to have good plans. A good plan for the day, a good plan for the future, a good health plan, a good plan for your marriage. Building anything is like building a house, you need to have a plan. Now here is a good time management question: When should you start the day? Answer: As soon as you have it finished. It is like building a house, building a life.
What if you just started laying bricks and somebody asks, “What are you building?” And you say, “I have no idea.” See they would come and take you away to a safe place. So, don’t start the house until you finish it. Now, is it possible to finish the house before you start it? Yes, but it would be foolish to start before you had it finished. Not a bad time management idea. Don’t start the day until it is pretty well finished — at least the outline of the day. Leave some room to improvise. Leave some room for extra strategies, but finish it before you start it.
And here is the next piece that is a little more challenging: Do not start the week until you have it finished. Lay it out, structure it, then put it to work. Then the next one is a little tougher yet; do not start the month until you have it finished.
And finally the big one, don’t start the year until it is finished on paper. It’s not a bad idea, toward the end of the year, to sit down with your family for the family structure plans, sit down in your business for the business plans, sit down with your financial advisor for your investments and map out the year… properties to buy, properties to sell, places to go with your family, lay out the year. I finally learned to do that. It was also helpful for my family to show them where they appeared on my calendar. You know I used to have my business things on there and I used to have my lectures and my seminars all laid out on my calendar, and guess what the children said, “Where are we on the game plan, please show us our names on the game plan.” So you need to do it for your children, for your spouse, for your friends.
Now, here is the third step to success, and it can be really challenging.Learning to handle the passing of time. It takes time to build a career, it takes time to make changes, so give your project time, give your people time. If you’re working with people, give them time to learn, grow, change, develop, produce. And here is the big one, give yourself time. It takes time to master something new. It takes time to make altered changes and refinement in philosophy as well as activity.
Give yourself time to learn, time to get it, time to start some momentum, time to finally achieve. It is easy to be impatient with yourself. I remember when I first tried to learn to tie my shoes. The shoe strings, it seemed like it would take me forever. Finally I got it and it didn’t take forever, but it seemed like for a while I’d never learn, I’d get it backwards; the bow goes up and down instead of across. How do I straighten that out? Finally I got it, it just took time.
Mama taught me a little bit about playing the piano. “Here is the left hand scale”, she’d say. I got that, it was easy. Then she said, “Here is the right hand scale.” I got that, that was easy. Now she said, “We are going to play both hands at the same time.” I said, “Well, how can you do that?” Now one at a time was easy… but at the same time? Looking at this hand and looking at that hand, finally I got it. Finally I got where I could play the scales with both hands.
Then I remember the day she said, “Now we are going to read the music and play with both hands.” I thought, “You can’t do all that.” But you know, sure enough I’m looking at the music, looking at each hand, a little confused at first, but finally I mastered it. It took a little time to read the music and play with both hands. Then I remember the day she said, “Now we are going to watch the audience, read the music and play with both hands. I thought, “Now that is going too far!” How could you possibly do that?
But see adding them one at a time and giving myself time to master one before we went to the next one; sure enough I got to where I could watch the audience, read the music and play with both hands. So the lesson here is: Give yourself time, you can become a better pro, you can better master the art of parenting, you can better master the art of managing time, conserving resources, working together as a partner. Give yourself time.
And here’s the last one; learning to solve problems. Business problems, family problems, financial problems, emotional problems, etc. — challenges for us all. Here’s the best way to treat a problem: As an opportunity to grow. Change if you have to, modify if you must, discard an old philosophy that wasn’t working well for a new one. The best phrase my mentor ever gave me was when he said, “Mr. Rohn if you will change, everything will change for you.” Wow, I took that to heart, and sure enough the more I changed the more everything changed for me.
So learn to master good ideas, have good plans, handle the passing of time and solve problems, and you will be on your way to more success than you could ever imagine!
Eight Common Goal Setting Mistakes
Achieving Your Dreams the Right Way
Source: MindTools
“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we hit it.” - Michelangelo Buonarroti, Renaissance artist
John is reflecting on the last goal that he set for himself…
Everything started well - he was making progress, he felt great about what he was doing, and he was excited about future possibilities.
But then things unraveled. The goal took longer to complete than he thought it would, and he became discouraged. And, because he didn’t stop to look at what he had achieved, he lost his drive and focus. Before he knew it, the goal - and the opportunities it would have brought - were forgotten.
Sound familiar?
In this article, we’ll look at some common mistakes that people make when they set goals. Learn how to recognize these mistakes, so that you can avoid making them yourself!
Mistake 1: Setting Unrealistic Goals
When you’re exploring possible goals, you need to unleash your imagination and ambition, put your reservations aside, and dream big dreams. However, once you’ve decided on a goal, make sure that it is realistic, and that you can actually achieve it in the time frame that you have set for yourself.
For instance, if your goal is to run a marathon, it’s wildly unrealistic to sign up for one next month, unless you’ve already done several months of training. Or, if your goal is to become CEO of a company, but you have no experience, this goal might not be practical - at least not yet!
To set realistic goals, use SMART Goal Setting strategies: make sure that your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Mistake 2: Focusing on Too Few Areas
Imagine that you’ve just written your list of goals for the next year. You’ve committed to increasing your sales by 15 percent, applying for a promotion, and reading one leadership book each month.
Although this is an ambitious but achievable list of goals, there’s a potential problem: these goals focus only on your career. You’ve completely omitted goals from other parts of your life.
Many people focus solely on their work when they set goals. However, you can’t neglect activities that bring you joy. Goals like writing a book, competing in an adventure race, or starting a home garden might also be incredibly important for your happiness and well-being.
So, when you set your goals, make sure that you strike the right balance between different areas of your life. And remember that “balance” is different for everyone - use the Wheel of Life tool to understand which areas of your life you need to focus on most.
Mistake 3: Underestimating Completion Time
How often has a task or project taken longer than you thought? Probably more times than you can count! You may also say the same for goals that you’ve set in the past.
If you don’t estimate goal completion time accurately, it can be discouraging when things take longer to achieve than you think they should. This can cause you to give up.
So, use Action Programs and effective scheduling strategies when planning your goals. And always pad your timelines to account for delays and setbacks. If you add extra time into your estimate, you’ll feel less pressure to rush and finish by a certain date.
Mistake 4: Not Appreciating Failure
No matter how hard you work, you will fail to achieve goals from time to time. We’ve all been there, and it isn’t fun!
However, your failures are what ultimately determine your character. They also contain lessons that can change your life for the best, if you have the courage to learn from them.
So don’t be too upset if you fail to achieve your goals - just take note of where you went wrong and use that knowledge to reach your goals next time around.
Mistake 5: Setting “Other People’s Goals”
Some people - family, friends, or even your boss - may want to influence the goals you set. Perhaps they feel that they know what’s best for you, or maybe they want you to take a certain path or do certain things.
Clearly, it’s important that you have good relationships with these people, and you need to do what your boss asks, within reason. However, your goals need to be your own - not anybody else’s. So be politely assertive, and do what you want to do!
Mistake 6: Not Reviewing Progress
It takes time to accomplish goals. And sometimes it can feel that you aren’t making much progress.
This is why it’s important to take stock of everything that you’ve accomplished on a regular basis. Set small sub-goals, celebrate your successes, and analyze what you need to do to keep moving forward. No matter how slow things seem, you probably are making progress!
You can also take this opportunity to update your goals, based on what you’ve learnt. Have your priorities changed? Or do you need to set aside some extra time for a particular goal activity? Goals are never set in stone, so don’t be afraid to amend them if you need to.
Mistake 7: Setting “Negative” Goals
How you think about your goal can influence how you feel about it, and whether you achieve it.
For instance, many people have a goal to “lose weight.” However, this goal has a negative connotation; it’s focused on what you don’t want - your weight. A positive way to reframe this goal is to say you want to “get healthy.”
Another example of a negative goal is to “stop staying late at work.” A positive way to rephrase this is to “spend more time with family.” Negative goals are emotionally unattractive, which makes it hard to focus on them. Reframe any negative goals so that they sound positive: you may be surprised by the difference this makes!
Mistake 8: Setting Too Many Goals
When you start setting goals, you may see many things that you want to accomplish. So you start setting goals in all areas.
The problem with this is that you have a fixed amount time and energy. If you try to focus on many different goals at once, you can’t give individual goals the attention they deserve.
Instead, use the “quality, not quantity” rule when setting goals. Work out the relative importance of everything that you want to accomplish over the next six to twelve months. Then pick no more than, say, three goals to focus on.
Remember, the success of your work towards a goal rests on focusing on just a few things at a time. If you limit the number of goals you’re working on, you’ll have the time and energy you need to do things really well!
9 Things Successful People Do Differently
Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or not.
The intuitive answer - that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others - is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.
1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. “Lose 5 pounds” is a better goal than “lose some weight,” because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you’ll “eat less” or “sleep more” is too vague - be clear and precise. “I’ll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights” leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you’ve actually done it.
2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it’s not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.
To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., “If it’s Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I’ll work out for 30 minutes before work.”) Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.
3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress - if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don’t know how well you are doing, you can’t adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently - weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.
4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.
5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed - that no matter what we do, we won’t improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills. Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong - abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.
6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
The good news is, if you aren’t particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don’t have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking …. well, there’s no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.
7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control “muscle” is just like the other muscles in your body - when it doesn’t get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.
To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you’d honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother - don’t. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur (”If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.”) It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that’s the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.
8. Don’t tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it’s important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don’t try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don’t put yourself in harm’s way - many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.
9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won’t do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., “Don’t think about white bears!”) has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior - by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.
If you want to change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like “If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down.” By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.
It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don’t need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It’s never what you are, but what you do.
Recent updates: life balance chart, iphone app, etc.
Just a quick note to let you know that we have made a small change to the Life Balance Wheel reports page, where now it only shows charts for categories that are not empty. If a category is empty, then it will not be visible on the chart.
Also there is a new update to the iPhone app (version 1.0.4) now availabe on App Store. This update fixed a few more bugs related to data syncing and displaying tasks. If you haven’t upgraded, please make sure to remove your current app before installing the new one, and then do a manual sync from the “Settings” view. Your data is always saved on server so removing the iPhone app will not lose your data.
If you find syncing still not working for you, please let us know so that we can reset your sync key after you install the updated app.
Top Five Rules for a To-Do List that REALLY works
By Sara Caputo
People often ask me what tool I rely on most to stay on track, focused and productive. Hands down, it is my to-do list, AKA my “second brain”. I call it a second brain because it literally houses information for me that I can’t and don’t want to hold in the brain inside my head. It holds the minutiae, the details, the doodles, the little things that help my world stay balanced.
It’s important to get these things out of our heads so our minds can be free to do the REAL work, like think and solve problems. When our minds are bogged down with the minutiae, it can’t get to the “good” stuff!
I have become very passionate about this area of my business and I offer “to-do list/task management” coaching. While many smile and look at me as though I’m crazy, once we get into talking about their space, time and tasks, this piece of their puzzle quickly becomes the most important part to get clear about. Why?
Because we have a million things coming at us every day. It’s impossible to hold all of this in our heads and still be calm, collected and, most importantly, focused on the task in front of us without trying to remember that we have to return that phone call or pick up the dry cleaning.
Here are my top 5 to-do list tips:
1. Understand the different lists you might need.
Your to-do list should not be a mish-mash of everything you need to do in the next 6 months. For this, you need a MASTER to-do list. To break tasks down and not feel overwhelmed, most people need a daily to-do list and a master to-do list. Can you quickly identify items that would go on each? Often what I see is people using their MASTER to-do list as their daily, which immediately leads to frustration and limited productivity.
So, tip #1 is to break apart your current to-do list and create a master project list.
2. Be specific.
A large reason that most people don’t get through their daily to-do list is because the items they have listed are too big and not specific enough. The steps to a project are what constitute as to-do items, not the project title itself. The project title belongs on your master project list, while the steps involved in accomplishing that project are what belong on your daily list.
For example: Sales Management Team Meeting is the title of the project and the steps are: calls you need to make, rooms you need to reserve, delegations to others involved, agendas that need to be created, catering, etc… These would be broken down and on your daily list.
3. Cross things off when you are done.
One of the biggest culprits to not feeling successful at the end of the day is when we don’t take time to cross things off as we go. When we do this, we are able to look back on our day and feel like we made some progress, even if it was only a small amount. Ultimately, when there are many things left on your list and the end of the day is approaching, crossing off what you have done is a good practice and helps you make decisions about what else you have time to accomplish.
4. Review and process all lists on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
Just as our email inbox needs to be processed and dealt with on a daily basis, so do our task lists. I personally re-create my daily list every single day. At the end of the day, I start the next page with the date at the top and rip out the current day. This forces me to move things forward and process where I’m at with my tasks. If something didn’t get done, it goes back on the master list. If I have time the next day, it goes on that day. The same goes for master project lists. Let them stack up for a month and then re-write them.
Whether you do this on an excel spreadsheet, using Microsoft One Note or a plain old notebook, lists need to be processed and thus constantly move in a forward direction. A huge value in re-writing and re-processing lists is that, once you write it down and it’s out of your head, your brain actually starts working on that task in subtle ways, which means you’re getting ahead before you even start!
5. Take your to-do list with you everywhere you go. (And do the same for your home/personal life).
Many people make great lists, but don’t have them when they need them most. If you are going to invest time and effort into the creation of lists, then by all means, take them with you! This way, you can be constantly assessing and moving things around based on where you are with your day. This allows you to be in total control of what you have done, need to do and plan to do. You wouldn’t leave home without your first brain, so why leave home without your second brain?
New Feature Launched: Life Balance Wheel
We launched a new feature called Life Balance Wheel. From now on, on your Reports page, at the bottom of the link menu to the right, you should see a new link called “Life Balance Wheel”. This link will show you a page displaying four life balance wheel charts, indicating how balanced you are in four different metrics: Goals, Action, Habits and Hours.
To switch on / off reporting items on each chart, just click on the title bullet points. Be default they will be all display on the chart.
By definition of the chart, if you see a shape that most resembles a circle, then it means you are very balanced in different goal categories.
If you have defined many goal categories, they may not show clearly on the charts. If this is the case, try removing some of your old goals in order to reduce the number of total category names.
Hope you like the new reporting charts, and let us know if you have any feedback or comments.
Are You a Goal-Getter?
7 steps to achieving your goals
I recently overheard someone reply, when asked about her holiday weekend, “It was successful. My New Year’s resolution is to overeat on every major holiday. I figure I’m going to do it anyway; why not make it a goal I can actually keep?” I had to laugh. It made me think about the goals we create in our lives and in our businesses.
Many fall into one of two major categories. The first category is goals we set that we have a 95 percent chance of accomplishing–mostly because we have done it before, so the likelihood is high that we’ll succeed. (Our overeater above almost didn’t pig out because she was feeling poorly. But she pulled herself together and gorged.) The other category is goals where there is a 95 percent degree of uncertainty that we’ll accomplish them, and we have never done it before, but we would like to. There are benefits to both kinds of goals.
You might think the first kind of goal is for slackers, but there is some value in setting goals that you’re confident you’ll achieve. Using that confidence as a springboard for trying new things can be a useful thing–kind of like doing the perfect swan dive as a warm-up for an Olympic-caliber diver. The problem is if you stop at those, you don’t get to really compete with the big dogs.
Let’s dive into the second kind of goal–the uncertain one.
Goal-setting has been written about every which way. This article is a little bit about setting, but more about accomplishing the goal. The kind of goals you set is certainly important, but for the sake of brevity, I’m going to assume you’re setting an uncertain goal that has some reasonable chance of success. The human brain is set up to help you achieve goals that you sincerely believe are achievable. If you want to stretch yourself or your business to new heights, here are my thoughts on goal-setting and goal-getting.
- Dream, but be motivated.
It’s OK to dream and have big goals. But if you’re actually going to accomplish them, you have to DO something about them, and that takes motivation. The very first thing you need to achieve a goal is a reason and deep desire to achieve it. The path to achieving goals is fraught with boredom, excuses and difficulty. You will have a lot of opportunities to talk yourself out of the goal. But if you can keep going back to the reason and your desire for the goal, those will help you stay on track. - Break it down into 24-hour bites.
The brain has a built in B.S. monitor that rings out when all you do is set an enormous goal but then don’t manage it to 24-hour cycles–daily mini goals. If your goal is to shed 50 pounds, your brain doesn’t see you 50 pounds lighter in 24 hours, but it can see you five ounces lighter in that time. Set your goals so that your B.S. alarm doesn’t go off. To prevent that alarm bell, the mini goal must be reasonable and sustainable. Losing one pound in a day is doable, but it’s not reasonable or sustainable, so the B.S. sentinel will scream its head off, and you’ll eventually stop going after your big goal. - Do something daily.
Nothing replaces repetition and creating momentum like doing something to get you closer to your goal every day. You will naturally take some time off, but if you don’t take seriously the first 30 days of work on the goal and use them to create momentum, it’s almost guaranteed you won’t get there. The first 30 days are critical to convincing your B.S. monitor that you’re serious. Organizationally, it convinces colleagues you’re serious. - Adapt and adjust.
As you work on your daily mini goals and toward the bigger goal, be willing to adapt. Make the mini goals more difficult if they seem too easy. Make them easier if they become too taxing. The main thing is that if your brain deems the mini goal to be too difficult, you’ll quit. If it’s too easy, you’re running in place. Find the middle so you have advancement each day. - Feedback and reward.
The human brain responds to two things to learn and attain new behaviors and knowledge: feedback and reward. As you go about your goal-getting, be brave enough to request feedback from others, and then reward yourself each day for accomplishing your little goals. Research has shown that even keeping a calendar where you put a little gold star on the days you are successful (a la kindergarten) can be effective positive reinforcement. The visual is enough reward for the brain to know it’s doing something right. - Schedule slop time.
When I was a television news producer, the worst thing you could do going into a newscast is be so tightly scheduled that there was no room for error. Every newscast was filled with anchors reading more slowly than you counted on, reports going longer than they were supposed to and other time-gobblers. The good producers always included “slop time” in their show. They would leave one to two minutes of unscheduled time to be stolen by the gobblers. You should do the same with your goals. Schedule time when you’re not focused on your goal, when you get to cheat on it or not do it at all. You’re going to do it anyway, so you might as well allow yourself the room to be human so you don’t feel dejected by temporarily ignoring your goal. Just don’t make it a habit. - Know you’re going to get bored.
Doing something in small pieces each day can lead to boredom. Do it anyway. Achieving goals isn’t always about a daily cork-popping ceremony to celebrate something sensational you did. It’s usually about sticking to the daily, boring small stuff. Get that right, make it slightly more difficult each day, and do it again and again. People who achieve their goals usually do it because they kept going when it gets tough and boring.
There is no secret formula to success. Sure, luck comes into play, but it’s foolhardy to count on that. Mostly, it’s having a direction and place you want to get to and then showing up for the daily grind. Hopefully, it’s not about overeating. Go get ‘em.
