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The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life.
The Need to Be Selective
Determine your end goal in the future.
Prioritise what's to be done in present.
No matter how the results appear to be turning out. Believe in your end goal. Methods might fail, purposes never do.
get started on that task and to get it done both quickly and well,
The first rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.
most important decisions you make each day is what you will do immediately and what you will do later,
The second rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long.
Take Action Immediately
Your success in life and work will be determined by the kinds of habits that you develop over time. The habit of setting priorities, overcoming procrastination, and getting on with your most important task is a mental and physical skill. As such, this habit is learnable through practice and repetition, over and over again, until it locks into your subconscious mind and becomes a permanent part of your behavior. Once it becomes a habit, it becomes both automatic and easy to do.
this habit is learnable through practice and repetition, over and over again, until it locks into your subconscious mind and becomes a permanent part of your behavior.
This habit of starting and completing important tasks has an immediate ...
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The completion of an important task triggers the release of endorphins in your brain.
Develop a Positive Addiction
One of the keys to your living a wonderful life, having a successful career, and feeling terrific about yourself is to develop the habit of starting and finishing important jobs. When you do, this behavior will take on a power of its own and you’ll find it easier to complete important tasks than not to complete them.
No Shortcuts
The Three Ds of New Habit Formation
You need three key qualities to develop the habits of focus and concentration, which are all learnable. They are decision, discipline, and determination.
make a decision to develop the habit of task completion. Second, discipline yourself to practice the principles you are about to learn over and over until they become automatic. And third, back everything you do with determination until the hab...
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See yourself as the kind of person who gets important jobs done quickly and well on a consistent basis.
The number one reason why some people get more work done faster is because they are absolutely clear about their goals and objectives, and they don’t deviate from them.
A major reason for procrastination and lack of motivation is vagueness, confusion, and fuzzy-mindedness about what you are trying to do and in what order and for what reason.
Step one: Decide exactly what you want. Either decide for yourself or sit down with your boss and discuss your goals and objectives until you are crystal clear about what is expected of you and in what order of priority.
Stephen Covey says, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”
Step two: Write it down. Think on paper. When you write down a goal, you crystallize it and give it tangible form. You create something that you can touch and see. On the other hand, a goal or objective that is not in writing is merely a wish or a fantasy. It has no energy behind it.
Without a definite deadline accompanied by the assignment or acceptance of specific responsibilities for completion, you will naturally procrastinate and get very little done.
Step four: Make a list of everything you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. As you think of new activities, add them to your list. Keep building your list until it is complete. A list gives you a visual picture of the larger task or objective. It gives you a track to run on.
Step five: Organize the list into a plan. Organize your list by priority and sequence. List all tasks in the order they need to be done. Take a few minutes to decide what you need to do first and what you can do later.
Step six: Take action on your plan immediately.
Step seven: Resolve to do something every single day that moves you toward your major goal.
Think about your goals and review them daily. Every morning when you begin, take action on the most important task you can accomplish to achieve your most important goal at the moment.
“Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.”
The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the “Pareto Principle” after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the “vital few,” the top 20 percent in terms of money and influence, and the “trivial many,” the bottom 80 percent.
Rule: Resist the temptation to clear up small things first.
Low-value tasks are like rabbits; they multiply continually. You never get caught up.
Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control of the sequence of events.
The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not doing something.
Rule: Long-term thinking improves short-term decision making.
By definition, something that is important has long-term potential consequences. Something that is unimportant has few or no long-term potential consequences. Before starting on anything, you should always ask yourself, “What are the potential consequences of doing or not doing this task?”
Rule: Future intent influences and often determines present actions.
“Losers try to escape from their fears and drudgery with activities that are tension-relieving. Winners are motivated by their desires toward activities that are goal-achieving.”
If a task or activity has large potential positive consequences, make it a top priority and get started on it immediately. If something can have large potential negative consequences if it is not done quickly and well, that becomes a top priority as well. Whatever your frog is, resolve to gulp it down first thing.
The Law of Forced Efficiency says, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.”
Rule: There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do.
the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. We all have stacks of reading material we still have to go through. Many people have hundreds of hours of reading and projects backlogged at home and at the office. What this means is that you will never be caught up. Get that wishful idea out of your mind. All you can hope for is to be on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.
Like focusing the lens of a camera, you must be crystal clear about your highest-value activities before you begin work.
“What can I and only I do, that if done well, will make a real difference?”
“What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”
Do first things first and second things not at all.
Goethe said, “The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.”
Goethe: “Only engage, and the mind grows heated. Begin it, and the work will be completed.”
The fact is that you can’t do everything that you have to do. You have to procrastinate on something.
