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Get rid of the tadpoles and focus on the frogs.
A priority is something that you do more of and sooner, while a posteriority is something that you do less of and later, if at all.
Rule: You can get your time and your life under control only to the degree to which you discontinue lower-value activities.
Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, was once asked his secret of success. He replied, “Simple. I just say no to everything that is not absolutely vital to me at the moment.”
Say no to anything that is not a high-value use of your time and your life. Say no graciously but firmly to avoid agreeing to something against your will. Say it early and say it often. Remember that you have no spare time. As we say, “Your dance card is full.”
Your job is to deliberately procrastinate on tasks that are of low value so that you have more time for tasks that can make a big difference in your life and work. Continually review your duties and responsibilities to identify time-consuming tasks and activities that you can abandon with no real loss. This is an ongoing responsibility for you that never ends.
Practice “zero-based thinking” in every part of your life. Ask yourself continually, “If I were not doing this already, knowing what I now know, would I start doing it again today?” If it is something you would not start again today, knowing what you now know, it is a prime candidate for abandonment or creative procrastination.
You start with a list of everything you have to do for the coming day. Think on paper. You then place an A, B, C, D, or E next to each item on your list before you begin the first task. An “A” item is defined as something that is very important, something that you must do. This is a task that will have serious positive or negative consequences if you do it or fail to do it,
If you have more than one A task, you prioritize these tasks by writing “A-1,” “A-2,” “A-3,” and so on in front of each item. Your A-1 task is your biggest, ugliest frog of all.
A “B” item is defined as a task that you should do. But it has only mild consequences. These are the tadpoles of your work life. This means that someone may be unhappy or inconvenienced if you don’t do one of these tasks, but it is nowhere as important as an A task.
The rule is that you should never do a B task when an A task is left undone. You should never be distracted by a tadpole when a big frog is sitting there waiting to be eaten.
A “C” task is defined as something that would be nice to do but for which there are no consequences at all, whether you do it or not. C tasks include phoning a friend, having coffee or lunch with a coworker, and completing some personal business during work hours.
A “D” task is defined as something you can delegate to someone else. The rule is that you should delegate everything that someone else can do so you can free up mo...
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An “E” task is defined as something that you can eliminate altogether, and it won’t make any real difference. This may be a task that was important at one time but is no longer relevant to you or anyone else. Often it is something you continue to do out of habit or because you enjoy it. But every minute that you spend on an E task is ...
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But if you are not crystal clear about why you are on the payroll and what results you have been hired to accomplish, it is very hard for you to perform at your best, get paid more, and get promoted faster.
Rule: Your weakest key result area sets the height at which you can use all your other skills and abilities.
The fact is that everybody has both strengths and weaknesses. Refuse to rationalize, justify, or defend your areas of weakness. Instead, identify them clearly. Set a goal and make a plan to become very good in each of those areas.
“What one skill, if I developed and did it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on my career?”
Perhaps the most important word in the world of work is contribution. Your rewards, both financial and emotional, will always be in direct proportion to your results, to the value of your contribution.
1. What are your three most important business or career goals right now? 2. What are your three most important family or relationship goals right now? 3. What are your three most important financial goals right now? 4. What are your three most important health goals right now? 5. What are your three most important personal and professional development goals right now? 6. What are your three most important social and community goals right now? 7. What are your three biggest problems or concerns in life right now?
The main reason to develop time management skills is so that you can complete everything that is really important in your work and free up more and more time to do the things in your personal life that give you the greatest happiness and satisfaction.
Rule: It is the quality of time at work that counts and the quantity of time at home that matters.
To keep your life in balance, you should resolve to work all the time you work. When you go to work, put your head down and work the whole time. Start a little earlier, stay a little later, and work a little harder. Don’t waste time. Every minute that you spend in idle chitchat with coworkers is time taken away from the work that you must accomplish if you want to do well at your job.
When everything is laid out neatly and in sequence, you will feel much more like getting on with the job.
Once you have completed your preparations, it is essential that you launch immediately toward your goals. Get started. Do the first thing, whatever it is.
you can accomplish the biggest task in your life by disciplining yourself to take it just one step at a time. Your job is to go as far as you can see. You will then be able to see far enough to go further.
To accomplish a great task, you must step out in faith and have complete confidence that your next step will soon become clear to you. Remember this wonderful advice: “Leap—and the net will appear!”
Rule: Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.
Identify the Limiting Factor
Starting off your day with the removal of a key bottleneck or constraint fills you with energy and personal power. It propels you into following through and completing the job. Often, alleviating a key constraint or limiting factor is the most important frog you could eat at that moment.
Lead the Field See yourself as a role model. Raise the bar on yourself.
Your self-esteem has been defined by psychologist Nathaniel Branden as “the reputation you have with yourself.” You build up or pull down your reputation with yourself with everything you do or fail to do. The good news is that you feel better about yourself whenever you push yourself to do your best. You increase your self-esteem whenever you go beyond the point where the average person would normally quit.
Successful people continually put the pressure on themselves to perform at high levels. Unsuccessful people have to be instructed and pressured by others.
All of life is the study of attention; where your attention goes, your life follows. JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
Current research proves that continuously responding and reacting to e-mails, telephone calls and texts, and instant messages (IM) has a negative effect on your brain, shortening your attention span and making it difficult, if not impossible, for you to complete the tasks upon which your future and your success depend.
Like the sound of bells ringing when you win while playing a slot machine, the sound of the e-mail or IM triggers the reaction of “What did I win?” You immediately stop your work to find out what your “prize” is.
After an Internet interruption, it takes about seventeen minutes for you to shift your total attention back to your task and continue working. This is precisely why so many people today are working harder and harder, shifting from e-mail interruptions to work and back again, all day long, and getting less and less accomplished. They also make more mistakes.
Finally, resolve to check your e-mail only twice a day, at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., and then turn it off again each time. Provide a telephone number where someone can reach you in an emergency.
The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably, in thought and act. ORISON SWETT MARDEN
An important point to remember is that you have deep within you an “urge to completion,” or what is often referred to as a “compulsion to closure.” This means that you actually feel happier and more powerful when you start and complete a task of any kind.
You satisfy a deep subconscious need to bring finality to a job or project. This sense of completion or closure motivates you to start the next task or project and then to persist toward final completion. This act of completion triggers the release of endorphins in your brain,
Many people read great books fifteen minutes each night before retiring. In this way, over time, they eventually read dozens of the best books ever written.
Schedule Blocks of Time The key to the success of this method of working in specific time segments is for you to plan your day in advance and schedule a fixed time period for a particular activity or task.
Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. NAPOLEON HILL
When you’re in the state of flow, which is the highest human state of performance and productivity, something almost miraculous happens to your mind and emotions. You feel elated and clear. Everything you do seems effortless and accurate. You feel happy and energized. You experience a tremendous sense of calm and increased personal effectiveness.
One of the ways you can trigger this state of flow is by developing a sense of urgency. This is an inner drive and desire to get on with the job quickly and get it done fast. It is an impatience that motivates you to get going and to keep going. A sense of urgency feels very much like racing against yourself.
This principle says that although it may take tremendous amounts of energy to overcome inertia and get started initially, it then takes far less energy to keep going.
Single handling requires that once you begin, you keep working at the task without diversion or distraction until the job is 100 percent complete.
