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“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” - Abraham Lincoln
I never did the uncomfortable work. Instead, I found a job to escape those hard tasks.
you have to form alliances, be strategic, outperform your targets, and be great at what you do.
There’s no such thing as a secret to succeeding at work. However, we prefer to escape work.
Steven Pressfield calls this inner enemy Resistance in his classic, The War Of Art. And this is what he says about it:
“Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”
When you procrastinate, you always want to do it tomorrow.
anything that helps you to control your thoughts and improve your mental toughness. I don’t want to be a slave to my thoughts.
exercise my body every day.
have a set of daily habits that help me to be in control of my life.
I always have a list of small (but important) tasks that I have to complete.
study and practice the science of persuasion to get my message across.
“You can be the best writer and teacher in the world, but if no one knows about it, you can’t make an impact.”
It’s about developing a sustainable system to build your life, career, and business on.
What’s your system for living a productive life?
Work on it today. Not tomorrow.
That means every time you’re not focused; you’re giving someone or something permission to enter your mind.
1. Eliminate. Eliminate. Eliminate
We accumulate ideas.
We’re exposed to so many ideas that we adopt some of them, and make them our own.
Ideas about how you can improve your life, career, business, or relationships. We all do it. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
“What thing(s) should I eliminate to make my life so simple that it’s easy to focus?”
Elimination is a key strategy that I use for many aspects of my life.
2. Think About Past Success
Thinking about past success and happiness stimulates the production of serotonin,
Serotonin
it also helps to reduce depression, increase libido, stabilize mood, control sleep, and regulate anxiety.
When your serotonin activity goes down, it can lead to a lack of focus on the long-term.
That’s why you are giving into short-term pleasures like going out, drinking, shopping, having sex, watching TV, or anything else that gives you short-term pleasure.
“All you need to do [to increase serotonin levels] is remember positive events that have happened in your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a region just behind the prefrontal cortex that controls attention.”
When I can’t focus, the first thing I do is to acknowledge that I have a problem that needs a solution.
Acknowledge the problem
Focus on your life. Think about what matters to you. Then, do those things and don’t get distracted — stay on the path.
Abraham Lincoln: “You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”
When you procrastinate, you might feel better on the short-term, but you will suffer in the long-term.
“The present evidence suggests that procrastinators enjoy themselves rather than working at assigned tasks, until the rising pressure of imminent deadlines forces them to get to work. In this view, procrastination may derive from a lack of self-regulation and hence a dependency on externally imposed forces to motivate work.”
Self-regulation, self-control, willpower, are all things that we overestimate.
when you give into one distraction. And that’s exactly the moment you give up being productive.
Willpower Doesn’t Work. Systems Do.
What you really need is a system for doing work. A lot of people shy away from routines, systems and frameworks because they want to have “freedom.”
Freedom is your enemy. The fact is that, if you want to get things done, you need rules.
Self-imposed deadlines. Accountability systems (commitment with friends, or a coach). Working/studying in intervals. Exercising 30 minutes a day. A healthy diet. Eliminating distractions. And most importantly: Internal motivation.
The deadlines create urgency, accountability will create responsibility, working in intervals improves your focus, exercising will give you more energy, so does a healthy diet, and eliminating distractions will take away the temptations.
But there’s no system that can help you if you don’t have an inner drive.
If you know why you’re doing something, even the most annoying tasks become bearable. It will become a part of the bigger picture.
Effectiveness,
to getting the right things done.
It’s easy to do useless work. Work that doesn’t bring you closer to the outcomes you desire.
You might work for 50 hours a week, but if you don’t experience any growth personally, emotionally, financially, you’re not effective.
Drucker, who essentially invented the term personal effectiveness.
How do you know your time? Keep an activity log.
