STEPS TO SUCCESS IN 2012

We are now one week into the new year and you might be looking around you and noticing how organised people around you are. Maybe--your mother, roommate, co-workers--always seem so organized? Like they were born that way?

While others--often defined as creative or spontaneous-- need constant reminders if there's any hope of getting anything done? Like a sticky note on the bathroom mirror saying, 'brush and floss.'

Even if you're not born organized, you can look and feel like you are. How? By acting that way. By changing what you do so it reflects how you want to be. And how do you do that? By working to develop routines like those of our friends and family who were 'just born that way'.

1) What's Important? Goals

What is most important to you? Keeping your house spotless? Knitting afghans for your best friends' babies? Running every morning? Volunteering at your kids' school? Your goals are the basis of your routines. Success isn't a one off event, its lots of little things done over and over. 

2) What's Urgent? Priorities

What are the tasks that you can't put off or delegate to someone else? Driving morning carpool? Working your 9-to-5 job? Taking your mother-in-law to weekly medical appointments? Your priorities are an important part of your routines.

3) What Comes First?

What are the tasks that have to be done first thing when you get up? Dressing quickly for morning carpool? Brushing and flossing? Starting that pot of coffee that helps you get moving? These will be the first steps of your daily routine.

4) What Comes Next?

Then what do you have to do? Wake the kids? Take the dog out? Fix breakfast? These will be the next steps of your daily routine.

5) Making Lists

List your 'what comes first' tasks. Then add your 'what comes next' tasks. Next come your goals. Followed by your priorities.

6) Checking it Twice

Read through your list several times, making sure you've included everything that you really have to get done, and everything that you really, really want to do. Your list might have 20 tasks. It might have 80. Don't worry. You don't have to do these tasks--at least for now. Just get them on your list.

7) Organizing Routines by Time of Day

Divide your day into several segments that make sense to you. Perhaps your day divides into AM; Noon; PM; and Evening. Or into four-hour segments such as 6 to 10; 10 to 2; 2 to 6; and 6 to 10.

8) Dividing Routines into Steps

Now mark, color code, or number your tasks by which segment they belong in. Most will be obvious. Morning car pool has to be in the AM or 6 to 10 segment. Others are tasks you usually do at one time of day or another. Mark these for any time segment, or even have an additional category for 'anytime' tasks.

9) Starting Small

Make your first daily routine list short. At least three items; but no more than five. For example, the five items on your list will start with the first two tasks for your morning routine, followed by one goal and two priorities. Your starting small list might be: (1) brush and floss; (2) start coffee; (3) take morning run; (4) drive morning car pool; and (5) check in with mother-in-law.

10) Building a Foundation

The goal of this exercise is to establish daily routines. At this point it is not to see how many tasks you can complete before you fall into bed exhausted at midnight. By completing the five tasks on your list every day without fail you will start to develop your routine muscle. It's generally believed that it takes about three or four weeks to make or break a habit. So, keep working at your short list of daily routines for that long.

11) Keeping Track

For the first few days, completing the same tasks one right after the other may be difficult, even if your list is only three or four or five tasks long . But keep at it. Possibly even make a chart, checking off the tasks as completed or writing the number of tasks completed.

12) Getting Better

As you find you're able to complete all the tasks on your short list, start adding more tasks, going as slowly or as quickly as feels comfortable to you. You're not in a race. You're developing routines. You're building habits. You have nothing to prove to anyone -- not even yourself.

13) Falling Behind

One day you might complete 20 tasks on a list of 30. Another day you might get stalled after your original five. Or even your first task. We all do. Developing routines is difficult, especially when we're not used to doing things in the same order every day.

14) Not Getting Discouraged

Don't let yourself get discouraged. You can develop routines. Even if you've spent your entire life of 20 or 30 or 60 years doing things as you think of them. Or putting them off for another day or week or month. You just need to keep at it. One day you'll discover that you're completing five or even 25 tasks without even looking at your list.

15) Forgiving Yourself

Even if you drop down to just that first item on your list, don't start dumping on yourself. You would be supportive if it was your best friend who was trying to develop routines, so be a good friend and forgive yourself.

16) Starting Over

Perhaps you've worked your way up to completing 20 items on your 30-item checklist. Perhaps you're still working on five. And then you find yourself in a slump. Several days pass by when urgent items take up all of your time. Or you're depressed for a week. Or your kids are sick. Just start over again when you can. Start by doing the first task on your list. Or the first two. The number doesn't matter. Completing your daily routine checklist does. Even if there is only one item on that checklist.

Soon someone will say about you, 'Oh, he was just born organized.' 

Igniting lives on fire

www.fraserstirling.co.nz 

TIME IS TICKING

Its New years eve and I go thinking about time as I was looking back over the year.  I then was reminded of this great article by one of my mentors and chose to share it. 

Clock of Time By Napoleon Hill The hands of the Clock of Time are moving swiftly onward! We cry out, "Backward, turn backward O Time in your flight," but Time does not heed your cries. It is later than you think! Arouse yourself, fellow wayfarer; awake and take possession of your own mind while you still have enough Time to become, during the yet unexpired future, that which you would have liked to have been in the past. Make the most of your present allotment of Time, with the hope that you will not have to reincarnate in order to do the job all over again because of neglect. You have been warned! Now the responsibility is YOURS. There is a simple test by which you may judge whether or not you have been using your Time to best advantage. If you have attained peace of mind and material opulence sufficient for your needs, your Time has been properly used. If you have not attained these blessings, your Time has not been properly used, and you should begin now to search for the circumstances in connection with which you have fallen short. The truly great people have no such reality as "idle time," because they keep their minds geared eternally to patterns of constructive thought. By this profound use of their Time, they develop an alert sixth sense through which they look, listen, and see from within. If negative thoughts stray into the minds of the truly great, these thoughts are immediately transmuted into positive thoughts and exercised by positive physical action appropriate to their nature. Tick, tick, tick - the pendulum of the Clock of Time is swinging rapidly! The entire face of civilization is undergoing an uplifting operation. Mr. Right and Mr. Wrong are engaged in mortal combat for supremacy. The Time has come for everyone to stand up and be counted. The use each of us makes of his individual allotment of Time will tell whose side each of us is on - Mr. Right's or Mr. Wrong's. Something has speeded up the Clock of Time so rapidly that the last half of the twentieth century will reveal to mankind more individual opportunities for self-improvement that have been revealed during the entire past of man's existence. Your share of these vast OPPORTUNITIES may be embraced and used only by the way you relate yourself to TIME! Source: You Can Work Your Own Miracles. Fawcett Columbine Book. 1971. Pgs. 119 & 120.

HOW DO I GET MORE DONE?

Following on from the other day, there is another key thing to get lots done each day.....using time wisely/ There is a law that states: "There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing." You Always Find the Time When you run out of time and the consequences for non-completion of a key task or project can be really serious, you always seem to find the time to get it done, often at the very last minute. You start early, you stay late and you drive yourself to complete the job rather than to face the negative consequences that would follow if you didn't get it completed within the time limit. Rule: "There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do." You Are Already Overwhelmed The fact is that the average person today is working at 110% to 130% of capacity. And the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. Everyone has stacks of reading material they still have to go through. One study concluded recently that the average executive has 300-400 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 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. "Could your time management skills get you laid-off this year?" In today's economy, business is harder than it used to be--people in every industry have to work smarter and harder to show that they deserve to be there. If you don't have the skills to perform for your company and prove that you are the best asset for them, you may be left behind. Click for more >> Deadlines Can Be Counterproductive Many people say that they work better under the pressure of deadlines. Unfortunately, years of research indicate that this is seldom true. Under the pressure of deadlines, often self-created through procrastination and delay, people suffer greater stress, make more mistakes, and have to do redo more tasks, than under any other conditions. Often the mistakes that are made when people are working under tight deadlines lead to defects and cost overruns that lead to substantial financial losses in the long-term. Sometimes the job actually takes much longer to complete when people rush to get the job done at the last minute and then have to redo it. The Key Question You Should Ask The key question you can ask is: "What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?" This is the core question of time management. This is the key to overcoming procrastination and becoming a highly productive person. Every hour of every day, there is an answer to this question. Your job is to ask yourself the question, over and over again, and to always be working on the answer to it, whatever it is. Do first things first and second things not at all. As Goethe said, "The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least." The more accurate your answers to this question, the easier it will be for you to set clear priorities, to overcome procrastination and to get started on that one activity that represents the most valuable use of your time. Take a few minutes each day and sit quietly where you cannot be disturbed. During this time, let your mind relax and just think about your work and activities, without stress or pressure. In almost every case, during this time of solitude, you will receive wonderful insights and ideas that will save you enormous amounts of time when you apply them back on the job. Often you will experience breakthroughs that will change the direction of your life and work. Ignite the fire within www.fraserstirling.co.nz