How to Do More, Every Day!
The Four Simple Steps
1/ The Morning Ritual
2/ Better Goal Setting
3/ Stay On Focus
4/ Feed Your Mind
1/ Morning Ritual
One of my favourite “motivational quotes” is –
“Stop looking for the “Ab King Pro” $69.95 quick fix solution – Just do the work”
Yep, to achieve most of the goals and dreams we set ourselves, you just have to put the work in. There aren’t too many shortcuts.
Having a Morning Ritual isn’t a short cut, but it certainly maximises the time that we all have. A specific morning routine is also a trait shared by most wildly successful people and goes a long way towards helping people achieve success. It helps them to put in the work required and tick off the steps required to hit the goals.
In this book Hal Elrod puts forward the theory that … A Productive and Focussed Morning will lead to a Productive and Focussed day.
His suggestion is to grab some extra time at the start of each day and follow a set 6 part routine that really sets up the rest of the day plus allows time for personal development and exercise.
The extra time he suggests may come as a shock to some of you, (one hour earlier) but one of the beauties of his “system” is that it is entirely modular and adaptable. He even includes a 10 minute version plus a big section on tricks and techniques to help you gain that extra time.
And don’t worry, it’s not all “go go go” and the “reving up” that you find in many “motivational” books.
In fact the first step is actually to sit and grab some quiet time and in other steps you just read and spend some time writing.
You can probably tell, I’m a huge fan of this.
It’s easy to implement, it’s modular and flexible and it does work!
It’s also a book available as hard copy or eBook, it’s dead cheap to buy and once you have the book, it’s not going to cost you anything more.
Well, perhaps just a new alarm clock. Check out the price on Amazon here.
2/ Better Goal Setting – A Quick Guide
Imagine this …
By just changing One Simple Thing around the way you plan things and make goals, you could dramatically multiply – what you got done, what you achieve and what you earn!
Sound interesting?
I was recommended the book The 12 Week Year some time ago and devoured it in one plane trip. I subsequently put the framework into action and absolutely love it. It fits perfectly with the Morning Ritual mentioned above and also is flexible enough to be used by anyone.
In a nutshell, you redesign your thinking about “a year.”
Annualised thinking, eg. “I’m going to get this done this year” or “my big project for the year is …” is fraught with problems. Mainly, we always think there is plenty of time left!
We often set our goals in January, make a few plans in February, by March we’ve started to take some action, drop focus for a while mid year, and by about September/October realise that we will really have to get cracking to complete in December, that’s if we haven’t abandoned the plans altogether.
Sound familier?
The problem is the 52 week plan lacks urgency. You think there’s always enough time to catch up and when you don’t, you think and rely on something magical happening at the end of the year to get you across the line.
And most of the time that last minute dash works. Many companies and individuals have their best results in the last couple of months. The looming deadline, possible commissions and bonus in their sight works wonders.
So why not have several of these solid deadlines instead of just the one?
The 12 Week Year concept borrows heavily from elite sports training techniques where athletes focus on one particular skill set for a period and then move on to another.
You make your plans in 12 week blocks. This is your new “year.” 12 weeks is long enough to get things done but it’s short enough that the deadline is in sight all the time, providing that essential sense of urgency.
The book The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran is an easy read, filled with different techniques, approaches and motivation to get you going. No wonder it was a New York Times bestseller.
If you want, or need, to absolutely get more done then I strongly suggest you get a copy. It’s available in a handy ebook version, I believe an audio version, as well as hard cover. There is also a Workbook, Online Support etc, but really, the less than $10 you will spend for a copy is going to be all you need.
It worked for me … Check out the current Amazon Pricing Here
3/ Stay On Focus – A Quick Guide
Ok, so we’ve looked at how to START every day off well and an excellent way to set better GOALS by chunking ito 12 week bursts and how that breaks down into weekly goals and then tasks for the day. But how to Stay On Focus each and every day?
Do you want to learn one simple trick that will keep you more focused and more productive every day? To keep that momentum up?
I bet you do.
And this is one of the easiest and most productive productivity hacks I’m ever going to share with you … The Secret of the Locked Box!
Let me explain.
Like you, I have quite a few projects going on, ideas I want to follow and I have to be quite disciplined with my time.
I have to allocate it in the right place.
But there’s always these distractions waiting to take you down the rabbit hole.
Especialy on You Tube! One minute you’re watching a video about marketing and growing your business and suddenly it’s 30 minutes later and you’re learning about Bee Keeping & Icecream making.
When you’re powering along on at one thing, in the groove, ideas come to you and as creative people it’s VITAL that we capture those ideas.
So what we need to do is create a space to store those ideas and learn to trust that they are safe until we can go back to them.
We need a Locked Box!
Now, I’m not talking much here.
Physically it can be a clipboard on your desk or a sheet of paper.
Or you can create a dedicated space on your Daily Work Sheet.
Or go digital and use Evernote, Notes etc.
(But you know what, Analogue is often much faster.)
So once you’ve captured that idea , that thought, To Do or whatever …
you get back to the task at hand, confident that it is captured, safe and secure.
Then , either half way through your day or at the end of the Day when you review your progress and plan the following day you can assess the ideas and thoughts and prioritise them.
They can go into a specific project folder, a possibles list
or you might schedule some time for in an upcoming session.
The trick here is that by using a Locked Box …
A – You didn’t lose focus, you kept the momentum going on your priority task for the day
B – You didn’t lose the idea, it’s now safe and waiting for you.
C – You have a System of Review or Triage of those ideas.
It sounds simple and most of you probably do something similar, but having a SYSTEM means that you get more benefit from it.
4/ Feed Your Mind
If you checked out the Hal Elrod book at Step 1 you know that reading is an important part of the daily Ritual.
We have a dedicated page with some of my favourite books right here.
But before you head over there you might want to check out these 9 ebooks that you can download for free!
Matt Church is an old friend of mine from my National Speakers Association days. He’s just made these books available for anyone which is a very generous offer.
I mean they are all excellent books, but you might want to check out in particular the “Speakership” title, the 2 on “Thought Leadership, and I actually really like the last three on the page about understanding your energy levels.
You can check them out here and you can thank me later!