Displaying All Posts tagged with Goals

The Productivity Rule of Three

Being consistently productive is hard work and it takes a lot of discipline to maintain.  There are tasks and projects coming at you from colleagues.  We all run the risk of information overload thanks to websites, RSS feeds and – most recently – social media.  Even if you have a system in place there are times when it is going to seem impossible to keep up with everything.

So don’t.

If you can get three big things done per day (Leo Babauta refers to them as MITs or Big Rocks), then you’re winning.  You’ll most certainly handle little things here and there that you come across throughout your day – routine stuff – but if you decide that you must get three big things done every day, you’re being really productive.  Be sure to prioritize them accordingly, otherwise you’re going to be doing some tasks that may not move you forward as much as others might.  The mind works well with the number three.  Two seems easy and four seems a bit daunting, but three is like Baby Bear’s porridge…just right.

This isn’t anything new, of course. Productivity experts have been preaching this in some form or another for years.  We just tend to forget about it every once in a while.

So if you find that you’re getting caught up and your wheels start spinning, just roll up your sleeves and do three big things.  You’ll end up doing bigger things down the road if you do. Click Here to Read Article …

Achieving: The Over/Under

How productive you are is never about simply achieving.  Everybody achieves something sometimes.

It is the lengths to which one goes to achieve that makes them extraordinary or just plain ordinary.  Or perhaps less.

Effort is what propels achievement – and it’s often not the person with the most talent that stands out but the one who worked the hardest.  Prominent leadership expert/speaker/author John Maxwell has touched on this in many of his books, most prominently in Talent Is Never Enough.

Be honest with yourself…if you’re not getting what you want out of what you’re doing, what’s holding you back?  Are you making the most of what you’ve got or resting on your laurels?  What keeps your achievement level high – or what brings it down? Click Here to Read Article …

How Far Ahead Do You Plan?

Its been made pretty clear that an integral part of being awesome at being productive is doing some planning. When, where and what method you use are questions only you can figure out through trial and error.

Once youve stopped trying and (hopefully) erring, you can dig a little deeper and look further into the future. Thats when the real meat of goal-setting comes into play. Thats when life gets interesting…and more fulfilling.

How far ahead do you plan? How many weeks, months, years? Do you plan activities, events and goals? How far down the rabbit hole do you go?

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The Rock Solid Reflection Plan

One of the best ways – some would say the only way – to keep tabs on where you’re at and where you’re headed in terms of being productive is by looking back on where you’ve been.  It’s challenging to do this regularly.  Really challenging.  What’s more is that many people don’t do it at all.  Doing this (or, rather, not doing this) is a recipe of mediocrity…or even organizational disaster.

All that aside, you can do this.  You can review, reflect, revisit…whatever you’d like to call it…and you can do it regularly.  I’m not going to outline what this consists of – there’s many different ways to do it and not one particular method works for everyone unilaterally.  What I can do is present to you a plan on how to make sure you get to the act of doing it. Click Here to Read Article …

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How to Turn Your Goals Into Actions

Most people understand the need to set goals and higher standards, but how does that translate into practice? What does it mean to have a goal to “Lose 10 pounds,” or “Get promoted”? Drilling down to an actionable level of detail makes the difference between aspiration and achievement. One of the keys to actualizing goals is understanding the difference between goals and projects.

Click Here to Read Article …

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Live What You Love

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” – Christian (as played by Ewan McGregor), Moulin Rouge!

If you’re reading this there’s a good chance you fall into one of the following two categories:

  1. You don’t love what you’re doing and want to see if I have any insight into the topic…the title of the article brought you here.
  2. You used to love what you’re doing but are currently in doubt about it. You need a boost.
  3. You’re not loving your life and want to. Again, the title brought you here.

No matter which category you fall into, I hope by bringing you my own journey into “living what I love” will inspire you to aspire for the same.
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The 80/20 Rule Revisited

The 80/20 Rule can save massive amounts of time and energy when properly understood and applied. As with many observations described as rules, failing to understanding the operating principles underlying the 80/20 Rule leads can lead to some pretty academic debates about its veracity, which ultimately leads inaction.

Repopularized in Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek, the 80/20 Rule is a shorthand term for a series of observations made by an Italian political economist in the 19th Century, Vilfredo Pareto (hence the other name for the 80/20 Rule, the “Pareto Principle”). He noted that 20% of Italy’s population owned 80% of its wealth. He saw this reciprocal distribution play out in other domains: 20% of all of the pea pods sown in the ground produced 80% of the peas, for instance. But just how universal is the 80/20 Rule, and can you apply it in your work and life? Click Here to Read Article …

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The Importance of Setting Goals

A good friend told me that within the last couple of weeks the most depressing day of the year pops up.  Some say it falls on the Monday, some say it falls on a specific day; the bottom line is that it falls somewhere in there.  So if you’re feeling a little low around that time, now you know why.

But I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: it doesn’t have to be that way.

Some say the reason that this time of year leads to a lack of fulfillment is because many have let their resolutions that they made only a few weeks before fall by the wayside.  The dull weather plays a part, too.  Oh, and let’s not forget the post-holiday credit card bills that fill your mailbox….and empty your wallet.

Click Here to Read Article …

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