If information is doubling every 7 years, then you have to at least double your information every 7 years just to stay even!

Do you love reading? I’d rather download the information and experiential [...]]]> Depending on your chosen field (industry, occupation), information is doubling every 18 months to 7 years or so.

If information is doubling every 7 years, then you have to at least double your information every 7 years just to stay even!

Do you love reading? I’d rather download the information and experiential knowledge directly into my nervous system similar to how they did it in the movie The Matrix.

But until that technology exists, we’ll have to do it the old fashioned way: read, listen to audio recordings, watch videos, attend seminars, workshops, and conventions, and/or hire coaches.

I don’t love reading, per se. I love having read. I have an insatiable appetite for knowledge. I love learning the wisdom of the ages from those who have gone before me. I’m like a dry sponge when it comes to increasing my knowledge. I can’t get enough. Why?

“Knowledge gives you leverage—when you apply it in your life.”

I love it when I discover new distinctions that change everything, especially psychological distinctions. I love anything and everything that helps me better master my thoughts, emotions, and actions so I can more elegantly live a happy and successful life.

There are two ways we can learn: from our experience and from other’s experience.

Reading gives you leverage. We only have so many hours in a day. We can’t do everything. Why reinvent the wheel? Learn from other’s experience.

The average person reads less than one book a year. If you want to be average, do that.

If you want to be exceptional or outstanding, read at least one hour a day in the area of your chosen field. According to Brian Tracy, “This alone will make you an expert in 3-5 years. It will make you a national authority in 5 years. It will make you an international authority in 7 years.”

If you read just one hour a day and you’re an average reader you will read about a book a week. That’s about 50 books in a year and 500 books in 10 years.

Do you think if you read 500 books in your chosen field you will be more effective and productive? Do you think it would affect or change your income? Your career? Your life?

Absotively!

Ten years will pass whether you decide to read an hour a day or not. The question to ask yourself is, “Where do I want to be in 10 years from now: having read 500 books in my chosen field or not?”

And remember, knowledge is not power. Only practical knowledge that can be applied toward getting desired results is power. So choose what you read wisely.

She apparently locked herself out of her home. With temperatures in the mid-teens (0 wind chill) and wearing only pajamas, [...]]]> WSMV TV channel 4 Nashville: A 73-year-old woman from Columbia was found dead Monday morning (12/13/2010) from apparently freezing to death, according to the Maury County Sheriff’s Department.

She apparently locked herself out of her home. With temperatures in the mid-teens (0 wind chill) and wearing only pajamas, she tried to get to her grandson’s house for help approximately 1/4 mile away and didn’t make it.

This was a terrible tragedy that could have easily been prevented. What’s the lesson we can take away from this?

One thing is to check on your elderly family members and neighbors when temperatures are dangerously low.

Another is something I’ve believed in and advocated for years: always, always, always have a backup. Like, for example:

• a backup solution, stored onsite, in case your computer (mother board, hard-drive, etc.) crashes or gets damaged (dropped or liquid spilled on it)
• an additional computer backup solution stored off-site and updated monthly in case your computer gets damaged due to fire, tornado, earthquake, flood or it’s stolen
• a hard copy backup of your account numbers, logins, and passwords in a fire proof file cabinet or safe
• a duplicate complete set of keys stored in your home to save you time and money (locksmith) in case you misplace your main set

And now, after hearing of this unfortunate death, if you haven’t already done so I’m strongly recommending having a key to your home hidden somewhere on the property — just in case — especially if your nearest neighbor isn’t very close in proximity to your home.

But even if you live in an apartment complex or have lots of nearby neighbors, with frigid temperatures like these, it’s simply not worth the risk.

I know people who put a key under their door mat, although I wouldn’t recommend it. That’s far too easy for would-be thieves.

If you don’t have a yard, I recommend putting a magnetic hide-a-key inside your car fender or steel bumper with your house key in it. Make sure it’s out of plain sight, but can easily be retrieved if and when you might need it.

If your home has a yard with landscaping, you might consider getting a hide-a-key disguised as a rock. It looks just like rock but has a hollowed out bottom for hiding a key.

They also make a thermostat hide-a key, but I prefer the rock because I believe it is less obvious to would-be thieves.

Whichever solution you decide to use, make sure everyone living with you knows where it’s kept.

You can get hide-a-keys at any hardware store or online for around $7 or less, an extremely affordable investment that could save you time, money (for a locksmith), and possibly your life someday. DO IT TODAY! I plan to.

You never procrastinate: you only choose to do activities that are not going to contribute to you achieving your most important goals, projects, or tasks as quickly as possible.

You are always doing something; you are never doing nothing.

Let’s say [...]]]> No one procrastinates. Even though I teach how to overcome procrastination, it’s really a misnomer.

You never procrastinate: you only choose to do activities that are not going to contribute to you achieving your most important goals, projects, or tasks as quickly as possible.

You are always doing something; you are never doing nothing.

Let’s say you’re sitting back on the couch, watching television and eating potato chips. You may be delaying doing something else, but you’re not procrastinating watching television. You are actively engaged in the activity of watching television.

So you are not procrastinating. You are simply not making great choices about how to spend your time. Or you are making great choices, depending on your goals.

If you’re goal is to be out of shape and unhealthy, I suppose choosing to excessively be a ‘couch potato’ is a good choice. If you’re goal is to be physically fit and healthy, then choosing to consistently exercise and eat healthy food are good choices.

Even when you’re sleeping you’re not procrastinating. You are choosing to participate in the act of sleeping.

When you’re sleeping, your mind and body are actively engaged in the concerted act of cleansing your body by expelling toxins through your sweat glands and breath. That’s why you have bad breath in the morning.

Choosing to consistently get adequate sleep promotes good health and is a good choice if one of your goals is to be in physically fit and healthy.

So figuring out how to consistently make great choices is a smart goal. That’s one of the keys to ‘black belt’ productivity: consistently making great choices about how you spend your time.

So to recap: it’s impossible to procrastinate. You can’t not do something. You are always engaged in some action.

If you find yourself automatically taking actions that goes against what you want, almost as if some else is in control of your actions (obsessive), then you may want to seek a qualified cognitive therapist. Cognitive therapy can help you overcome mental blocks, obsessions, and/or negative emotions (guilt, shame, etc.) that may be preventing your from consistently making great choices and following through with them.

In [...]]]> 6. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself. Life is too short not to have fun! Develop your sense of humor. Watch comedies. Treat yourself to live comedy shows. Hang out with fun and funny people! Like attracts like. Their sense of humor will rub off on you.

In my early 20′s I had the good fortune of having a roommate with an outrageous sense of humor. I give him a lot of credit for helping me develop my sense of humor and not taking myself too seriously. Take what your doing seriously, not yourself.

7. Adopt the belief that “I’d rather be happy than perfect.” Only if that’s your intention, of course.

8. Forgive yourself for not being perfect. Forgive others for not being perfect. What you focus on grows. Focus on what you like about yourself and others; ignore what you don’t like. Forgive yourself immediately and every time for not being perfect and let it go. Stay in the present moment.

9. If your self-esteem is linked to being perfect in everything you do, you’re setting yourself up for failure. It’s okay to strive for perfection, but when you make it a must you’re heading for trouble. Don’t achieve to be happy or raise your self-esteem. Instead, happily achieve or feel good about yourself regardless of your success. You will be more productive, successful and happy as a result.

10. Love yourself in spite of your imperfections. We all shine as different facets of the diamond. No one can be perfect at everything. So what? Love and accept yourself anyway — as you are — because ‘as you are’ is perfect for you, right now.

It is what it is. If you want to be happy and productive, be okay with ‘what is,’ while you work on continuously improving.

Until you’re walking on water, you won’t be perfect. Again, it’s okay to strive for perfection; that’s how you grow and evolve. You get into trouble when you make perfection a must. The late great Dr. Albert Ellis calls this musterbation.

Make perfection a preference rather than a must and you (and the people around you) will be much more productive, successful, and happy.

Clarifying your intentions makes all [...]]]> Before you can make the best use of your time you first need some basic information. Number one you need to know how to succeed. Once you know the formula for success, next you need to clarify your intentions, which includes your life purpose, your values, your passions, and your goals.

Clarifying your intentions makes all the difference in the world. Not clarifying your intentions is like owning a high performance luxury vehicle and not knowing where you’re going or even how to drive.

Your physical body and mind are like the car: it looks nice and is full of potential. But by not knowing where you’re going or how to drive the car you’ll never get into first gear, much less out of first gear and into second gear and beyond.

Clarifying your intentions takes work. But it’s the most productive thing you can possibly do because everything else that you do stems from your intentions.

It took me a little over 20 hours to completely clarify my intentions back in 1995 and it wasn’t set in stone. I kept refining my life purpose statement over many years.

It’s not important to get everything perfect up front. What’s important is to begin the process. Over time everything will become clearer and clearer. Do what you can now and be open and willing to change and grow/evolve over time.

Investing the time necessary to clarify your intentions will create a solid foundation from which to build the rest of your life upon. As a result of going through the process you will automatically become more successful, happy, and fulfilled and the concept of “procrastination” will vanish automatically.

Everything begins with intention. Fuzzy intentions will get you fuzzy results. Clearly defined intentions will get you more specific results. If you don’t take the time necessary to clarify your intentions, you’re choosing to give away your power to “whatever happens.” If you leave it up to chance, you’ll get what the world wants for you, which may not be very desirable.

Part of clarifying your intentions includes goal setting. Once you have clearly defined goals, you’re ready to ‘overcome procrastination’ or more accurately, you’re ready to make better decisions about how you spend your time and then take action on those decisions.

Busy doesn’t equal productive. By productive, I mean taking actions that progressively move you toward your most cherished goals at quickly as possible. It’s difficult to be highly [...]]]> How much actual productive time are you logging? I find it interesting how we sometimes kid ourselves into thinking we’re working a lot harder than we actually are.

Busy doesn’t equal productive. By productive, I mean taking actions that progressively move you toward your most cherished goals at quickly as possible. It’s difficult to be highly productive when you’re not aware of your current actions.

Have you ever run a time log on yourself? I do this every now and then and highly recommend it. I recently did it for a couple of weeks and was amazed at how much more productive I became as a result of seeing the truth about how I was spending my time.

You can use a simple data base table in Microsoft Excel to do this. Using Excel or any data base program will allow you to quickly sort and total the number of minutes and hours you’re spending on different categories.

For activity, I have two columns (referred to as fields in data bases) instead of one. Why? In one column I have general ‘global’ categories, because I like to see how much time was spent on business in general (banking activities, business phone calls, marketing, etc.), current projects I’m working on, and personal. The other column is for the activity detail.

My major ‘global’ categories:

Business
Project ABC
Project XYZ
Personal

You can create and use your own categories. I just made an Excel spreadsheet that automatically totals the times for you and has a running total at the top. Click here to download it now.

I’ve been a FileMaker Pro data base user/programmer since 1989. I created a time log database that makes the process super easy. I might make a self-contained version available to the public someday. But you don’t have to use a database or even Excel for that matter to run a time log. Good ol’ pen/pencil and paper will work just fine. Here’s a screen capture you can use to make your own:

Yes, it takes a few seconds to write down or type what you’re doing throughout your day. But the pay off will be tremendous. Don’t believe me. Try it and see for yourself.

When you can see the truth about how you’re spending your time, you will become much more productive — automatically.