Tag Archive for 'success'

Tickle Your Way to Success

Published on April 16, 2008 in Books, Educational, Mental, Must Read, Personal, Professional and Reviews. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

What do you do with your great ideas? What happens to every invention you think of? What happens to the ideas you have for a book? What happens to all those little ideas you have to increase productivity or decrease costs? Are these little stones cut and polished until they shine like gemstones or do they sit and languish until you forget that they were gems and discard them as worthless rocks? If you’re trashing these diamonds in the rough, you need to create a system to make sure that you never mistake a ruby for a piece of red glass.

The best way to make sure that no great ideas slip through your fingers is to make a tickler file. Tickler files can be pretty easy to set up. All you need is a card file and a bunch of index cards. I have a little black box that holds 3×5 cards. I also cut up a couple of index cards to make dividers with tabs to maintain some semblance of order to system that’s little more than a collection of random thoughts at this point. You can have as many or as few categories as you’d like and you can feel free to add or delete categories as needed.

Now that you have your tickler file set up, grab a stack of index cards and start writing! Write down every idea for every invention, book, or whatever you’ve been thinking about. When you’re done, go back to each card and write down the questions you have about that idea. Do you need to figure out how an invention could be put together? Do you need a more efficient system at work but haven’t quite figured out what it could be? Write these concerns on the card. Over time you’ll notice that so many questions and comments have accumulated that an action plan for your idea now seems clear. At that point you can take your idea out of your tickler file and turn in into a project. Your rock is now on it’s way to becoming a diamond!

Most people have ideas and think, “If only I could make it happen.” With this system, you have a way to make your ideas realities almost automatically! Make sure you review your tickler file every week. You’ll be surprised at all the new comments you can add!

There’s one more facet we’ve yet to cover: long term goals. What do you do with items like “renovate my home” or “buy a new car”? You can’t have a nebulous item like “get $25,000″ on an action plan. How do we organize these goals so that they can be achieved one day? Find out in Someday Lists for Fun and Profit.

Collect and Conquer

Published on April 9, 2008 in Books, Educational, Mental, Must Read, Personal, Professional and Reviews. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Now that you’ve decided to take control of your life and get yourself organized, the first step is to find out exactly what it is you have to organize. So here’s what you do: First gather everything you can that’s related to your work or personal life. Go get your emails, your bills, your memos, your to-do list, everything! Once you have all that stuff piled up high, break out a little notebook and start writing. What is it that you want to do or have to do? Do you need to get your car oil changed? Have you been meaning to build a website? What about that business plan you’ve been meaning to write? How about fishing with your kids? This writing phase can take hours! It’s a lot like pouring water out of a pitcher. First the tasks will come pouring out faster than you can write them, then the ideas will slow to a trickle. Make sure you write down everything! Once you capture these tasks on paper, you’ll free your mind from having to hold on to them. Just the knowledge that all of your tasks are written down somewhere will free your mind up to tackle more important tasks. When you finish writing down everything you need or want to accomplish, then the real work begins.

After gathering all of your paperwork and tasks, you need to implement the four “D’s”. Every time you pick up a piece of paper or consider a task you need to decide if you’re going to Delete it, Delegate it, Defer it, or Deal with it. If the task is something that isn’t vital to your success or to achieving you goals, delete it. Toss it, trash it, whatever! Just get rid of the dang thing. These tasks are draining your psychic energy for no reason. If the task is something that’s important to your success but you don’t necessarily have to do it yourself, put it in a file to be delegated to someone you trust. We’ll make a file for these tasks later so we can check up on their progress. Should you decide that the task is too important to delegate and it can’t be completed within two minutes, then defer it. Put these tasks in a separate file so you can turn them into individual projects or put them on your perpetual task war board. Later we’ll organize these items and turn them into action plans. Finally if a task will take you less than two minutes to complete, deal with it now. Get it done and out of your way forever! You’ll be surprised how many of your tasks can be dealt with now.

You’ve probably accomplished a lot at the end of this exercise but we aren’t done yet! Right now you’ve got two folders staring you in the face with the generic titles of Defer and Delegate. Now it’s time to turn these folders into actionable projects. Ready yet? Then go on to the next article: Powerful Project Management.

Your Three Biggest Enemies

Published on February 25, 2008 in Mental and Personal. 0 Comments Tags: , .

For many people, self-improvement becomes somewhat of a hobby. These people know that by challenging themselves they stand to gain personally, professionally, financially, and spiritually. But why do other people stop trying to improve themselves? With so much to gain, what is it that prevents some folks from moving forward in life? When you get right down to it, there are three major bumps on the road to self-development. You need to know what they are and how to overcome them so you can reach your highest potential.

1. Fear- This one emotion can stop someone before they ever get a chance to begin. Fear comes in many forms. There’s the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of change, the fear of success. The list goes on and on. Every time you step out of your comfort zone you’re going to feel fear. The problem is that the only way you can grow and improve is by stepping out of your comfort zone! A little fear can be a good thing. It lets you know you’re moving in the right direction.

2. Despair- This little bugger is often a side effect of failure. It’s that feeling that you’re no good, that you can’t do it, and that you were a fool for even trying. Whereas fear prevents people from ever trying, despair prevents people from ever trying again. In order to avoid despair, you need to embrace failure. When you try something new, you need to realize that you’re going to fail at first. In fact, you’ll probably fail a lot! Take these little failures as learning experiences that you can build into great successes! Don’t despair. Every time you fail brings you one step closer to your goal.

3. Fatalism- Fatalism is a way people rationalize despair. After a particularly hard failure you’ll hear people say thinks like, “I guess God just wants me to be a ditch digger.” Or, “This must be my lot in life.” These people see their destiny as fixed. The problem is, if you think your destiny is determined by someone or something else, you’ve lost all power in your life. You’ll never improve because you don’t think anything you do will help. This way of thinking can lead to depression in a hurry. Don’t think for a second that you deserve any less than the very best in life!

The best thing to combat fear, despair, and fatalism is knowledge. The more you analyze a fear, the more you realize how irrational it is. Then the fear loses power over you. The more you know about why you failed, the less likely you are to make the same mistake again. Failures become learning experiences. Finally, if you take time to learn about yourself and think about why you deserve to succeed, you become less and less likely to accept your “lot in life” and demand more.