Time Power
result, it can take as long as two hours for you to relax and settle down to the point where you can concentrate once the plane has taken off.
It is much better for you to arrive at the airport relaxed, with plenty of time.
Then, as soon as you get on board, you can begin work and continue working away until the plane lands.
Avoid Diversion or Distraction
Be sure to work steadily during the flight. Put your head down and concentrate without diversion or distraction. Resist the temptation to read newspapers or airline magazines. Some travelers carry a set of earphones they use to discourage conversation from the person in the next seat.
One frequent flyer I know has a great answer if his seatmate wants to make conversation. When the person next to him asks what he does, he turns to him or her, smiles sweetly and says, “I’m a fund raiser for a religious cult.”
This has never failed to terminate the conversation and leave him free to work peacefully for the rest of the flight.
Here is one final point on air travel. The very best time to do serious, concentrated work is on the outbound flight, when you are fresh. The best time to read books or magazines, or relax and watch the movie, is on the return flight. On the way back, you are usually tired and not as capable of doing productive work.
92
Time Power
Be sure to make that outbound flight count. Use every minute to get through work that you have been unable to catch up with in the office.
Getting yourself organized is the starting point of peak performance. Careful planning and organization of your work before you begin will yield dramatic improvements in your productivity, your performance and your results. You cannot be too well organized if you want to get the most done in the time you have. It is a key to time power.
“You must be single minded. Drive for the one thing on which you have decided.” (George Patton)
Action Exercises:
1. Resolve today to become one of the best organized people in your business: repeat “I am organized and efficient in everything I do!” as an affirmation until this command is accepted by your subconscious mind.
2. Write everything down before you begin; always work from a list, and add new items to the list before you start on them.
3. Get a time planner of some kind, whichever feels most comfortable to you, and invest the time necessary to learn how to use it. The payoff in saved time and increased productivity will be enormous.
4. Clean up your desk or work space and keep it clean. Discipline yourself to be a role model for others who want to know how a top person works.
93
Time Power
5. Gather everything you need before you start working, and have only one major task in front of you at a time.
6. Handle each piece of paper only once, and take some action on each item when you pick it up. Whenever possible, delegate it, defer it, throw it away or handle it immediately.
7. Make every minute count, especially when you travel by air. By organizing properly, you can get a full day’s work done on a single flight.
94
Time Power
Chapter Four
Establish Priorities on Your Activities
“Success is a process of diverting one’s scattered forces into one powerful channel.” (James Allen)
Your ability to set priorities among your goals, tasks and activities is the key to personal effectiveness. This is not easy to do. The natural human tendency is to “major in minors” and to work very diligently on things that in many cases need not be done at all. You must learn to swim against this natural current, to violate the “Law of Least Resistance” and to keep focused on those things that can really make a difference in your life.
There are several proven ways for you to set your own personal and business priorities. These are organized methods of thinking that enable you to select the relevant over the irrelevant, the important rather than the merely urgent and the tasks with long-term consequences rather than those that are fun, easy and which give immediate gratification.
Begin With Your Values
To set proper priorities, you begin with your values. What is really important to you? Of all the things that are important to you, what is most important?
What do you believe in? What do you stand for? Developing clarity about your values before you begin setting priorities in your business and personal life is essential to high levels of effectiveness.
95
Time Power
Peak performance and high self-esteem only occur together when your activities and your values are congruent with each other. It is only when what you believe and what you are doing fit together like a hand in a glove that you feel truly happy.
On the other hand, incongruence, or lack of alignment between your values and your activities leads to stress, unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
Whenever you find yourself doing something on the outside that is inconsistent with your beliefs on the inside, you experience stress and conflict. The starting point of peak performance is therefore for you to choose, on the basis of your values, what goals and tasks are most important to you.
Free to Choose
Human beings have been defined as “choosing organisms.” You are always making choices of some kind. You are always choosing between what you value more, and what you value less. The wrong choice, based on your true values, can lead to frustration, underachievement and failure.
The best way to determine your values is to look at your actions. You always act in a manner consistent with what is most important to you at the moment. It is not what you say, or wish, or hope, or intend that counts. It is only what you do that tells you, and others, what you truly believe.
96
Time Power
To know yourself, look at your behaviors. Observe the choices you make hour-by-hour and day-by-day. Especially, look at the way you spend your time. This is one of the best reflections of your true values and priorities in each area. You choices tell you, and others, who you really are inside.
Your Order of Values
You may have several values regarding your family, your work, your interactions with others, and with regard to yourself personally. The rule is that you will always choose a higher order value over a lower order value.
You always choose the value that is the most important to you in that situation, over values that are less important.
It is only when you are forced to choose between two alternatives that you reveal to yourself, and to others, what is most valuable to you. The order in which you choose your values determines the quality of your character and your personality. Changing your order of values actually changes the person you are.
Here is an example of how similar values, but in a different order of priority, makes one person different from another. Imagine that you have two men, Bill and Tom. Each of them has the same three main values in life: Family, Health and Career Success. But each of them has these values in a different order.
Bill’s order of values is family, health and career success. This means that his family comes before his health and career, and his health comes before 97
Time Power
his career. Whenever he is forced to make a choice about how he allocates his time, his family comes first.
Tom has the same values, but in a different order. His order of values is career success, family and health. This means that whenever Tom has to choose between career success and his family, career success comes first, his family comes second and his health comes third.
Here is the question. Would there be a difference in personality and character between Bill and Tom? Would there be a small difference or a large difference? Which of the two would you like to have as a friend?
Which one of the two would you trust more and be more comfortable with?
When you evaluate people from the standpoint of their values, the answers become clear.
You Are Your Values
Your true values are only and always expressed in your actions, and your choices. Many people say that their family comes first in their lives. But if you look at the way they organize their time and their life, it is obvious from their actions that work, golf, socializing and other activities are more valuable to them than their families, because that is how they allocate their time.
When people are single, their values are quite different from when they get married and have children. As a single individual, without responsibilities for others, your values may be work, socializing, travel, fun, sports and other 98