If you have one or two reasons for getting a job done, you will have a mild level of motivation. But if you have 10 or 20 reasons for completing the job, your level of motivation will be considerably higher, and so will be your persistence and self-discipline.
12. Set aside a designated 15-minute period during the day when you will work on your project.
Set aside a specific time period, sometime during the day, say from 10:00 to 10:15 in the morning, or 2:00 to 2:15 in the afternoon, and resolve just to work for that brief 15 minute period without worrying about anything else.
This technique will often get you launched into the task and completion will be much more likely.
To get the most out of this technique, you must make an appointment with yourself and write it down. Then, when the designated time comes, have your tools and materials at hand and begin the 15-minute work session.
At the end of the 15 minutes, you may feel like continuing to work. If not, put it aside and schedule another 15-minute appointment at another time.
And then keep your appointment with yourself.
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13. Resist the tendency toward perfectionism
Since perfectionism is a major reason for procrastination, decide not to worry about doing the job perfectly. Just get started and work steadily. You can always go back and make corrections and revisions later. Nothing worthwhile has ever been done perfectly the first time anyway.
Not long ago, a friend of mind started a consulting business. I asked him how it was going. He told me that he had not done anything yet because it was going to take a full month before he got his brochures, business cards and letterhead back from the printer.
I told him that his brochures, letterhead and business cards would never get him a nickel’s worth of business. What he should do was to write his new telephone number on the back of his existing business cards, or get some made up quickly at a quick copy place, and then just get out and talk to prospective clients. I told him that this would do him more good than all the brochures he would ever design.
He phoned me a week later and told me that this advice had transformed his thinking about himself and his business. He had started calling on prospective customers that very day and was already doing business and making money.
14. Pick one area where procrastination is hurting you.
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Select a single identifiable area where you know your tendency to procrastinate is holding you back. Pick the most important area and resolve to conquer that specific example of procrastination.
Set priorities on your areas of procrastination and then concentrate single-mindedly on the one area where overcoming it can make the greatest contribution to your success. Always attack the most difficult tasks first.
Challenge yourself to confront the hardest parts of your work and then get them done before anything else.
15. Develop a compulsion to closure.
Once you have launched, and begun to work on your task, refuse to stop until it is completed. When you develop the discipline to start a major task and then stay with it until it is finished, you will be laying down the foundation for a life of persistent, purposeful work. Force yourself to finish the last 5% of the job. That is the part that is worth all the rest in terms of personal satisfaction.
It is amazing, and somewhat sad, the number of people who overcome procrastination sufficiently enough to get started on a task, but they never carry it through to completion. As they get closer and closer to the end of the task, they find more and more reasons and excuses to put off the last 5% or 10%. This is the reason most university theses and dissertations to complete Masters or Doctoral Degrees never get completed and submitted. A person may spend years of study in college and leave without the degree because he was unable to push through and complete the last 5% or 10%.
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You only experience the joy, satisfaction and exhilaration of finishing the task when you bring it to completion. As you wrap up the last detail, you feel a tremendous sense of relief and accomplishment. Your brain releases endorphins and you get a surge of happiness and well-being. But this is only possible when you complete the task 100%.
16. Maintain a fast tempo.
Fast tempo is essential to success. Resolve to work at a brisk pace. Walk quickly. Move quickly. Write fast. Act quickly. Get on with the job.
Consciously decide to speed up all of your habitual actions.
It is amazing how much more you will get done when you push yourself to move faster rather than moving at your normal pace. In fact, if you continually force yourself to work harder and faster, you will start to feel the magic of the “flow experience.” When you get into this “flow,” you will experience an enhanced feeling of confidence and competence. When you are in “flow” you will start to plow through enormous quantities of work in a much shorter period of time than you’ve done in the past.
Deliberately organizing your life, work and tempo so that you regularly trigger this experience of “flow” is a key to great success. All truly effective people enjoy this mysterious flow of energy on a regular basis. It is activated by consciously speeding up the tempo of your work and keeping up the pace until you lift off, like an airplane clearing the ground.
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Your Greatest Challenge in Time Management
It takes courage and self-discipline to break the habit of procrastination. It takes hard work and determination. But the rewards are great. You will experience greater self-esteem, self-confidence and personal pride. You will achieve life long success. By overcoming procrastination and becoming a focused, effective person, you will accomplish more than anyone else around you and more than you can possibly imagine today. There is no other decision that will be more life enhancing and satisfying than your decision to
“Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!”
“Concentrate …for the greatest achievements are reserved for the man of single aim, in whom no rival powers divide the empire of the soul.” (Orison Swett Marden)
Action Exercises:
1. Select one major task where procrastination is holding you back and resolve to learn all these methods and techniques by starting and finishing that one project.
2. Make out a detailed list of every single thing you will have to do to complete that task; think on paper;
3. Select the most important single item on your list and gather everything you will need to start and complete that item.
4. Set a specific time when you are going to start and work single mindedly on that task until it is finished.
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5. Break your largest tasks and goals down into bite sized chunks and concentrate on starting and completing one part of the job at a time.
6. Accept 100% responsibility for starting and finishing your major task; refuse to make excuses or rationalize putting it off.
7. Visualize and see yourself working with a sense of urgency; program your mind by repeating the words “Do it now!” over and over.
Chapter Nine
Keeping Up
“Mastery is not something that strikes in an instant, like a thunderbolt, but a gathering power that moves steadily through time, like the weather.”( John C. Gardner, Jr.)
We live in a knowledge-based, information-driven society. Successful people today are simply those who know more than their competitors. One of your most important responsibilities is to keep up with your field, and stay ahead of the pack by continually taking in new information and ideas.
The amount of knowledge in every field today is doubling every five to seven years, sometimes every two to three years. This means that you must double your knowledge on a regular basis just to keep even. The basic rule 235
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today is that, “To earn more, you must learn more.” You are earning all that you possibly can today, with what you now know. If you want to earn more in the future, you will have to learn and apply new knowledge and skills.
You must be continually absorbing new information if you want to achieve and maintain excellent performance in your field. If you want to be the best, you must pay the price in terms of reading, listening, learning and growing.
Your outer life will always be a reflection of your inner life. If you want to improve your life on the outside, you must begin with yourself, by improving yourself on the inside.
One New Idea Can Make the Difference
One new idea or piece of information can change the direction of your life.