Where are you in your life right now?  You probably are at a point that you once thought was so far in the future.  You might say that “future arrives at the speed of time”.  One of the least effective things you can do is to look at the future as though it is for a different “you” who is not you.

In a book about bioethical issues by Carol Levine, an article from physician Marcia Angell has a section discussing the ordeals of a dying patient, saying

…he was suffering nonetheless – from nausea and the side effects of antiemetic agents, weakness, incontinence, and hopelessness.

When I read this, I usually think that these types of issues are so in the distance that I don’t even need to think about them.  While this seems okay at first, I have had these same thoughts long ago about pressures of today.  Today is so far from, for example, 5 years ago, but you are here today, a day that looked a world away.  5 years are not so long when you think that it represent waking up and sleeping 1800 times.  I think we overestimate how long a year is.

Keep Thoughts Of The Future Lightly Wandering Your Mind

Now, taking that description of the dying patient into mind, it is not helpful to have negative thoughts of future poor health permeating your mentality.  At the same time, giving it 0 thought is a sure way to end up with regret.  If I had to estimate, I’d say to occasionally cycle through thoughts of potential future problems and sources of anguish(something like 5% of your thinking).  As long as you think about them at times, you will always be ready for what comes your way.

Vigilance Keeps Problems At Bay

Take, for example, back pain.  It is pretty easy to ignore lower back aches as the curvature of your back gets worse, until a certain point when you feel a sharp pain, and then all the avoidance becomes regret.  If you instead put a small amount of your regular thoughts into processing that your back could soon be in pain, with “soon” representing a couple of years, you are much more likely to adjust your posture or work out your back muscles at the gym or do less bending over with your back instead of your legs.  Most people who now have regrets showed a lack of awareness at a time of importance.

Chances Mean The Event Could Occur Today

Statistics about auto accidents signal that one or more may occur during your driving career.  It is easy to shrug this off, and many do.  When we see an accident on the freeway, we think about how it doesn’t involve us and move on.  We know that our future contains likelihood of an accident but see that future as not being near now, which becomes a logical fallacy as time progresses.  We are just as likely to be in an accident as most others, and so it is up to us to remain somewhat vigilant.  The minute we treat driving like we are not as likely to get into an accident than others because it is probably in our distant future, it is more likely to occur due to our increased negligence.

Mentally Feel The Future To Get Direction Now

I am not trying to say that “the future is now”, but that it is not some time we can view as too far away to care about.  Gary Vaynerchuk brings forth vigor and energy towards selling wine, doing business, and spreading his message, and part of this is because he keeps in mind potential future issues.  He has said that one of his biggest motivators is that he imagines that something like a health problem could affect his dad at any time, since he is fairly old, and so this guides him and directs him toward doing as much as possible before a problem arises, and in order to be in a good position when one does.  Most people don’t think like this, but most people are also not doing millions of dollars of business per year like Mr. Vaynerchuk.  It is usually more valuable to learn from what a few people at the top do, than what the vast majority do, in their day-to-day actions and thinking.

photo credit: gadl

Parkinson’s Law, proposed by Cyril Parkinson in a 1955 humorous essay for The Economist, states: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” While the author might have been using humor to make a point, his observation underscores the basic truth that we tend to find ways to fill up our free time with more work. Charles Hummel touched on the same issue in his small book Tyranny of the Urgent, which deals with our problem of over commitment. Making the right decisions and keeping yourself from being spread to thin takes some work, but it’s worth it in the long run. Here are some strategies to remember:

Practice the Art of Refusal

This is tough one, especially for young people or recent college graduates who are so desperate to get their careers going that they’ll take any offer of work, part-time or full-time, that they get. But saying “yes” to every offer is the first step toward being over-committed. Put simply, you can’t do everything, and it’s useless to try. If someone wants you to take on a job for them, or do them a favor, don’t accept out of hand. Instead, take an honest look at your schedule and think about whether you really want to do it. It’s fine to turn things down, especially if it would help you keep your life under control.

Know What You Can and Can’t Do

This is related to the first point, but just as important. So often in our lives we take on extra tasks not because they suit us but because we want them, or because we think we’re supposed to want them. And that’s dangerous. If you find yourself presented with an opportunity that would make you much busier and that isn’t even related to your strengths, it might be a good idea to refuse it. Only commit yourself to the things you can and want to do.

Pay Yourself First

A common savings tip is to pay yourself first by putting the top 10% of your take-home pay into a savings account to make sure you’ve got some money left over for a rainy day. The same thing applies to the strategy of time management. Set aside time every day and every week that’s yours alone, and that can’t be given away to extra work or responsibilities. Maybe it’s an hour after dinner to read; maybe it’s a Saturday afternoon to work in your yard. Whatever it is, set it up and don’t violate it for anyone unless it’s an extreme emergency. Having solid boundaries for your personal time is the best way to begin getting your various commitments under control, and knowing you’ve got a daily respite will help you get through the rest of your work.

Remember, being over-committed begins and ends with you. Make the right decisions, and you’ll be able to get your life under control.

This guest post was contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes on the topics of accredited online universities.  She also welcomes your comments or feedback at her email: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

photo credit: zoutedrop

Activities are said to take up the period of time you provide for them.  You can potentially take certain activities that normally take you an hour to do, and do them in 15 minutes. This is well within your capacity. You would then be able to spend the other 45 minutes doing whatever you feel like, as you have then created time for yourself which was not previously there.

Tim Ferriss brought up this concept in a video he did with Kevin Rose for his “Random” video series, when he decided to bring up some valuable things he has written down and focuses on. This concept is also present in his book “The Four Hour Workweek”. I am not saying that you can take an hour of piano practice, and do it in 15 minutes; however, there are certainly things you are currently doing that you allot much more time to than they require from you when you are running at full capacity.

Think About The Reward

When trying out something new like this, you always want to first thing about what you will get from the attempt, other than attempt experience. You could potentially create an extra 30 minutes in your day during the first try, or even more. This is time that you could use as though it were “free”, and your leisure desires could be fulfilled. Also, you would start feeling more in control of your required activities, as you would be relaxed to enjoy your free time as any smart CEO or business person makes sure to do.

Focus On Where You Can Set Time Limits

It is worth it to take a look at where you can apply this concept. There are probably multiple examples of where you can start to set less time for yourself to do the same things you normally do. Some that come to mind include:

• running high-intensity for 20 minutes, instead of walking for a whole hour
• setting 20 minutes to read 15 pages of a book, instead of taking an hour to read it while getting distracted and losing focus
• cutting down the time to craft an e-mail to 2 minutes instead of 10 minutes(as the main point you want to communicate is really what is important)
• cooking a healthy dinner in 20 minutes by doing everything one after another, instead of cooking the meal in parts, or stopping along the way to check e-mail

Self-Discipline Is Needed For This

Self-discipline is the name of the game here. Using this time-limiting method requires you to envision a small world where your organization and planning matters. You have to adhere to what you set to do. Any messing around with the time settings will then lead to you not fulfilling your plan. Self-discipline separates the slacker from the attacker.

Self-Confidence Is Built Through This

When you set limited time plans, you are indirectly telling yourself that you value your time. This is something that is important. Other won’t ever value more time more than you do, so you benefit greatly from raising that bar. Everyone’s time passes by, but some have time that is worth far more, in the eyes of society, than others. It is this value that gives them opportunities the others don’t have. If we had limitless time, we could all get every opportunity, but since time is normally a constraint, people like to work with those who value it the most.

There is also a shared effect. The more you value your time, the less others worry that you will waste their time. This is key to working with some folks you may have a real wish to work with.

photo credit: jimbowen0306

When I mention the names Napoleon, Lincoln, Einstein, Aristotle, and Darwin, you instantly recognize who I am talking about, and what field they were in. We often hear about the wonderful thinking that people like Socrates or Aristotle brought to humanity. What we don’t tend to hear about is how they interacted with people who were wasting their time as they were rising in academic stature. You can be certain that the most intelligent or financially successful people of all time wasted minimal amounts of time dealing with people who didn’t supplement their studies or business plans. If you want to be remarkable like they were, you will want to act the way they did.

People We Remember Always Guarded Their Time

During these individuals’ lives, including the time when they were teenagers and 20-somethings, their personalities were as full of ambition as the older versions of them that we know about and remember. If you can’t imagine Socrates spending an hour on a trivial verbal argument, it would be beneficial to follow in his hypothetical footsteps by not doing so yourself. The only foolproof way to win a verbal argument is to stay out of it, and you can be certain that any well-known person from the past or present took this route the majority of the time. Save the very few arguments you have to be made with people of a high position or stature, in the process of defending something important to you.

Keep Your Time For Things That Provide Rewards

Randy Pausch, in his Last Lecture, pointed out something to the effect of “no one cares if you clean the dust on the underside of a bookshelf”. He was trying to explain that if you focus on items with very little return-on-investment, day in and day out, there will be no returns in the future as the investment would be minimal. If you routinely perform some menial task that doesn’t bring you long-term growth, reassess whether you can do it less often, or if it is even worth your time to do it.

See The Path As Your Path To Make

People like Napoleon and Abraham Lincoln are remembered mostly for what they did later in life, but since personality and ambition don’t change much during one’s life, it is valuable to take note of how they must have been when they were younger. These were the types of individuals that wouldn’t take no for an answer, not by arguing until they got their way and wasting time, but by pursuing the same desire through a different path or method where their success could shine through. Just as it is very difficult to get a minute of time with President Obama, any of these leaders necessarily made certain to not let their time elapse without high relevance behind what they were doing. Abraham Lincoln wouldn’t have been able to fail so many times on his way to success if he didn’t set blocks of time to put days of effort into each risk, where resulting failure still provided experience.

You Can Turn Probabilities To Your Favor

If you have the ambition to rise up like these individuals, you have to start long before some “luck” arrives. I often point out that personality and response mechanisms are fairly fixed in place for each person through their various stages of growth, anytime after the teenage period is passed. Although the ambition in your personality may be lacking as compared with how you would like to view yourself, you can fill in part of the gap with constant reminders that leave you less susceptible to your own lack of ambition. It is often asked whether the chicken or egg came first. For becoming an individual well-known for pursuing a passion, highly valuing your own time comes before others value it as highly.

photo credit: (nutmeg)

Let’s say you have figured out some productive methods, and are now looking to increase your productivity.  Cutting out something you enjoy doing should not be your first plan of action.  Cutting it out completely should probably not be one of your plans of action at any time either.  Things you enjoy doing recharge you, but thinking of them that way makes them sound like required activities.  This takes away from their enjoyment.

What You Enjoy Is A Treasured Activity

Deleting what you most enjoy from your regular routine, or cutting back on it substantially, may work for a couple of days, but you will start to feel the lack of that which fits you best, like reading fiction books, or playing hockey, or playing the piano.  Often times, we think the easiest solution to really get some traction on our goals is to cut back on what we enjoy, as that must be what is taking away from our energy, but this isn’t the case.

The cutbacks need to be on those habits that we don’t really enjoy, but are stuck doing.  These are the habits that take away the most energy from us.  They can seem like they are not so bad, and that we enjoy them somewhat, but you might notice that they are only enjoyable for the first minute or two, and are then mostly time-consuming after that.  They don’t have a spark about them.

Protect The Time For It

What you enjoy doing needs to be allowed to be enjoyed.  Once you see where your real enjoyment comes from, you want to make sure you maintain the time for and around it.  Having your real source of enjoyment have its time cut in half due to poor planning can lead to the rest of your day feeling incomplete.

The things that we enjoy the most are those which give us the most fulfillment.  On the other hand, items we label as enjoyable, which are only based on bad habits that we maintain, do not give us any.  Those are what we should cut out.

The activity you get the most enjoyment from could be the key to your success, as continuing to do it can motivate you past your competition.  For example, if running has been your regular enjoyable activity for many years, it is to your advantage to maintain it, and not let some other plan or distraction affect your time slot for it.

Let me know about your activity that you do to re-energize yourself, and which you may have done for a long time, in the comments, if one like that comes to mind.

Here, in this first post of the series, I will be discussing how my lack of punctuality affected the trip, what you gain by altering the way you interact with time, and the mindset you can use to obtain punctuality in your daily activities, or to realize what not being punctual represents.

Punctuality Provides A Good Feeling For All

Punctuality shows a value or concern for the time of others.  We don’t see this at first when we are late to an activity, but can easily see it when looking back at a time we were late in the past.  It leaves a period where the others involved in the activity wonder about how their time is valued, and if their presence means as much to the other person as the other person means to them.  These are things that shouldn’t even come up in our thoughts because we can void their entry by being on time.

Meeting One Deadline Instead Of Being Late For Three

We had planned to start the drive to the location of the hike at a certain time, and as that time was nearing, instead of cutting off a couple of tasks I was working on concurrently, I tired to continue and finish them quickly and start the process.  This attempt did not work out as I was barely able to finish the tasks and meet up to start the drive until about 45 minutes had passed.  A lesson from this is that if you have a choice between doing 2-3 things unsatisfactorily, or doing 1 thing well, stick with doing 1 thing well because then you stay on a successful streak.

Lack Of Punctuality Causes Side Effects And Missed Opportunities

My starting us off late had a large effect in causing us to hit traffic we wouldn’t have hit earlier, be a bit offset from what would have been a better time to start the hike, and end up the hike in complete darkness.  We were about 2-2.5 hours up the mountain when it was already almost dark, and that was a frightful occurrence, because even though we had a flashlight, going down a very long trail in the dark is difficult because there is the potential to go down the wrong path that doesn’t actually lead back towards the starting point, or leads toward some dead-end.  This is one of those things you don’t realize as much until you are at that point.

Reflect On Times When You Were Late To Understand More

Punctuality would have prevented this alteration of events from occurring, as my friends had good estimates of when we should have actually started.  All you need to be punctual in your next meeting or activity is to realize that you will look back in disappointment if you see yourself having come late when you clearly had ample time to even be early.  Lack of punctuality, whether for something serious or something not as serious, will leave others feeling that your word doesn’t have as much value as it should.  Staying true to your word builds your reputation and value.

Your Valuing Others Is Part Of Success

Being on time is like getting an A for respect of all people involved in the process.  They say that showing up is 80% of the process leading to success, and a relevant portion of that 80% is attributed to showing up on time, because showing up late gives people a sense that you didn’t fully show up.

The next part of this article series will involve discussion about the realistic optimism that helped the group through the trip, and which is part of my regular mindset.

Links To The Rest Of The Series

• Series Introduction
• Part Two – Realistic Optimism
• Part Three – Setting Goal Points
• Part Four And Five – Going With A Plan And Social Sharing Of Strengths

Trying to maintain a perfect image to some person or set of people is as worthwhile for you as it would be to try to direct the growing of a plant into some atypical shape by using weights and bending it daily.  Who is going to praise you for being perfect in some way?  When we see something that is near perfect, we usually look for an error and point it out to the creator.

When I think of perfectionism, the first thing that comes to mind is creating something that is the best of the best.  It reminds me, for example, of one time when I had an assignment to re-create a vivid section of a novel in an illustrative way on a piece of paper, with colored pencils used to add to the sides of the text.  The way I completed it was to forget about creating something that was the best, and to focus on making it as I went.  It came out better than I could have imagined.

Is Avoidance In Place?

When your mind tells you “no, I shouldn’t do that”, ask yourself if that is fear-based or experience-based.  You will want to differentiate those.  If you are avoiding doing something that didn’t work out well a previous time you tried it, that makes sense.  On the other hand, if it is something you haven’t tried, and you are holding yourself back, there isn’t any basis for that.

You Can Only Filter Out So Much

One of the problems with perfectionism is that it leads down a spiral that removes any interesting aspects of what you are doing, if you continue it repeatedly.  Suddenly one thing you put in isn’t good enough, and then after removing it, another thing isn’t good enough, until you are left with a skeleton of what you previously had that will provide negligible value to anyone that views it.

The Other Way To Be A Perfectionist

I have noticed that the people who say “I’m such a perfectionist” may well be, but also tend to draw the line at the end of their project way before it is perfect.  They might have a tendency to go further than the majority of people, but they certainly don’t go nonstop towards some sort of pinnacle of creation or production.  On the contrary, many such individuals fit the kind of perfectionism we don’t normally think of, in that they will put out an average creation, adjust it, put out a slightly better one, and continue this cycle of adjustment until they get close to what some might view as perfection.  They don’t have a near-perfect product the whole way through, but have each step of the process in their mind as a step of perfectionism.  This is a longer-term way to think about it.

Don’t Let Perfection-Seeking Cause Missed Opportunities

One of the toughest things about being a perfectionist is seeing someone take the idea you would need two weeks to complete perfectly, complete a decent – but not perfect – version of it in four days, and release it before you.  In this respect, perfectionists are not likely to be the first to jump on a new concept.  In these times when flexibility is crucial due to rapidly-changing conditions, products, and services, the perfectionist soon realizes they have to adjust their demeanor if they want to continue along their path.

Associate the word ‘perfectionist’ with ‘procrastinator’, because they tend to go hand-in-hand.  The procrastinator will often tell themselves that they are delaying and delaying since they are going for a near-perfect result.  The perfectionist will get frustrated with imperfection and take a long break, procrastinating on completing the project.

When you get into a routine, you don’t have to do as much decision-making that can slow you down.  You think to yourself that it is time to do this activity, or that activity, with little hesitation.  When you set up a routine activity for a certain time of the day, you can then use it as a sign to act when that time arrives.  Here I discuss some of these advantages.

Being On Auto-pilot

When you set up 7 PM every day as your time to do thirty minutes of reading, soon enough, you will read on auto-pilot.  Whereas others will struggle to even pick out a book to read, you won’t have that issue because you will be on the lookout for one or another so that you can continue your thirty-minute activity daily.  What continues to be a struggle to people that don’t have it as a routine is easy for you.  There is a world of difference here.  As you continue this, you will be getting thirty minutes of reading done every day, which adds up very quickly to provide you with knowledge you likely wouldn’t have been able to obtain otherwise.

A Routine Provides A Foundation

Routine activities provide a foundation for you to fall back on.  If you have no foundation in place, and another person cancels a meeting or fun activity on you, you will feel like you have nowhere to turn to.  On the other hand, if you have a social foundation in place, or a foundation based on your routine, you have something to fall back on.  Regardless of external circumstances, your thirty minutes of reading time will continue to be there for you to use and enjoy.  As time progresses, which goes very quickly when you have routine activities in place, you develop expertise in whatever it is that you are continually doing.

No One Can Take Your Routine From You Except You

Your routine is something you can set in stone, as long as you make the very small effort to keep it going once it is in place.  Building a routine activity is like a plant growing its roots, and then continuing the activity is simple like providing water to the plant daily.  The fruits come soon after.

Check the dictionary and you will find that a habit is an acquired pattern of behavior that often occurs automatically.  Habits are things that you do subconsciously, often not even thinking about it.  They are part of your daily routine and can often be hard to break.  Have you ever got in the car to drive home from work thinking, “I’ve really got to stop and pick up some milk from the shop”, and the next thing you know, you’re at home without the milk!  This is an example of a habit, and these habits that are part of your daily life can be both bad and good.

It depends on whether they add quality to your life or not.  It would be exhausting to have to go through the day concentrating on everything you do – like washing the dishes or brushing your teeth.  These are things that we do on autopilot that help life run more smoothly.  There are also negative things that become habits however, such as worrying about things at work or doubting your ability to achieve things, which can hold you back in life, and stop you from achieving the level of success that you desire.

It is difficult to break old habits, and instill new, positive habits.  Ever tried to get fit or lose weight and you’ll know what I mean!  It takes time, and effort to begin something new, and stick to it, and it is only once you have been doing it for some time does it begin to become a habit.  Studies have shown that it takes approximately a month of consistent effort to instill a new habit, or break an old one, so it will take some time and perseverance on your part, but there are a few simple things that you can do to make the transition a great deal easier and ensure your success.

1. Decide on the habit that you are going to change – Once you have done this, you are half way towards making the change.  If you don’t have a goal, then you will never achieve it!  Successful people have goals, and this can be a differentiating factor in your success.
2. Substitute negative habits for positive habits – Once you have decided on the habit to change, you need to decide what habit you will replace it with.  This is very powerful and will accelerate your progress.
3. Write down the new habit – Take a piece of paper and write your new habit down.  Say it out loud to yourself and then put it in your pocket.  Carry it around with you and take it out and read it to yourself throughout the day.  Read it out loud first thing in the morning and then last thing at night.
4. Visualize yourself doing your new habit – Visualization techniques are very powerful and can have a great impact on your subconscious mind.  If you have never tried it before, then try out this simple exercise.  Lie down in a quiet comfortable environment and feel your whole body relaxing as the tension from each of your muscles disappears.  Once you feel yourself relaxed, imagine yourself doing your new habit.  Make the images bright, colorful and bold, and imagine what you are saying and doing as you carry out your new habit.  Smell the smells, hear the sounds and feel the emotions.  Really put yourself into the situation and make it as real as possible.  Do this at least once a day and the effect that this will have on your subconscious mind (and ultimately on your behavior) will be huge.
5. Ensure you have plenty of reminders – Put up notes on your fridge, set alarms in your calendar or phone, take out the piece of paper that you have in your pocket and read it to yourself throughout the day.
6. Be patient and persevere – the first month may be difficult, and you may suffer from lapses, but remind yourself that these things take time.  You are only human after all.  With consistent effort and determination, you can succeed.

Although breaking a habit can take time and effort, the steps involved are relatively simple, but can have lasting impact on your success and overall happiness in life.  Good Luck!

About the author: Brian helps companies embrace emotional intelligence to develop staff, and if you are interested in self-development techniques, then visit http://www.MonthlyMillionaires.com/blog to get your free copy and mind-blowing analysis and summarized version of world famous motivational book “Think and Grow Rich”.

Weakness, lies, and unsuccessfulness go very well together.  They each lead to one another, and you generally want to avoid all three.  Most people would see all three of these items as negatives.  Weakness may seem to be more of a vague term, but it is the general feeling that arises from a problem being unsolved for the time being, leading to the mind having to expend energy trying to solve it, leaving it less capable to deal with new issues.  Lies are quickly identified, and unsuccessfulness represents failure not in the sense of trying and failing, but either not trying or not understanding the plot.

Weakness Leads To Problems

Presenting yourself in a weak fashion, so as not to upset or bother anyone, is sure to bring problems your way.  The minute you act like a doormat, people will treat you as such.  Various problems arise when you try to ingratiate yourself with others by acting subserviently or similar.  When you give in to others demands to make a situation less tense, they remember that and use it again the next time around.  It isn’t because they want to be spiteful, but that their mind sees a shortcut in your weakness, and so it doesn’t make sense to not use it.

Lies Waste Your Time

A lie by definition has to be maintained to stay a lie.  Once it is revealed, it is no longer a lie, and no longer leads to problems.  Until that point, it is a false setting that has to be protected in its not being known.  It takes loads of time and effort to make sure it doesn’t show up here or there, and this time and effort can’t be regained.  The longer a lie is maintained, the more time you end up losing.

Keep This Trio Out Of Your Days

This combo of items that aren’t positive are to be avoided as a package.  Remember that one leads to another, and they tend to originate from wanting to appease others.  That will help in avoiding the circular effect.