Good morning! We hope your 2019 has been off to an excellent start.
Now that the Holiday dust has settled, and everyone is back in their saddles we wanted to send our “new” newsletter with a personal video from our rebranded firm.
Many of us don’t need a “new year” to set goals, have priorities etc. We all have values and principles that shape our decisions and guide us forward.
In goal setting, planning, executing and creating daily disciplined habits to achieve our goals, sometimes the reason why we do not achieve that which we set out to isn’t that we don’t care. It’s not that we don’t have focus or acknowledge our priorities. It’s that we often don’t have enough time or at least it can feel this way.
If you’ve been a disciplined person, achieving goals throughout your life and setting bigger and more challenging ones dear to your heart, whether personally, in family or in business, then one of the ways to ensure that you achieve what you aim on is to accept that time is limited. So, what can you do differently to ensure your goals are met or at least are closer to you? Create more time by creating efficiencies.
Our top 5 list for the year on how to create more time:
1) First, drop the bad habits, the ones that you know waste your time. Whether that’s allowing emails coming in to interrupt your workflow (Set scheduled times in the day to check them if possible) or indulging too much in Netflix and Social Media. (Sorry NFLX and FB) This is time that could be invested on what is truly important to you.
2) Delegate where possible in both your personal and professional life. There are experts everywhere waiting to do a better and more efficient job and you can sit back and do what pays you best. Stick to Jim Collin’s Triangle – Do what you can be the best at, are passionate about and fuels your economic engine (Read from Good to Great – Jim Collins).
3) Get organized – how often does not having systems in place and having to re-invent the wheel for different areas of your life cause chaos, stress and suck time away. Think about 3 areas in your life that cause grief/stress or agitation and create a ‘new’ system for it this year to manage your time better and resolve it once and for all. Also, look at the 20% of your activity that gets you the 80% of your results (Pareto Principle) Focus the majority of your efforts in that 20% area.
4) Surround yourself around good people (good in their hearts), people that add and not take away. They are positive, they seek to add value to your life. They are informative, helpful and care about you and what is best for you. Avoid naysayers, cynics and people that don’t believe in you or are only out for themselves. They are on a different journey and likely have nothing positive to add to yours.
5) Lastly, be flexibly patient. Eventually with persistence and a disciplined approach you are bound for success. Sometimes it comes in forms we did not anticipate and often at a time that feels like longer than we’d of hoped. So, plan for that as well. It’s all about the journey, not the end destination and when times are good remember to enjoy them and celebrate and when they are tougher, double down on effort.
Time is a currency, likely one of the most valuable we have. How are you investing it?
Finally, some favorite quotes on planning:
“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans” ~ Allen Saunders
“The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining” ~ John F. Kennedy
Please let us know what you think and any positive or constructive feedback you should have. Also, anything of interest that you would like to learn more about in 2019.
