Kicking Off The New Year Right Is Critical To Your Success This Year! by
David Ledoux
Did you hear that?
SSSHHHHH....! Listen!
That sound is your new year quietly passing you by.
What happened to LAST YEAR? Was it a blur?
Did you accomplish everything you had planned?
It's a sad fact that over 95% of people's New Year's resolutions are ALREADY
BROKEN!
How can you be DIFFERENT than the masses this year?
How can you achieve more, do more, be more and have more?
Here's a quirky little phrase that may help you. I suggest you write it down.
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PROPER PLANNING PRODUCES PEAK PRODUCTIVITY
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It's not easy, but definitely worth it.
WHAT DO I MEAN BY PROPER PLANNING?
Back in the summer of 1995 I nearly blew up. I had 500 people in my direct
sales organization, and nearly every single one of them had my phone number. I
remember this particularly rotund grouch of a downline would wake me at 6 a.m.
at least twice a week to complain. Another from the west coast would call me
around 2 a.m. to see how the weather was. And literally dozens would call
non-stop between those hours. And me, being a loving, caring sharing dumbass of
an upline would gleefully give away hours and hours of mindless chit chat to
non-producers.
I was a slave to the phone. I was making more money than I ever had before in
my life, but I had never had a worse sun tan in my life. No golf. No beach. No
fun. Just dealing with stress all day long.
Finally I had enough. I sought out time management courses, communications
courses, and studied models to incorporate into my life. It was more a matter of
personal survival, but many years later I realized the stress created a need to
grow, much in the same way a muscle grows when it lifts progressively heavier
weights.
I soon began planning my years, quarters, months and weeks in objective
detail. This was in stark contrast to my life before where my idea of time
planning was a free bank calendar that I had stuck to the fridge with magnets.
How many of the people around you struggle with the common complaint "I
just don't have enough time!"?
Here are FIVE TIPS TO GET MORE TIME IN YOUR LIFE:
1. WRITE IT DOWN. Figure out if you are a paper planner person or a Palm
Pilot Person. Find a planner you like, use it religiously. You only get 168
hours in a week, and if you don't schedule them, someone else will do it for
you.
2. ELIMINATE CLUTTER. Executives at major companies waste over 24 hours a
year searching for common widgets like staplers, 3-hole punches, jammed
photocopiers, missing coffee mugs, etc. You and I waste thousands of hours of
our lives on mindless clutter. What color is your desk? Here's a big idea: most
people already own everything they need to make a million dollars in the next 3
years. The secret is to reduce, not accumulate.
3. KILL TIME VAMPIRES. What steals your time? TV? Cutting the grass? Doing
laundry? What $10 per hour tasks do you waste time on that could be outsourced
while you concentrate on $50 per hour tasks? You only get 168 hours each week,
and many vampires are out there to steal them!
4. TERMINATE TOLERATIONS. What are you tolerating in your life? What do you
put up with that drains your precious energy? WHO do you tolerate? Why do you
insist of repeating patterns that don't support you? What has this cost you? How
much longer are you willing to endure this without change?
5. CREATE KEY LIFE AREAS. Did you have a health and fitness goal last year?
Do you have one this year? Your health can be radically shifted with just 4% of
your week's hours. What about relationship goals, travel goals, business goals,
spiritual goals? If you aren't planning August already, it will zip by. ALL
AREAS OF YOUR LIFE THAT YOU WANT TO FLOURISH NEED A PLAN, NOT JUST YOUR
BUSINESS! If you don't schedule a date night with your spouse, eventually
someone else will....
The last tip is a biggie. I learned long ago that if you want a balanced,
happy life then it had better be your #1 project. You can't run hard for 3 or 4
years on a business, ignoring your health, relationships, friendships, loved
ones, and not expect to pay a heavy price. It doesn't have to be this way.
It IS POSSIBLE to have it all with proper planning.
If you create it in your mind first, write a plan, protect the plan from time
vampires, then execute the plan, then greatness will be the result. Once you
master this skill for one area of your life, you can create meaningful growth in
ALL areas.
I believe in you. Make this your best year ever!
David Ledoux
