Disciplined Life Patterns
A somewhat disorganised and erratic life style, and a risk of neglecting physical and mental well-being?
The only 3 solutions to improved effectiveness:
- increase your efficiency in getting through your work-load
- reduce the amount of work that you have
- increase the amount of time you have available for work
This is it. Pick one of the three solutions. There aren’t any more options. And if you can’t reduce your workload and you don’t want to work even longer hours, then review your personal organisation and time management systems. Take a day out to get organised. www.amazon.co.uk
Don’t leave others hanging around. Respond to others’ requests, invitations, etc promptly. You may not be able to provide a definitive answer. But acknowledge the request and make a commitment to follow up.
One day to get organised. If you’re struggling to find the time to stand back, think and plan ahead, then schedule time in your diary to “take a day off”. This is a day to get yourself organised: to evaluate what is and isn’t working for you, clarify what you want to achieve, and identify what systems are helping or hindering your personal productivity. To make things easier, begin to clear your “back-log”. Take your “back-log”, that pile of emails, paperwork, spreadsheets, projects, etc, and put it all in a folder (it might have to be a big one) called “Back-log”. Now forget about it, at least until you have had your “day off”. Once you’ve reviewed your priorities and clarified your objectives, now tackle your back-log. Not in one all-mighty push; work through it “little and often”, starting with the most important and oldest items.
Small hassles build quickly.Keep alert to the little upsets, setbacks and minor annoyances of working life. Don’t dismiss them all as trivia to be ignored. At some point in your life, one niggle will trigger a major crisis. Don’t give the minor “rubbish of life” a significance it doesn’t deserve. But do keep on top of the small stuff to spot the issues that need your personal attention. Over time, allowed to build, the cumulative impact of the small stuff can create big stress. Don’t let problems escalate to the “tipping point”, that zone beyond which the problem becomes uncontrollable. Prevention to keep a potential risk at bay is far easier than tackling a deep-seated problem. And don’t make things worse. Some stratagems seem destined to add fuel to a burning fire. Don’t embark on those counter-productive tactics that can only make things worse.
“Create a system or be enslaved by someone else’s.” If you don’t have a way of taking control of your life then you will be controlled by others and at the mercy of life events. Manage the calendar, your diary, and your schedule for the working week carefully. Build in time for physical exercise and relaxation. And to do it, you need a system. Find a personal organisation system that works for you. Many proprietary systems look good in principle but their complexity make them unusable for those who prefer a more free wheeling approach. But use a system of some sort, even if it is only a sheet of paper with seven columns for each day of the week, indicating key activities. Don’t rely on your memory. Write things down. Your mind is now free to concentrate on more important things.
4 Ds: Do it, Delegate it, Delay it or Dump it. Use the Four Ds of time management and personal organisation to control your time and space. Either tackle the issue now, pass it on to someone else, schedule time in future when you will personally deal with it or throw it in the bin. And if any doubt, then dump it. Don’t allow the “clutter of life” build up around you. Keep on top of the necessary chores of life existence to give you the time and space to keep ahead of the game. Don’t spend life on the “back foot”; looking for important documents, checking meeting times, scanning for lost emails, worrying about unpaid bills, etc. Establish control over the flow of information into your life.
Log your time. What is your efficiency ratio: time doing real work vs. time spent “at work”? How productive are you? The first step is to find out how you’re currently spending your time. Throughout the day, record the time whenever you start and stop any activity. At the end of the day sort through all the chunks of time into categories and calculate what percentage of time is being spent on different activities. You will be surprised to discover the proportion of your day that is actual work, work that makes the most of your distinctive talents and skills and which make a real difference to your goals.
“80% of success in life is turning up.” Be there. You can’t achieve anything if you don’t show. Show up and show up on time. Being late creates the impression that you aren’t in control of your own personal life. It also suggests that you don’t place much value on others’ time. Organise yourself well to turn up well prepared for that meeting or presentation which may be a life transforming opportunity. www.businessballs.com
Conduct a fundamental review of your leisure time and activities. How are you spending those times of relaxation and recovery in life? What magazines and books do you read? How much TV do you watch? Who are you spending time with? Be honest in your assessment. Are you spending time effectively to relax and re-energise or wasting time on counter-productive activities?
Write a “stop do” list. Review the full range of your activities and list out those you need to “stop”. There are many pressures in life to maintain existing commitments and begin new activities. Watch out for the “straw that breaks the camel’s back.” Before you take on additional commitments, establish what needs to give before you embark on more tasks. “Stops” are important but difficult. They represent a break with the past. But they also open up new opportunities in life to “start” doing new things. At the end of this week, ask: “what have I done I shouldn’t have done?” Which pointless or counter-productive activities have wasted my time? What do I plan to do and not do next week?
Use the “Swiss cheese” method to punch holes in a big project. Overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of a large assignment, find the short tasks to do whenever you have a few minutes that will contribute to the overall task. You can’t do everything immediately. Don’t let that stop you from looking for ways to do some of it.
Get ahead of the game. Make a to-do list the night before to plan tomorrow’s activities. It will close down the day’s activities and set your priorities for tomorrow. It will also give your subconscious mind a chance to work on the challenges you face. Don’t go to bed without clearing the decks to clarify your goals for the next day.
“As a man (or woman) thinketh so is he (she)” We become what we think. Our thoughts, the recurring mental themes that preoccupy our inner life, eventually over time, become the basis of our character. Keep alert to your thought processes. Don’t daydream or fantasise about how life might be or think back to what might have been. Research indicates that those who fantasise about what will happen after they achieve their goals are much less likely to be successful than those with a clear appraisal of what they want to achieve and a positive expectation of attaining it. Be positive but keep grounded in the realities and difficulties of life change.
Discipline takes discipline. The “chores of life” – getting up early in winter, the grind of domestic duties, the gym session after a hard day, etc – are chores because no one wants to do them. So, don’t assume that you will become disciplined overnight. Discipline needs to be worked on. Build it up gradually, using rewards and penalties to keep motivating you. And if you let your resolutions for a more disciplined life slip, don’t give up completely. Accept that you have had a set back and get back on track.
Read the signs when all is not well in life. Signs include:
- excess: eating or drinking too much, spending extravagantly
- denial: refusing to accept what everyone else can see, used to tell you but have stopped because you are no longer listening
- rationalisation: finding “reasons” to explain your actions and “justify” your behaviour
- retreat: avoiding certain situations and spending increasing amounts of time on your own
Be honest in your appraisal. Acknowledge when negative life patterns are creating problems, not just for the immediate term but are stockpiling difficulties for your long-term well-being. And be prepared to ask for help if your life situation is getting out control. Don’t accept the inevitability of a downward spiral. Do something about the problem now. dwp.bigplanet.com
Don’t win a Darwin Award (www.darwinawards.com), the awards that “salute the improvement of the human genome by honouring those who remove themselves from it. Of necessity, this honor is generally bestowed posthumously.” In life there some idiotic ways to behave (e.g. drink driving) that can only have disastrous consequences for others as well as you personally. Don’t lose everything you’ve worked for in a “moment of madness”.
Don’t try too hard. If you’re embarking on personal change (e.g. giving up a bad habit or learning a new skill) and you lack the motivation, you will fail. And the failure will demotivate you further. Find the motivation before you begin a programme of personal change. Take the time to clarify the gains of the change by visualising in your mind the longer-term benefits. And keep this image vivid in your mind whenever you are working on your change programme.
Avoid temptation. It is easier to change your environment than change yourself. Don’t rely on the “power of will power”, your inner purpose and resolution to transform your life situation. It might work for some. For most, it makes the process of personal change more frustrating. But do change the environment in which you operate: your life style, the patterns and routines of your day-to-day life and the people you meet. Avoid any life situations that put your will power to the test. And keep a note of those situations that trigger any bad habits: over eating, excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and so on. Monitor the sequence of events that leads up to these bad habits? Pinpoint any patterns, times, people, moods, that you need to check to avoid repeating a counter-productive sequence.
Take regular physical exercise. Research consistently indicates the benefits, physical and psychological, of keeping yourself in good shape through walking, swimming, etc. Look after your body and it will help look after your life well being. Embark on a programme of moderate exercise. www.bupa.co.uk
Don’t let bad habits take hold within the work place. Spot the signs of a sloppy work culture: poor time keeping, messy work areas, poor physical appearance, missed deadlines, extravagant expenses. Don’t be a management martinet. But do know the difference between productive informality and downright indifference, laziness and neglect. Negative work patterns, allowed to continue, create a climate in which poor performance is accepted. It will also drive out those high performing individuals you need to help advance your goals. Take control of your working environment by providing a personal role model of the standards that will define how things should be done.
Only An Hour. All of us have 168 hours a week. Assuming you sleep 8 hours a day, that leaves 112 hours. Assuming you work 50 hours a week (too much) that still leaves 62 hours. Commit one hour each week, only one hour to do the thing you don’t want to do, but will improve your life situation. It’s only one hour.
J.F.D.I.. There comes a time when you know it, your partner knows it, your colleagues know it, everyone knows it: you need to make the change. So J.F.D.I. This is decision time. We can make excuses. There are lots of “good” reasons not to change. Just F****** Do It. Sometimes there are no inspirational workshops, motivational bosses or supportive partners. There is just you and deciding to JFDI. www.amazon.co.uk
Bring in someone else to run your life. Why not pass on the “chores of life” to someone else. There are many educated and talented individuals ready and willing to do the job that you’ve been putting off for ages. These life-style managers will deal with the day-to-day stuff (bookings, purchases, etc) as well as conduct the fact finding and research projects you either lack the time or motivation to handle. Look at www.buy-time.co.uk or why not offshore your life to the growing number of life management firms in India (www.getfriday.com or www.brickworkanalyst.com)?