Success 365: Be Effective & Efficient All Year Round

Indecision, the graveyard of good intentions.

2009-12-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been confronted by difficulty in decision making at a very crucial time? I’m sure your answer to that is a buoyant YES as indecision is an enemy we all face on a daily basis.

Indecision is the graveyard of good intentions – (Johann Wolfgang).

No wonder it took me several hours to decide on what topic to blog on as a first timer. It wasn’t as a result of not knowing what to write, but writing what I think is most appropriate and what people will definitely love to read over and over again.

Usually we hesitate because of variety of alternatives - we know: if we make certain decision we will get certain result and if we can get completely another result, so which one is better? Indecisiveness robs you of clear and focused thoughts. Indecision brings its own delays and can contribute to many hours of mental anguish.

Indecision is a huge time waster as it gives no room for creativity and originality.

What ever your plan or target is today, be conscious of time and decide NOW what the next best step is and then do it. The step may be small or big, but it is important to decide NOW as that is the only way to being productive. Johann Wolfgang once said, "Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; what you can do, or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Don’t worry that your decisions may turn out less than perfect. Remember… up to this point, you’ve survived everything unpleasant in your life.

WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF INDECISION?

1. Fear of Rejection: People most times spend excessive time in making decisions because of what people may say – trying to avoid being rejected. There’s no way you can please everybody, rather, work toward pleasing yourself by doing what will give you satisfaction and inner peace.

2. Fear of Failure: People are afraid of making decisions because they're trying to find the perfect answer - to their problems, but there is no perfect answer.

3. Lack of Concentration: Usually we hesitate because of variety of alternatives we have and it tends to slow us down in decision making. Be alert and be mindful. Paying close attention to whatever you do goes a long way towards saving time and overcoming indecision.

HOW DO YOU OVERCOME INDECISION?

There are not a few materials online that you can read on decision making but it is time consuming as you have to search over and over again using different keywords. And this would take several hours to get the right material which might not even give you the straight to the point information to making the right decision and getting things done.

Peter Drucker once said - "Decisions are easy when we have all the information". Now you have a chance to get the information as I present to you my top 7 great books on decision making and time management.

My Top 7 Books on Overcoming Indecisiveness and maximizing your effectiveness.

1. Overcoming Indecision: Tools for Easy Decision Making - by Walter Rollin

2. Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions by Ralph L. Keeney

3. Strategies for Creative Problem Solving (2nd Edition) by H. Scott Fogler

4. Winning Decisions: Getting It Right the First Time by Paul J.H. Schoemaker

5. On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not by Robert Burton

6. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

7. Retire Early? Make the SMART Choices by Steven A. Silbiger

It doesn't matter which of the books you lay your hands on first, you'll surely get the full value for your money. But, I'll recommend that you go for all the books as they are great material to enhance your knowledge as you will learn how to:

Approach decisions with a different perspectives.
Make positive choices that improve the quality of your life.
Deal with the judgment of others.
Stop making excuses and instead take action.
Put time in perspective and make the most of each moment.
Live without regrets or fear.
Overcome procrastination.
Take risks - that can improve your life.

You can make more effective decisions when you know what the key elements are. You should understand the problem you’re solving and always evaluate on what is required of you; what gives the greatest return and what is most rewarding. You can always put your tasks on a preferential scale to determine which comes first based to their importance and urgency.

Ask yourself these questions:

What is required of me?
What gives me the greatest return?
What is most rewarding?

In conclusion, evaluate, estimate and eliminate options that you have and avoid every attractive distractions.

2009 Is Slowly Creeping To An And!

2009-12-09T06:35:00.002-08:00

As the year is slowly creeping to an end, there’s a need for you to look back and reflect on the things you’ve done in the course of the year and those that are left untouched. There’s also a need for you to access your strength and weakness to ascertain the level of your efficiency and effectiveness.

Efficiency they say is the foundation for survival.

Most people at the beginning of the year make resolutions that up till today have failed to implement them due to lack of dedication, diligence, resilience, perseverance and self – discipline. Being the architect of your life and destiny, the design you pictured may not appear just as you pictured them if your level of efficiency is low. In order words, the success you hope to achieve at the end of the year may not be achieved if you are inefficient or ineffective. Effectiveness is the foundation of success.

How do you make the best of the remaining days of the year?

So far you are still alive today, there’s hope for you and you can still have a reason to celebrate if and only if you could adjust or change your way of life. To be productive, follow these 3 steps:

1. Be Organized or Agonize
To develop a successful and productive lifestyle, one of your first tasks must be to organize Yourself, Work and Time. When you are organized, you begin to experience a stable mind, normal blood pressure and live a stress free life. Being organized is the same as planning ahead. Don’t forget that “he who fails to plan, plans to fail.”

To organize or plan your life, you must place priority on your tasks or assignments, according to their importance and urgency. You may need to write them down and arrange them in this format:

• High Importance/High Urgency – Deal with projects that fall under this category first.
• Low Importance/Low Urgency – Set deadlines for the completion and get these projects worked into your daily routine.
• Low Importance/High Urgency – Find quick and effective ways to get this work done without much personal involvement. You can delegate it to someone that is capable of doing it for you.
• Low Importance/Low Urgency – These are works that falls into our daily tasks, e.g. filling, returning calls, etc. and you stalk them and set a 1 ½ hour to do them once in a week. Likewise, you can postpone them indefinitely. No matter how low the importance of any task, always study it to know if you can do it today before putting it off until tomorrow.

2. Self - Discipline
No matter how gifted, famous, smart or powerful you are, if you lack self – discipline, you can not achieve or sustain success. Self – discipline is denying yourself every form of enjoyment or pleasure and paying the price to get the better result that you want through sacrifice and tireless pursuit of your desired result.

3. Diligence

“The hand of the diligent makes rich.” Pv 10:4

Diligence calls for being self – disciplined, motivated, alert, dependable and entails following through. A diligent mind always focuses on positive outcome of every task and endeavors.

Are you successful today?

2009-11-18T06:44:00.000-08:00

A question that I always ask people around me is: “Are you successful today?” Most of them usually respond by asking these two questions;
1. Is it POSSIBLE?
2. Is it a MUST…to succeed everyday? And my response has always been YES.

It is very important for every man and woman to record success every blessed day as it is one of the factors that motivate us towards achieving greater goals in our lives.

A young sprinter was asked the same question and her response was, “Yes, I succeed everyday. The essence of training daily is to increase my speed. Any day I fail to add a few seconds to my speed, I feel depressed and go to bed a looser and that affect me the following day. So I work harder to succeed and also to avoid depression because when you are depressed, nothing can motivate you.”

Another good example is the creation of heaven and earth. God created the heavens and earth, the ocean and all the creatures in it; the land and all that live on it; and all He did in six successive days. If your creator could succeed, how much more you who’s a product of success!

It is not until you are awarded a multi-million naira contract or when your business turnover hit millions that you can claim success, the completion of a simple task or just having a god reputation among your friends or in the society are good ways to account for success.

How can I be successful – everyday?

“The reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend out timedoing second things first.” Our minds are mostly pre-occupied by problems and thoughts of things we wish to acquire but yet to be achieved. This tends to distract us from doing the right things and that makes us unproductive.

One factor of success that we need to work on is inner peace. A peaceful mind is calm, happy and not worried. When you have inner peace, you’ll be dedicated to whatever you do, no matter how stressful or challenging it is.

So, how do you search for inner peace?
1. Be connected to your source.
2. Avoid unnecessary stress.
3. Stay focus and accept ups and downs.
4. Believe in yourself and know you are not perfect.
5. Be optimistic and be a positive thinker.

Once these five things are identified with you, what you need to succeed daily are:
1. Have vision.
2. Plan ahead and set new goals/target for each day.
3. Prioritize your tasks
4. Be people oriented
5. Take one step at a time
6. When stress steps in, take a time out to have fun
7. Challenge excuses – Don’t explain yourself to anyone because those that trust you don’t need it and those that hate you won’t believe it.
8. Help 1 person a day and 365 people in a year.
9. Make quick and good decision
10. Be diligent – Diligence calls for being self-discipline, motivated alert, dependable and entails following through. Laziness is an enemy of productiveness and produces lack.

Lazy people are:
(i.) Procrastinators. “A little sleep… folding of hands.” They say, I’ll do it tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes.

(ii.) Expensive to maintain. He who is slothful in his work is a brother to… a great destroyer. They complain, cut corners, cripple businesses and cause hardship.

(iii.) Quitters. They quit before the job is done.

(iv.) Master of excuses. They give excuses in every situation just to protect their name and credibility. The sluggard says: “There’s a lion outside’ or ‘I will be murdered in the street!’” when he runs out of credible excuses, he goes for ridiculous ones. He will not plough by reason of the cold. (Pv 20:4)