A while back, the false rumor that Tiger Woods had died flooded the Internet. The rumor spread when someone created a “R.I.P. Tiger Woods” Facebook page.
Clearly some people have more time on their hands than they know what to do with. They must if they can afford to waste their time on something that produces no benefit for themselves or anyone else for that matter.
What that person did willingly is something we all fear… Waste time.
Unproductive trends can sneak up on you and take hold of you at any point in any given day.
So today I’d like to focus on things you may be doing which are killing your productivity dead in its tracks. These are things that super successful people do differently.
And once you adopt them for your own business they will help you get much more done in your day than you may have ever thought possible—giving you the freedom to spend your extra time any way you like.
Here are 8 things you can do to join the ranks of super productive and successful people:
1. Early Bird. One thing the most successful people in business and in history have in common is that they are early to rise. Dayna Steele, Donald Trump, and myself —all make the habit of getting up early. We, who get up early tend to be more proactive and thus have a more productive mindset.
2. Avoid multi-tasking. Do one thing at a time and avoid shifting from one thing to another, so you maximize your brainpower. For example, avoid checking your email throughout the day and instead check your email and reply to emails once a day during an allotted email time only. Work on one project for a pre-determined amount of time before switching to another project. Usually multi-tasking will cause you to get a lot less done. In fact, there’s even scientific evidence that multi-tasking makes you less efficient and is linked to short-term memory loss.
3. Fear Forward. Think about the last time you took much longer to finish a new project. Did you rationalize that it took longer because it was something new you’d never done before? Productive people find ways to keep moving and push forward even when they are apprehensive or nervous about the final outcome.
4. Treat your business like a business. Sure you started your business to have more flexibility—so that you could take off during the day or go to your kids’ soccer game, but you need to set business hours and stick to them. Set boundaries and communicate these to your family, friends and clients. It’s up to you to make sure they respect them. This will result in you being more productive during your work time.
5. Schedule time to work on your business. CEO Scott Lang says, “For me a big part of productivity is being agile. I like to leave blocks in my day open.” Lang says this allows him to have time to find out about new opportunities. When he doesn’t have unexpected meetings, he uses that time to catch up on industry reports and self-education. Plus he uses that time to focus on big picture thinking. If you don’t plan for this, your schedule can become overbooked, never leaving you time for these very important facets that will ultimately be responsible for helping you grow our business.
6. Farm out. Don’t do everything yourself. Farm out the things you don’t like to do and the things that aren’t essential for you to do so you can focus on the things you do best. Our Mastermind member Stewart Heap, DDS manages multiple streams of income, four business locations, a busy practice and keeps his family of seven children in focus at all times. Heap says a major breakthrough for him was when he realized there was a lot of stuff his staff could do that he didn’t need to do. Now he only does what he needs to do which mainly consists of doing initial consultations and the actual procedure. Everything else is handled by his staff.
7. Identify your time wasters & delete them. Take time to identify what is sucking your time and make a plan for eliminating them. For example, if you have a lot of phone calls throughout the day, this can be a huge distraction. Turn your phone off and schedule a time when you will make and return all of your calls.
8. Coach. Get a coach, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dan Kennedy, and myself, have often used coaches to help us learn faster and reduce the learning curve.
A component of creating more time while making more money is working smarter, not harder…and thinking a little differently. When you follow these eight ideas found in the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, you’ll be more productive which in turn will free up more time, creating the lifestyle you’ve been desiring.
