​We choose our own actions. Even when we are planning the future, it is the planning that we are doing in the present moment. We only have the present to do things and only a series of present moments before the future becomes the present and then just as quickly becomes the past. 

Wishing is the worst of future activities. Wishes get you nowhere. Next best is planning. This can be helpful but can also be disguised procrastination. If you are planning in the present moment, then this is also time that cannot be spent actually doing the activities that will move your plan forward. Realise this and also that 'no plan survives first contact with the enemy' as well as the fact that you are unlikely to be planning to lead men into war. If you plan fails, it does not matter. Try something else.

If it can be helpful to plan, but also if the plan is likely to change and is not life-threatening, then how much time should you. Spend planning? As little as possible. Say, ten minutes?

A plan can protect us from busy work. We just need to make sure that doing the plan, and the associated tasks of keeping it up to date does not become the busy work itself.

A quick rule of thumb for planning quickly: Plan top-down using no more than three steps. Then list no more than three steps below these as sub-tasks sub-steps. This forces you to keep it really simple. Do not over complicate things. You do not need much structure to know what you should be doing right now. Keep it simple to the point that it seems too simple. Then do the first thing that you can do.

You do not need much more than this to start. Just start.

The second of this weekends link posts is from The Wall Street Journal Article on the most productive hour of the day - 4am.  Some highlights below:

One of the most common challenges to productivity, Dr. Davis says, is that people booby trap their offices with distractions: Desk clutter, email pop-ups, cellphone, Facebook , news feeds. "By waking up at 4 a.m., they've essentially wiped a lot of those distractions off their plate. No one is expecting you to email or answer the phone at 4 a.m. No one will be posting on Facebook. You've removed the internal temptation and the external temptation."

Read the whole article here

This weekends link posts start with a great one from Barking Up The Wrong Tree on how to actually work smarter not harder.  Some stand outs for me:


1) Do Less - Then Obsess

By using a variation on a classic scientific principle. "Occam's Razor" says the simplest answer is often the best. So start ruthlessly cutting all the activities in your workday that aren't producing value.

Ask: How many tasks can I remove, given what I must do to excel? Remember: As few as you can, as many as you must.

Reduce the number of activities you perform - and reallocate that time to intensity.


There is loads more in this great article.  Go check it out.

A few people at my day job have recently left to "pursue other opportunities."

One got made redundant, is close to retirement but yet did not want to go and retire on the pay-out, instead wanting to carry on working and will seek another job after a small break. A couple of people have gone into consulting for some big money but a lot of travel and long hours, so they will be impacting their family life as a result.

What are they working for? What are they earning the money for? DO they love what they do? Do they hate their families? Who knows? Maybe not even them if they have not stopped to work it out.

The latest person to leave has given extended notice (six months instead of three) so she hopes that a replacement can be found and have a good handover.  How novel an idea that there would be some continuity in a key job. I wonder if HR will catch on ;-) But she is leaving to do charitable work or work for a non-profit. They always said later in their career they wanted to give back rather than working for big corporations all their lives.

I thought that this was so refreshing. Obviously, people who have made big bucks, celebrities and politicians wives always go on the non-profit train because it is noble and because they have the means to do it. But to hear from a 'normal' person that they have always wanted to do this and actually having the courage to follow through with it, with nothing to go to, is quite inspiring.

If you do not follow through in actions, that which your mind desires, then they can never come to fruition.

I found it strange that I know no one who has left to start their own business apart from a consulting business of one person, for tax purposes.  But no one has built a product business or anything remotely scalable. It is like everyone is brainwashed to use time to earn money rather than the other way around.

It is the start of a new month as I write this. If you were waiting for an arbitrary time to start something, then today is the day. Or are you going to wait until Monday? The start of a new week might be the time you find more motivation than now. We have the weekend in-between then and now of course.  It is difficult to start something at the weekend. Or maybe wait until next year?

It is March and New Year's resolutions are all out of the window. No point starting something big mid-year is there? Better to wait and avoid starting until next year's New Year's resolution, right?

If this sounds like you, I hope reading it has already solidified how absurd this thinking is. What are we delaying things for? Our future selves will be no different than our current selves unless we make different habits. To make different habits we have to start and then keep on consistently. We might fail. That is okay. We just need to start again as quickly as possible.

What about if you have no time right now? Well, why would you have more time in the future? You squander much time now, so why will tomorrow be any different. Or any other expanse of future time? Do today what you want to be doing in the future and the future will come to you. If you do today what you have always done on a day like today, then your future is easy to see - it will look a lot like your past.

What are you going to do today that you have been putting off? What sacrifices are you prepared to make in order to do it? Put first things first and see what drops off the list.

The second of this weekend's link posts.  Today's excerpt is from Zdravko Cvijetic writing about productivity techniques. Here is our favourite:

The last sentence is worth reading three times. You must block time to do actual work or else you will get run over by busywork. Get out of meetings early and work on your top 3 goals. MeeTime can help

Read the original article here

It is time for the weekend link posts again. This one is from a great article  by Christopher D. Connors on 30 excuses stopping you from living your best life. Number one is close to my heart, here it is:

At MeeTime we help people save time to do the things they love. It is so easy to carve out twenty minutes of a meeting.  Do this every day and you have the time to make progress in whatever you choose.

Read the original article here

All caught up. Caught up on inbox zero, on chores, on busy work. Now I can get down to something big and meaningful, you might tell yourself. It is a great feeling being caught up. All the psychological weight of incoming tasks has gone. You feel free, you feel motivated, you feel like you have time to do something big. But, like everything, it is fleeting. What happens when the next email hits, when the next interruption stings by your desk, when it is time to go to the next meeting?

'I'll just do this one thing now, so I can be caught up again.' 'It's only small and I like the feeling of being caught up, so I'll just do this small thing and THEN get onto the big stuff.' But guess what? This type of thinking is what got you here; this type of thinking is standing in the way of growth; this type of thinking leads to a life of mediocrity.

Just like Covey's big rocks and sand analogy, you must make time for the big things first. An entire life can be wasted if you focus on busy work.  Will you really care that you got to inbox zero every day in a job that you hated? This is the trap that many people who complain of 'having no time' fall into. Not realising that just starting the day with something big and proactive is all the change that is needed. The busywork can still get done in a reduced amount of time; or it will not get done; or sometimes it just sorts itself out.  All are manageable if you have already made progress on the big stuff.

Gary Vaynerchuk posted a great reminder the other day: 99% of stuff does not matter.  Stop worrying about dumb shit.

Focus on the important and put this first. Execute

If you fall off your horse, get right back on again. If you fail in your habits, do not let this spiral out of control, just get back into them as soon as possible. Avoid the thinking that goes like, 'well I have had a cake today, so I may as well eat crap for the rest of the day.' This leeches into 'well I was bad on Monday and Tuesday, so I may as well write this week off,' to 'well I was bad last week so I may as well just wait until next month to start again.'

Why are you trusting your future self to be better, to have fewer cravings, to have more motivation than your current self? Because you have felt motivated in the past, you think it will return? Possibly, but why take the risk? Why leave it up to fate? If you just did the thing you know you should do, the action itself will produce motivation, not the other way around.

There is no future, only what you are doing in the present. Right now.

The future is just a series of presents that stretch out in your mind. You do not delay breathing in such a manner. 'I can't be bothered to breathe right now, I think I'll wait until tomorrow.'

Bring your thoughts to your breath. Gather yourself in the present moment and then take action now. Get yourself back on track. Eat healthily, be silly with a loved one, open that stocks and shares account.

What would it look like if it was easy? Do that.

Listening to Ray Dalio on the James Altucher Podcast yesterday and he said something very true. Although he has accomplished a lot, it is not the accomplishments or the work he remembers but rather the people and the relationships that helped deliver it.

When someone leaves a job after working at the same company for a long time, they often say that they will miss the people and the friendships they have made. We often spend more time with our work colleagues than we do with our husbands, wives or children, so it is important that we get along with them.

It might be obvious that it is easier to build a relationship face-to-face despite the advances in technology making it easier remotely. So, is it right that we should spend more time with people we did not actively choose to spend our time with rather than loved ones? How can we manage the balance of needing to have face-to-face time with work colleagues to achieve something without resorting to endless meetings becoming a talking shop? 

Be mindful of your time. Use a timer; see your time ticking away. Focus on what you want to achieve in a given amount of time and make sure that you achieve it without spilling over. Use future regret-based decision making: am I going to regret leaving this meeting before it is finished (on time) or am I going to regret getting stuck in traffic and missing my kids Birthday before they go to bed? Which would your loved ones regret more?

Plan, do, review. Set time; stick to time; see where you spend time. Repeat.