Being fit and healthy has to be number one priority. Without this, you will not accomplish very much.
There is a line between using this time as an excuse: "I cannot start that project because I have no time, what with all the exercise and warm ups and warm downs and juicing and protein shakes and nutribullets and meal preparation" ...versus using it to propel you forwards, Jocko Willink style. Discipline equals freedom. And discipline in one area of your life will transfer to the rest of it. Starting with discipline enforces it for the rest of the day. January is a great time to start afresh. But only because that time is now! Start anytime. Do not wait for an entire year if you have already given up on your New Year's resolutions. Just get back on track as soon as possible - now, this afternoon, tomorrow - but do not write off an entire year. Putting yourself first could be seen as arrogant and dismissive of others, but actually, the opposite can be true. By thinking of others and then trying to fit that into a prioritisation list with yourself at the top, what you need to do becomes clear. If I want to look after my wife and son and spend the time I want with them AND I am also putting myself first (I need to exercise, meditate and complete the rest of my morning routine to be the best I can be and have the energy to deal with the day) then I need to do my stuff before anyone else gets up. There are a lot of problems that can be solved by just getting up earlier than everyone else.
The little things are the big things.
Whether personal habits or for businesses, it is always the little things done consistently that make the most difference. Scaling the unscalable. Thoughtful comments on posts in a given online community. Picking up a dropped time in the supermarket for an elderly lady. Sending a bespoke email rather than an impersonal shotgun blast. Keeping in contact with an old colleague. Saying thank you. These are the things that people looking in from the outside miss and then attribute results down to luck. Serendipity cannot happen if you never interact on a personal level with anyone. At some stage, you have to put yourself out there and then keep doing so. The biggest little thing you can do is to keep adding value to others and keep working on yourself daily. "Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices." ~ Benjamin Franklin
Lately, I am making decisions based on imagining whether my future self is more likely to regret doing something or more likely to regret not doing it.
If your phone already works fine, are you more likely to regret buying an iPhone X or more likely to regret not buying one? Imagining spending over $1000 and then realising it only does the same tasks as your existing phone once you get it. It is easy to imagine that if you knew nothing of the iPhone X, you would not regret not having one. If your phone is old and tired, suppose that the next time the battery runs out on you at a critical moment, it is easier to imagine regretting not buying the new phone earlier. Unless it's broke, don't spend money fixing it. I have a couple of times in my life got buyers remorse from a new phone or a new car when I replaced them and the old one was fine. With "stuff" it is relatively easy - a rough rule of thumb is that you would regret having it more than not. This type of decision making broadly aligns with what is already known about happiness - better to spend money on experiences rather than things. If you are invited somewhere, even if you are not sure you are going to like it, better to go and regret doing it than to regret not doing it - it could be the best thing you ever did, after all? Would you regret going out in your 20s versus staying home and not meeting anyone? Pretty easy to imagine you'll regret something you haven't done more than something you have done in this example. What about if you regret spending your 20s working to build a business and never going out but then you have all the money you ever need and can retire at 30? More difficult to imagine - but is this the real decision you are making? You have time. Do both.
Consistency is king
Ordinary things when done consistently produce extraordinary results "I tried" means you gave up. If you didn't give up it's a habit. Habits work and you would be there already. Keep on keepin' on. Excerpt from Tools Of Titans, Tim Ferriss: Noah Kagan on what would you put on a billboard? "'It’s not about ideas, it’s about making ideas happen.' I'd put it on every college campus in the world. In our youth, we are wonderfully creative and idealistic... Truth is, young creative minds don't need more ideas, they need to take more responsibility with the ideas they've already got." Similarly, think of all the meetings you are in where everyone gets a say. Everyone has a new idea, yet not many of them are executing any results or taking ownership of the ideas they throw out. Just like a pact between friends to always do sober what you said you would do whilst drunk, if someone has an idea then give them an action to execute that idea. If you are going out drinking. If you are staying in watching Love Island. If you are spending time complaining to someone else. You are not spending time improving yourself. Surely, this is the only way out of any situation? "It's a bargain. It was on sale. It was half price."
Something is only worth what someone else will pay for it. Unless you are in the business of reselling stuff you bought a low price then why bother about the promotion? If the price is important then there are always alternatives that are cheaper in almost every market. The designer top that is a bargain because it is half price, is still about 2500% more that it cost to make. Is it really a bargain? And if you are a brand owner or retailer, why not sell out at full price? Fix your product. Fix your service. Customers should be happy to pay more for a scant supply of something valuable to them. Unless you are a commodity. Then the best thing you can do is realise you are a commodity and structure and price yourself accordingly. The problem with a race to the bottom though, as Seth would say, is that you might win. There are some things that I now need to do daily just to get back to normal: Meditate Yoga Exercise Drink apple cider vinegar Take vitamins (B12 and D-3) Take magnesium Read Journal Make bed Avoid refined sugar Eat slow carb Avoid gluten and grains Wake up at the same time every day Write a blog post Write morning pages Go for a walk Have a cold shower Reach out to my network Of course, these things make everything else possible…if done consistently. Ordinary things done consistently produce extraordinary results. When I first started work after University it was as a Sales Ledger Clerk in a small accounts department of a door handle manufacturer. As it was an entry level job and I knew nothing I used to have tasks given to me. And I used to do them as fast as humanly possible, like a game, before jumping up and asking for the next task. I remember being so amazed that the other people in the office were not working as fast as they could that I told my mom when I got home. She said, “yes, that’s what people do.” If you get through your work, guess what there is no more work. You don’t have to be here, in the office, if there is no more work to do. Or you get to do better work. Now we have the internet. It was not invented when I started work. And you can do whatever you want from wherever you are. It is like a travelator. And you can still run on a travelator to go even faster. Why wouldn’t you? Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog Checking someone’s work is both short-term and not scalable. If you are in the middle of a “crisis” then it may be necessary. But first, is it really a crisis? Do you really not have the time for someone to fail and find their own mistakes? Because that is how they are going to get better the fastest. Better to increase capability. If you are spending time being a bottleneck then you are not spending enough time improving things or getting to the root cause of the error. Checking is the worst resolution. But this is not the same as not being in the detail. You should know the detail well enough that you know how long things should take, you know the right questions to ask, you know who should be accountable for which metrics. You should be in a position to help people fix the bureaucratic processes that drain them; fix the outdated systems that cause extra work; fix the expectations of the people they serve to cut out the noise and provide air cover. Know. Fix. Don’t check. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog |
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