I am one of the 7 speakers who will be speaking for Raise Your Game 2011. It is an entertaining and content rich seminar where you will learn from professional speakers on how to make significant changes to your life!

If you want to quickly jumpstart this year productively, grow personally and professionally, this is an event that you can’t miss. All it takes is one great idea from this seminar that will totally change your life, business or relationships.

In this seminar, you will learn:

• Productivity Mindset: Three keys to accelerating team performance by Tim Wade
• The Positive Virus: How to be the best you and influence others by Andrew Bryant, CSP
• Presenting to Win: Pitching your ideas to any audience – and win every time by Tina Altieri
• From Resistance to Irresistible: Learning to take positive charge of your life by Santhanaram Jayaram
• New Ways of Conquering Critical Challenges: Think smart to work smarter by Tremaine Du Preez
• Becoming Fabulously Successful: How dressing like a leader can propel your career into the fast lane by Sharon Connolly
• Master Your Inner Self: Master your habits or they master you by Kenneth Kwan

This is a Seminar where 10% of all profits will go Operation Smile. It is a mobilised force of medical professionals who provide safe and effective reconstructive surgery for children born of facial deformities.

Here are the details:

Date: Thursday, 24 Feb 2011

Time: 0845-1730

Place: Hotel in Central Singapore

Investment: $268 (before 8 jan 2011), $368 (from 8 Jan onwards)

For Registration, click here.

The great news is that as one of my readers, I can bring 3 of my readers in at 50% off the price. I hope you will quickly take action and email to me directly at

kenneth(at)deepimpactonline(dot)com

(I have given this email address to prevent spam, please edit it accordingly).

Hope to see you there! Be Awesome!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Have you been hitting the snooze button?

You are sleeping very soundly and comfortably in your bed. All the sudden, a loud ringing sound is activated and you slowly drag yourself out of the bed. You reach towards your clock and look for the button to activate the snooze.

“Just five more minutes”, you tell yourself and crash back towards the bed. This ritual repeats itself for another three times before you realise that you really need to wake up. Need to wake up before you are late for work.

Has this ever happened to you?

Honestly speaking, I used to be like this. In fact, I really loved to sleep but ever since I have decided to take complete control over my habits, I noticed that this scenario has dramatically decreased. I realised that snoozing is a bad habit and I need to take control of this area of my life. In fact, I began to see that in the earlier part of my life, I have been snoozing away. Let me explain to you what I mean.

We tend to live life in a snooze mode. This means that in most cases, whenever people want to make significant changes in their lives, they tend to think…

“I’ll should just wait a little while more…”

“Just one more week of this before I really start doing something about it…”

“Wait till I have more time/money (delete where applicable), then I will finally get down to it.”

They tend to hit the snooze button in their lives. They figure out that they need to ‘sleep’ a little more and put things off. They decide to just wait a little while more and delay to enjoy the comfort of their current lifestyle. Every time I hear someone who wants to make a significant change in their life and that he/she wants to start next week/month/year, I shudder. That is because I know that it will probably not happen or that person will inevitably give up after some time.

You see, all of us have significant dreams and desires that we have always wanted to do. It could be the work-out that you needed, the change of work scope that you wanted or the promotion that you desired. Why don’t you make it happen, rather than wait for the ‘right’ moment to occur?

Do you hit the snooze button in your life?

Honestly, I have done it so many times that I confess that it is really harmed me. The best part about running my business is that every action that I take, I can see almost immediate effects of my actions. If I am sloppy, my business will be sloppy and so will my staff. However, if I am on top of things and demand that we do a job well, my business will be like that and my staff will react in the same way. The good news is that I have repented and have decided to be aggressive in eliminating the snooze effect in my life.

So, if you really need to change your habits that are killing you, work on it right now. Don’t hit the snooze button.

If you need to work on your health, eat right and treat your body well, do right now. Do not snooze over it.

If you need to make your relationships enduring and exciting, work on it now. Do not snooze over it.

If you have been losing money in your investment decisions, educate yourself right now. Do not snooze over it.

I am convinced that you will start to see changes, if you constantly ask what are the immediate actions you can take in a particular area of your life and be relentless to make it happen.

Making a change in your life needs momentum and you have to first overcome the huge inertia. Once you start seeing small steps of success happening because of your fierce determination, put even more effort into it. The cycle of success will then continue and you will start seeing significant results. Remember, for a fire to be big, you need to fuel the fire. I hope you will repeatedly fuel the fire within you. Motivation is not a one day thing, it is an everyday thing that you need to regularly talk to yourself.

So, what are you going to stop doing and start working on?

Leave me your comments.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Future Past sign post by www.saidaonline.com

People are always concerned about the future and have invested heavily to ensure that the future is as bright as possible. Some people even get involved in different instruments, techniques or a name change to ensure that they have a bright future.

However, I have found one way that we can relatively predict the future (with some levels of success). Here it is (drum rolls… please):

The best way to predict the future is to create it!

I know, it isn’t a sexy statement, but I seriously think that it is possible.

My questions are …

What kind of future do you envision for yourself?

What are you doing right now to create it?

Only when we have the clarity of what it looks like, we will be able to work towards it. There are many people who are highly unmotivated in their work because they do not know what is the purpose behind their work.

“You don’t just stumble into the future. You create your own future.”

Roger Smith

When you deliberately design and massive action towards it, you will start to notice that results will slowly appear. This does not happen in a mysterious way, but because you take consistent action in making it happen. I will be lying to say that everything will turn out the way you want it to be, but I can assure you that you much closer to your dreams.

Remember, design your future! Create it and work hard towards the goal!

PS: Do let me know how you have been creating your future.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Handling Criticisms- Image by Zach Klein

Honestly, I get pretty uptight whenever someone tells me something that I do not like to hear. My natural instinctive response is to get defensive or provoke back. The good thing is that over time, I have learnt to exercise tremendous self control in that process. Being a public person with a small fan base, my actions are watched constantly by many people. Sometimes, not everyone agrees, while some even criticizes certain decisions that I have made.

How do you handle criticisms when they are displayed before you with different intensities, ranging from mild assertions to stinging words thrown straight in your face?

I wish I can share with you a step by step process in handling criticisms, but it is not rocket science. It is more is an art where you will have to different techniques for different folks. Here are some principles to bear in mind that has really helped me:

1. Stop Being Defensive and Start Examining Myself

In all cases, criticism usually arises out of something that you did or didn’t do. The most difficult task is to separate the facts from the emotions. The next step is to objectively look at the results and ask how you played a part of it. For example, if you were criticised for making bad decisions that caused poor results, examine how you made it happened. This is because if you were to instantly be defensive, self evaluation will not occur at all.

A cognitive psychological tool called Johari window also states that everyone has a blind spot. This represents information that a person is not aware about themselves but others are aware of it. Therefore, it is imperative to listen what the criticism is and find out whether there is any truth in that statement.

Just recently, I was talking to a friend who criticised me for having ill intentions and not putting enough effort in my personal development. She mentioned that I was rather proud and not humble enough to say that I do not know. If you were to read my blog consistently, you will know that I place extreme emphasis in learning and development and also growing in my character and competence. Honestly, I was rather offended, in fact, for that particular minute, I was rather agitated. I clarified what I was doing (in an assertive way) and started to share an alternate view point of things.

Then I did something different.

I reached for my notebook and started writing the keywords that she said to me. I thanked her for her point of views and said that I will reflect on what she has said to me. Both of us immediately clammed down and started talking objectively again. I still look back at what she told me and am asking myself what I have been doing to be consistent in what I say. This self examination has helped me a lot in developing into a person of substance and character.

2. Change Yourself

I am a fond believer that change does not usually happen at a cognitive level but usually happens at an emotional level. For example, even if you are overweight and know that you have to lose weight, you might not be doing anything significant about it. This is the cognitive level. However, when things happen at an emotional level, the results might be longer lasting. This means that when I feel something deep within my heart and I made a firm decision for change to happen, I tend to stick at it for a long time. I understand that change can be difficult, because you really have to do things differently from what you are comfortable with, but it is not impossible.

So, ask yourself the tough question what do you need to change? By not making a decision is also making a decision not to do anything. Change only comes in when you demonstrate the resolve and absolute desire to make it happen (and of course, take MASSIVE ACTION on it).

It is also good to thing about the good outcomes from the positive change in your life. Know that everything comes with a cost, even with change. So, discipline and intense resolution is required to make the change.

3. Understand that Criticism is inevitable

Criticism; whether it is given with true intentions or destructive in nature, are always inevitable. When Drew Barrymore gave a million dollars to the United Nations World Food Program to fight hunger, she was criticised for her actions.

Here are some questions to determine if criticism is helpful:

a.       Who said it? Sometimes harsh words from a wise man are better than the loving kisses of fools.

b.      What was the spirit behind it? Is it to help or tear me down?

c.       What is the truth? I need to determine if what was true and how I should address it.

4. Let go and move on

What happens when you feel that after much self examination, there is really nothing wrong with yourself? I know much people who will constantly grew angry and frustrated because of what other people said to them. They are not able to let go and move on in their lives.

I think that secure people can see that they are fallible and know what their weaknesses are. The good thing is that they make a conscious decision not to get bonded by the negativity and move ahead fresh. If you keep harping about the past, you will never be able to take on the new possibilities in your life.

John Maxwell in an article shares that “while we are growing up, a lot of us spend a good deal of time worrying about what the world thinks of us. By the time we reach 60, we realize the world wasn’t paying much attention.”

Conclusion:

Some of the best people that entered into my life were my critics, not friends. Treat criticisms with a certain respect, learn from it and then move on in your life.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Image from thoughtsonfilms.wordpress.com

As society gets more and more busy, we realize that we are constantly pressured to do more and more in lesser time. Sometimes when we look at the end of each week, we notice that we have put in so much time at work but did not know where it went? Where did it all go and was it worth it?

As a results oriented individual, I’m always experimenting different ways to make myself more productive and efficient. I do not want to just simply put in more hours at work but rather, seek to make better use of the time that I have.

Here are the 54 no frills way of improving your productivity right now!

Habits

1. Hermit Time. You need to allocate a time slot where you will totally be undisturbed and being incommunicable (just like a hermit).

2. Momentum is key! Remember that there is always momentum when you work. It is very important to ensure that the momentum is not disrupted by other things, e.g. phone calls, checking emails, people stopping by to talk to you and etc. Once the momentum is lost, it will take some time to get it back.

3. I-can’t-see-you. Turn off anything that distracts, i.e. Instant messengers, TV, newspapers, facebook, twitter and etc.

4. Stop multi-tasking. There is a white paper that says that it makes you stupid, impatient and reduce your concentration ability. Doing one thing at a time also makes you focused to accomplish a task quickly and to high standards.

5. Stop being a perfectionist. You can take whole day to ensure that small little things are in order, but is that effective?

6. Say “NO”. Taking more things doesn’t make you more focused or effective if you are already struggling with the amount of things to do. There are always more things to do, but it should not be done at the expense of what is the main purpose of your job.

7. Performance Reviews. Conduct self evaluations at the end of each day and ask how you would have done it better.

8. Maximizing “On the go time”. When you are traveling, can you listen to a CD or MP3s to educate yourself?

9. Buzzword is Effectiveness. Remember that activity does not mean accomplishment. You can be doing a lot of things and running around in circles. Strive to be effective first before being efficient.

10. Effectiveness Percentage. Calculate your Efficiency percentage= [ (Time doing Real Work¹) / (Time spent at work²) ] x 100%. Where ¹ is the amount of time you actually spend doing real work, while ² is the office hours you put in. You will be wise to improve efficiency percentage by maximizing your time.

11. Invest in yourself. Read, attend courses or seminars that will make you think faster, make better decisions and improve your gut feel for things.

12. Avoid information overload. Today’s society tends to give us too much information about things that we rarely use. Unsubscribe yourself from websites or reduce reading newspaper content. Read only relevant ones that impact you.

13. Schedule Pit Stops. Even a high performance car in the F1 needs to enter a pit stop to refuel and change tires. They do it so that they will continue running at an optimum speed. You need  your rest so that you can carry on working better.

F1 cars getting a tune up before they race

Daily organization

14. Plan ahead. Create a task list of things to do by the morning. Put check boxes next to them so that it will encourage you to complete them.

15. Finish by 12pm. Do the important tasks as quickly as possible before lunch time.

16. Schedule dailies. If you set aside time on a task or habit, you will tend to finish the long waited book, losing weight or learn an entirely new sport.

17. Spell Deadlines. Give yourself deadlines to everything you do. Remember that deadlines are spelled as deadlines, not datelines. Cross the line and you are dead.

18. Break-up. Break up huge tasks into smaller sizes. This prevents procrastination and getting lost in the immensity of a task. Finishing small bite sizes of work tends to be much easier to manage.

19. Peg time limits to each task. This prevents you from using too much time to finish a task.

20. Keep files for everything. This will prevent you from looking around for lost documents.

21. Prioritize your work. What is urgent may not always be important.

22. Ignore doing, if possible. Before you do anything, ask yourself if you really need to do it? Sometimes the consequences of not doing anything may be acceptable. There are some things that do not even need to be done.

23. P-Cycle. Decide when your most productive time is. There are personal cycles of productivity and you should schedule your most important tasks at that time.

24. Batch your work- If you batch your work into chunks, it might be easier to manage. Think of all the functions of your job scope and complete it a chunk at a time, e.g. make phone calls, run errands or clear administrative work.

25. Be like e good chef. Before a chef cooks, he has all the ingredients laid out before him already. Gather all the resources and tools before you start to work.

26. Cross-pollination. Bring good ideas or best practices from other industries and ask if they can be applied to yours as well.

Emails

27. Stop excessive emailing checking: Check your emails only twice or at maximum three times a day. Excessive checking of emails tends to make you waste time.

28. Act on all emails immediately: Do it by deleting or replying to them. Do not try to read an email first and then decide to reply later. This makes you waste time in re-reading emails.

29. Short and sharp. Reduce the length of emails so that other people do not find it too daunting to read and you will also save time in the process of crafting it as well.

30. Boilerplate. Use them for frequent questions or repetitive proposals. Boilerplates are essentially templates to typical questions or proposals without having to constantly reinventing the wheel.

31. Craft subject lines clearly. Since most people decide to open emails based on subject lines, it is important that you need to write relevant and descriptive subject lines.

32. Number your points. It helps to ease reading and guide others to reply according to your points.

Communication

33. Quick Chat. Strive for the quickest and most effective way of communication. A one minute conversation one-to-one phone call can deliver the better results than you making a lengthy reply through emails or Short Messaging Service (SMS).

34. Clarity of speech. Be clear on your thoughts and purpose for every conversation. Most people don’t communicate well because they do not know what they want to achieve from every conversation. Communication is considered effective only when the recipient receives your intended meaning.

Image from languages-now.com

Meetings

35. Do I need to be there? Always ask if you really need to attend the meeting before hand. Some meetings are just for information and you can just read the minutes after the meeting.

36. Agendarise everything. Ensure there is an agenda in all meetings. This is to make meetings purposeful and clear.

37. Time Limit. Decide that you will end the meeting at an appointed time. This helps reduce unnecessary conversations.

38. Homework. Before you do anything new, consider talking to people first. You can save precious time from avoiding mistakes that other people have committed.

Work Environment

39. Conducive Environment. Maintain a work environment that encourages you to work. Distractions from people or a messy table might affect you. Think through about what items need to be close/far from you to encourage you to work better.

40. Adequate Lighting. Ensure that there is enough lighting to avoid eyestrains.

41. Good ergonomics. Ergonomics is defined as the science of measurement and a person’s relationship to it. You should have good posture in everything you use. This includes desk, height of computer, distance of the computer from your eyes, your feet resting comfortably flat on the floor and etc.

Outsourcing or Delegation

42. Value Generation. Consider out-sourcing or delegating part of your work out if you feel that it does not bring generate the most value for your company. Can part timers or personal assistants help? Anything repetitive can usually be outsourced easily.

43. Need a freelancer? You can outsource your work (almost anything can be done there) to professionals from other countries at a reasonable price. Try elance.com or getafreelancer.com.

44. Hire good people and get out of their way. Be clear on their job descriptions and how they add value to the company. Coach them to succeed and empower them to make decisions so that they can improve your company’s effectiveness.

Personal motivation

45. Hang out. Stick with people who inspire you to take positive action in life. Identify friends or colleagues that inspire you to take massive action to improve your life. I’m sure that if you were to hang around with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet or Steve Jobs, you will want to do something significant with your life!

46. Get pumped up. Staying motivated is extremely important in getting you to complete long duration tasks. Realise what keeps you motivated and constantly remind yourself of it.

47. Mantra Mantra. Recite “Do it now” again and again until you are too tired to hear another time and get it done.

48.Get a personal mentor or coach. They will help you identify your blind spots and coach you to overcome them and focus on what you do best.

49. Reward yourself. Give yourself a reward when you achieve certain milestones in your work. This will give you incentive to work harder the next time.

50. Practice makes permanence. The more time you spend in doing something, the better you become. This reduces the amount of time to do it again. Hey, being good at something also pays well too!

Computer Techniques

51. Better software skills. Consider upgrading your software skills and learn short-cuts and hot keys to finish a task faster.

52. Email consolidation. Programs like Gmail has the ability to consolidate several email addresses into a main account. This means that you can avoid logging into too many email accounts and asking yourself if your email is placed in which account.

53. WPM. Improve your typing speed (measured in Words Per Minute). Secretaries to learn how to touch type (which means typing without looking at keys) and tend to be faster than anyone else. You can type faster by memorising the keyboard and using all your fingers.

54. Use updated tools. Ensure that the software and hardware tools are all updated so that they can function at an optimum speed. A computer with a good processing speed and internet connection speed is essential to ensure that it does not impede your work.

PS: If you have new ideas that you think should be included in this blog post, do leave your comments here. Do share about which one above you feel resonates within your soul.

Popularity: 63% [?]

Running To The End Point, Image from www.zimbio.com

There is one trait that totally sets successful people apart from the rest of the other people. This one trait made them rise above the rest and is very well respected by many people. What is it?

The trait that I am talking about is Single-mindedness. All successful people know what they want in their hearts, are very purposeful and single minded in reaching their aspirations. Few people actually know what they want, fewer people actually stay true to their purpose. They get caught up with many other things in life that they lose sight of what really matters and give-in to everything that shouts for their attention.

Why be single-minded and focused? Let me share with you reasons why you cannot afford not to do it:

1. It keeps us disciplined.
The ability to say “NO” to the distractions around you and being clear to move forward is extremely important. This helps you to be focused and clear the clutter on what inattention brings. We also become very purposeful in setting aside time to what’s most important and continue to see it through. It is my firm believe is that you can only say NO when you have a clear strategy/purpose.

2. It yields results.
Being single-minded is not being inflexible, but knowing that you have very clear on the end goals. When I first started my business in training, I wanted to do everything. I started training in eight different topics and this got me nowhere. Much later, I understood the importance of concentrating in being the best I could be and I literally struck off many programs to just concentrate in two core areas; motivation and teambuilding. The results were astonishing! I started to be noticed by magazine writers, newspapers and even was had the chance to speak and train in six different countries around Asia. You need to hold on to your firm convictions and not be easily swayed. Keep working on it and find out how to make it work!

3. It pays well.

Jim Collins, in his book, Good to Great, highlights how companies moved to greatness by just perfecting what they are good at. Their generated cumulative stock returns from end 1975 to 2000 outperformed the market by 15 times, beating great companies such as GE, Coca-Cola and Intel. By just concentrating in relocating all their stalls into convenient locations, using clustering methods (sometimes up to nine stores in a mile), drive through pharmacies and even high margin photo processing services, they increased the profit per customer visit. More convenience led to more customer visits and when multiplied with the increased profits per visit, it threw cash into their company.

Conclusion:

I hoped I have given you compelling reasons to start being single-minded. Start small by deciding to keep to the things you have decided and not waiver on them. Then move on to bigger decisions which involve your life, family and career.

PS: Hope to also hear from you on what are the steps you have decided to take after reading this article.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Work is everywhere around you and sometimes it is hard to find time to do everything. Let me suggest ways on how you can significantly be more effective.

Here are 6 simple steps to dramatically boost your performance at work in any field and achieve the more success in what you do.

1. Focus is Key

Focusing on what’s important and urgent is the essence of work effectiveness. Never lose sight of your goal. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by unimportant and urgent things happening around you at the workplace. Remember that there will always be things that are urgent but it important issues MUST NEVER be compromised for it. Set your goal for the day and achieve it no matter what. This helps you create trust in your own abilities to see things through. I personally feel that Focus is also about choosing what you wish to do and what you should be doing lesser.

2. Visualize

When you set your goal for the day, visualize yourself go about the work. Think about how focus you will be, how well you will do it and how much satisfaction you will from it. Great sportsmen often employ visualization techniques to help them overcome the emotional and physical challenges from their sports. It’s only a five-minute exercise but one that is most effective in helping you achieve your peak performance.

3. Make it a challenge to do every task better than before

This is definitely the most effective way to achieve peak performance at work. Rather than going through the motions, choose to perform every task better than the previous and in lesser time. Seek for 1% increments rather than vast improvements. Use your creativity to bring about improvement in whatever you do, no matter how mundane it is. There is nothing more fulfilling and profitable than sharpening your strengths.

4. Investigate your flaws

Look closely at your flaws and things that reduce your efficiency at work. Always ask is there something you should not be doing or do lesser? Find out the improvements that you need to make in your personality or work ethics. When you strive not to commit the same kind of mistakes again, your performance at work will skyrocket.

5. Master your mood, do not be a slave to it

Enthusiasm is the lifeblood of success. Infuse inspiration in yourself by grabbing hold your mood. Your thoughts are more powerful than your mood; use them to good effect and master your mood to make it dance to your will.

6. Look at Role Models

Find out who inspires you the most. Look at the exemplary performers who consistently give their best and reach top positions from the bottom rungs. Study their work ethics and follow in their footsteps. Success always leave trails and it is better to learn from successful people rather than the commit mistakes yourself.

Peak performance is a choice and it starts with an intrinsic willingness to do what is best for yourself. Make a firm commitment to yourself that in everything you do, you will always do it better.

Here are more articles on getting more results and being effective in your life:

Being Effective Without Putting In More Time

Effective Goal Setting For Personal Development

Being Pro-active in Life; Getting Ahead When Others Don’t

Are you Efficiently Effective?

Popularity: 12% [?]

Have you ever failed in your goals?

Have you given up on things that matter?

I may have a reason why this is happening and after reading this, you will want to act on it.

If you have failed before, my question to you is this “Are you committed to it?”

Image by eschipul via Flickr

There are many times we want to do something, however, when times are difficult, our habits or weaknesses overcome our desire to do it. Wanting to do something may not be compelling enough to overcome our natural desires to be lazy. I have heard many times that people WANT to lose weight, WANT to lower their cholesterol, WANT to be more disciplined. But nothing sustainable happens.

If you belong to the majority of the population, most likely you will fail. Why? This is because we are simply NOT committed to getting results. What do I mean by commitment? Let me share with you more by asking some more questions:

Have you ever been absorbed by a task and were committed to finish a project by a deadline that you did not have your meals?

Have you ever seen a lady holding 2 jobs in the day and night simply because she is a widow and has 3 kids to feed?

In every one of the descriptions above, I have seen people really being committed to what they do. They are willing to give up short term gains, simply because they have committed themselves to achieve certain results. They know that there is a price to pay for everything. Hard work and discipline must follow through to get the results that they need. I’m not advocating that we should skip our meals, but I just want to highlight that there is a deep level of commitment to what we have set out minds to do.

Without commitment, you will fail. You will just WANT, but NEVER achieve. I’m sorry to be harsh, but this is the truth. I realised that most of my recent success in corporate training is because I was extremely committed while the first few years of my business was not eventful because I was not committed to myself, staff and my family.

If you are sick and tired of NOT getting the results you want, maybe its time to be committed? If so, what price will you pay for it?

Do leave your comments and your commitments down; I hope to hear from you.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Are you constantly struggling to find more time to finish your work?

Do you constantly lose focus and get impatient when things are slow?

Do you feel that you are ineffective sometimes and do not bring results to whatever you do?

If the answer YES to any of these statements above, this article might just change your life!

Everyone is busy nowadays. There are more things to do and problem is that we still have the same 24 hours! Being an entrepreneur and a business owner, I constantly find myself doing a lot of different things that demand my attention.

Everyone and everything seems to be so important or urgent that I almost felt that I was going to break down. There was even a time when I could not sleep for four days in a row, thinking about work and the stress of not getting enough sales.

However, when I understood the following principles, my life started to restabilise and I felt in control of things. These are some of the things that are taught in my training and let me share with you my experience and lessons learnt:

1.    Decide On what NOT to do

Most people know there are many more things that they have to do, however, not many actually know what NOT to do. Time is limited and therefore we must always ask ourselves, what is something I can do less?

For me, I seek to eliminate ineffectiveness in my life (this was what I was), eg. checking emails 8-12 times a day, doing little or no value work, writing ideas on loose sheets of paper instead of putting everything in a note book, constantly finding things. I realised that elimination is important to remove clutter in my life.

One great way I saved a lot of time is to only check emails thrice a day. Morning at 10am, 1pm (after lunch) and 4pm. This helps to clear things in a quick matter and not being constantly distracted and seeing if anyone has emailed me.

2.    Outsource part of your work

Once I got rid of the inefficient things in my life, I started to look at the quality of work that I am paid to do. I decided that anything repetitive could always be outsourced. Anything that was logistics and administration in nature (preparing files, name tags, attendance confirmation of participants and etc), I tried to out-source them to part-timers to do simple filing and even hired someone to look after this portion of my business.

Consider using strategic partners to help you in your work as well, eg. courier services, programmers, marketing collaterals, design work. I realised that successful people often outsource work that are not within their core business, while ineffective people often want to do everything! The internet offers a large variety of options and good prices for out-sourcing options. Check out elance.com or getafreelancer.com or ideas on what can be out-sourced. Almost EVERYTHING can be out-sourced, including bathing your cat or buying flowers for your wife!

3.    Master The Art of Delegating your work

Delegation is an important art that most people do not understand. We delegate work out and monitor results and not actually how work is to be done. People that we delegate to should always have the freedom to choose how they want to do it without being micro-managed by their supervisors.

Decide on what results you want and be clear about it. One simple question I constantly ask myself is “What are the signs that I have to see in order to know whether he/she has achieved the results?” This forces me to be clear about my expectations and also manage people according to results.

Conclusion

Outsourcing and Delegation has become the buzz word of the 21st century. The question is not why, but when. Take charge of it right now so that you can be effective and concentrate on what you do best! This will result in more satisfaction in your life and money pouring in!

Remember, the DOD principle; Decide-Outsource-Delegate!

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Honestly, what I am about to share may provoke you. But I feel that it is rather important to let you know this at the expense of our relationship. Therefore, I will risk offending you in the process.

I hope to provoke you to consider why you might need to relook in the way you set goals.

Why do people not see success over the years? Well, here are some reasons:

1. They set BHAG (Big Hairy and Audacious Goals) with NO track record

One of the best ways to disappoint yourself is to set BHAG goals and not achieve anything at all. There are tons of people who ask you to set BIG goals. Nothing wrong with that, it is just that if you do not have a track record of achieving them, you are just setting yourself up for major disappointment. For starters, I usually set low hanging fruit goals which I know I can handle. This helps to build momentum and faith that I can achieve small things easily. The goal then gets bigger and more audacious over time. Consider breaking your yearly goal into quarterly goals. It is much easier to manage and achieve.

2. They can’t remember what goals they have set

Previously, I recall setting so many goals that I can’t remember them all. This leads to not achieving any one of them. To force myself to remember them, I placed my goals (which have been reduced to a few) all over places that I will frequent. Even at home, you can see it next to my work desk, mirrored cabinet, wall of my bedroom and even the toilet.

Remember: Out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Therefore, keep your goals in sight!

3. Do not bother to review their goals

If you not review your goals, how will you know where you are currently? During my university days in Australia, a group of friends and I will usually travel to a different state every semester. We will constantly take rest stops to just check out where we were and whether we were headed in the right direction! There were a couple of times when we made wrong turns, but this was quickly corrected simply because we reviewed our progress! Progress helps to determine whether you are reaping the RIGHT things in your work, rather than just focus on activity.

4. They do not give a compelling reason to achieve it

Most people make goals that just look good or exciting to them. However, the drive behind it is really the main crux. Why do you need to achieve it? What will happen if you do not achieve it? Will there be any consequence? I strongly feel that we must identify our drive to action. I made a decision at one critical point in my life and it changed me. One of my mentors said: If your WHY is big enough, you will naturally find your HOW to do things. The bigger your WHY, the more likely you will succeed.

Conclusion:
Make this year a great year for you! Set your goals and take massive action!

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
Robert Heinlein

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