Surviving Divorce: David Sbarra at TEDxTucson 2012

Really like the metaphor for forks in the road as decision points in life post-divorce.

Procrastination Prevents Progress – 5 Productivity pitfalls and how to avoid them

There’s an old saying in my day job (as an IT project manager since you ask):

“Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”

You may have heard versions of it before. The beauty of the “5 P’s” is that it conveys a simple message with some pleasing alliteration along the way. In essence, it’s possible to avoid poor performance of any task or activity by ensuring enough thought is put into the preparation (see also planning and prioritisation as valid substitutes).

What strikes me increasingly these days, both at work and at home as a parent is that we would all do well to not only embrace this saying to accentuate the positive and productive activities in our lives but also to eradicate the negatives; the delaying tactics, the resistances that we put up that at times hinder us in achieving even the most insignificant things. I’m proposing an alternative version:

“Procrastination Prevents Progress”

Perhaps it’s not as catchy but it’s equally applicable in my opinion. Planning or preparing for an activity isn’t the be-all and end-all but you’ve got to at least get on and do something in the first instance if you want to move forward with anything, right?

It seems these days that we are all too keen to procrastinate, over-evaluate, consider and re-consider something before we get on and do it. Sometimes it’s simply too easy to get distracted rather than just getting on with the task at hand. Maybe that’s a result of there being too many distractions open to us in this world of instant information, rapid gratification and fear that we might be missing out on something else if we commit our attentions to one task. Maybe we are genuinely fearful of the job on the list. The reality though is there really is no way we can achieve things without the simple act of getting organised, grabbing the metaphorical bull by the horns and getting on with it.

Below I have outlined 5 typical examples of procrastination and delaying tactics that I see time and again at work and at home, many of which I’m guilty of myself. For each of these I’ve also outlined a means of handling them, whether that’s Father to Child, Boss to Employee, Wife to Husband or from self to self; sometimes you just need to have a word with yourself, right?

My philosophy is that it’s never enough just to acknowledge and lament a problem if you’re not willing to do something to try and resolve it, so here we go!

1) Doing what we want to do rather than what we have to do – The best example of this is the age-old debate we parents have with our kids: homework versus TV. The source of the distraction is inconsequential but the substance of the argument remains. We have to accept that life for most of us is a process of having to do the things expected of us first before we indulge ourselves in the things we’d like to do. We have to go to work in the morning to earn a living before we can come home and enjoy our family-time and pursue our hobbies. Whilst at work we can get on and tackle the tasks we know are going to be time-consuming, complex and potentially unpleasant and leave the routine and administrative matters for later in the day or flip the scheduling of these around. The beauty of the former is that we get the tough stuff done while our energy levels are still high. Adopting the same model at home we can encourage our kids to get the homework done before the weekend so they are able to relax and enjoy their free time or it can be left hanging over them until the last possible minute when the only option is a rushed or half-hearted effort done reluctantly that won’t give the best results.

The choice is really all ours, and the suggested remediation is to force a value-judgment that encourages the choice to be made considering the balance of life, and not just defaulting to the path of least resistance to instant gratification.

2) Putting off the tricky tasks until last – There are theories abound of task-list management and how we should prioritise things. It’s often tempting to put off the tricky, unpalatable tasks or those we simply don’t feel like doing until later either in favour of doing the easy ‘quick-wins’ or simply doing nothing at all. The danger with this is two-fold. First, we risk convincing ourselves that we’re being productive or genuinely achieving things by knocking off the little tasks, and further justifying our procrastination over the big stuff. Second, we avoid reality that more significant and difficult tasks are likely to be of higher value and make a greater impact to our lives and hence warrant their status and significance on our task list.

The knack here is to ensure that the task list is only made up of genuinely important things that are aligned to our higher values (whether these are truly linked to delivering the benefits of a project at work, or to achieving our target grades at school). We also need to be clear on what is required of us so that we can then tackle the tasks to completion, tick them off the list and forget about them. I suggest you get ruthless, trim your list down to the truly significant activities rather than padding it with things that you know you can start ticking them off quickly; the progress might be slower on a task-by-task basis but the effects will be profound in your life as each task provides genuine value once complete. Cut out the ‘busy-work’.

3) Allowing ourselves to be distracted (usually by our smartphones) – When we are able to gain real-time insight into goings-on around us whether the Instagram photos of a friend’s dinner plate, or a breaking news article about the latest celebrity divorce, we invite distraction and procrastination into our lives. We convince ourselves that the risk of somehow being out of touch with the outside world outweighs the risk of not doing what we have to in a timely and efficient way. In most cases it’s actually just a means of convincing ourselves we have a valid reason to stay in touch with the world around us, or just an outright excuse. In the days before computers landed on most office desks I presume that distraction came in the form of conversations and visitors to your desk side or the ringing of the telephone. When computers were solely interfaces to operational systems it was likely that the situation remained largely the same. However, once email and Internet access proliferated a world of information and further distraction and interruption opened up to us. Now, in the age of the smartphone we have every bit of information in the world and live communication channels with our nearest and dearest open to us at all times of the day and night. These are truly times of unprecedented change and with two iPhone-toting teenage daughters whose embracing of social media has been committed and wholehearted I can see that the lasting effects of this change will be significant to their development and to that of the world at large.

It is certainly not just kids who’ve allowed this source of distraction into their lives and I can bear witness to many a Chief Financial Officer or Managing Director of large, publically quoted companies who I’ve observed sneaking a cursory look at Facebook or Twitter in the midst of significant meetings and discussions. It may have followed a check of their mobile work email app when their attention has wandered from the conversation at hand, but it is undeniable that the smartphone and the information it gives us access to is here to stay as the distracting force of our time.

The only advice I can offer in this regard is to be mindful of your use, be honest about how much you allow yourself to be distracted and stop kidding yourself that Twitter is any kind of essential business aid. Put the phone down and get on with the job at hand. Lead your kids by example, don’t lecture them in misty-eyed fashion over a simpler time then go back to looking at memes on Facebook.



4) Fear of missing out on something better – A by-product of the smartphone-enhanced world and the social networks within it is that we are constantly tormented with updates on the activities and lives of others. These are of course always 10% more exciting, stimulating or fun than ours; their holidays are to more exotic locations, they are doing more exciting things than us with friends whose company we want to be enjoying, and they are getting more out of life while we are sat here trying to complete an overdue report or defrost the freezer.

The nature of social media, online dating and any other kind of site that exists to connect people, is that users engage others in the ‘good stuff’ that’s going on in their lives and open up jealousy and fear of missing out in those who engage with them. In online dating, the availability of what is essentially a catalogue of sexy people who are all out to advertise themselves and attract a mate, convinces the single person that there is a wealth of potential matches out there and their task it is to weed out the best that they can; is it any wonder that people are becoming more likely to remain single in life as they fail to commit, believing that the best-of-the-best is just around the corner? Again the most effective course of action to counter this is to cut yourself off from the source of torment, or more realistically to know that you are probably as culpable as anyone else of participating in this same process. Pacify yourself that everyone else has to allocate time to the things they must do, as well as that they want to. Take satisfaction that once you’ve got your value-adding tasks done, you can share pictures of you cat/child/dinner/car with impunity, or swipe-left on a few potential dates.

5) Questioning the inherent value in a task (or asking ourselves “What’s the point?”) – There’s a rather corrosive belief held by many people, that these days every task, activity or moment in our lives should be endowed with significance or meaning. If the task is not instantly gratifying, then somehow it’s not worthy of us? This is the biggie and one that I’ll write on separately at some point soon. The significance here though is in the emerging sense of entitlement that seems to be factored into virtually every person’s mind these days regarding one or more aspects of their life, which underpins procrastination when we view tasks as beneath us, menial or just plain boring.

We all believe we inherently deserve the best, whether that’s the best-paid, most interesting job, the finest food and wines known to man, or the dream holiday to the far-flung destinations (whether we can afford them or not). I’m not disputing our right to strive for excellence, but I’m offended by the notion that it should come with zero effort or commitment on our part.

In work, employees baulk, complain and even strike at the notion of basically having to do their jobs if they disagree with the terms, conditions or even just the nature of the work. The UK public sector particularly is rife with people who pale at the thought that they may have to do more than the bare-minimum 35 hours per week and who know that with zero visible symptoms they can receive long-term sick pay for staying home and watching TV. I say this flippantly but also with experience, having worked for 4 long years in local government; it’s part of the reason I now work freelance in financial services; mercenary, certainly but I know where I am when most people are employed under the same terms and operate under the assumption if they don’t deliver they will be replaced following 2 weeks notice. Maybe this is the repressed Victorian Mill Owner in me, coming out in my views on employee-relations.

In our private lives, everyone can now access every material possession they wish (within reason); luxury cars can be leased for no money down, Satellite TV is considered a necessity alongside sanitation and electricity and you’re considered a luddite if your iPhone is more than one version older than the most recent model.

We are all products of the world in which we live and I’m not crusading for fundamental changes in the way we all engage with modern society and the trappings of it. What I advocate though is that we all need to complete activities (“work” in shorthand) that generally contributes to achieving things in life, both to earn a living and be a contributing member of society. Not everything is endowed with a higher purpose or value; we all need to roll up our sleeves and clean a toilet now and again and to view such things as beneath us or believe that we have some underlying reason to put off a task as not worthy of us is, frankly, laughable. I use extreme examples here but the simple message is if you’re questioning a task as warranting your attention, if it needs doing, for goodness sake just crack-on and get it done.

Hopefully you’ll find something that you can apply in the above. It seems obvious to say that the basic lesson of the piece is ‘Don’t Procrastinate’, but that is the fundamental point.
In keeping with point 5 above, sometimes we need a bit of tough love. We may spend our time and mind-space trying to concoct reasons why we want to avoid a task, or delay it until later. The simple fact is that assuming you are required to do something either because it is expected of you in work, or you’ve added it to your personal task list as it presumably aligns with your higher value goals, then by definition you are going to have to do it at some point to achieve your personal goals (to keep your job or achieve the beneficial value in these examples).

The more you put it off, the harder it will be to tackle. Stop considering there is a good reason for delaying tactics, put aside the sources of distraction and get it done.

Then revel in the glory, smug self-satisfaction and tell your friends about it on Facebook.

Toby 

5 Brain Hacks to Boost Your Motivation

To procrastinate is human. To beat procrastination is to be an entrepreneur.

You sit down at your computer with every intention of working on your next project or task, then procrastination sets in. Two hours later, you realize you still haven’t begun the task in earnest. Why is it so easy to shrug something off, even when you know the job must get done?

Research shows that our brains are wired to have two types of motivation. We are either driven by internal (or intrinsic) motivation to achieve a goal, which is when we do something because it is personally rewarding. Or we are driven by external (or extrinsic) motivation, which is when we do something to earn a reward or avoid punishment.

Each type of motivation can be effective. Internal motivation is thought to work best in the long run, but external motivation can be a useful tool in some cases, such as prompting you to complete a task or assignment that doesn’t internally interest you.

The secret is knowing how to tap into both types of motivations to overcome procrastination and be more proactive. To help you do that, here are 5 brain hacks to boost motivation and stay productive, even when distractions abound.

1. Tap into your bigger purpose.

When you find your motivation is lacking, try focusing on the purpose behind what you are doing or on how it plays into the larger goal of what you want to accomplish.

Focusing on the bigger goal gives you the feeling of working on something greater and being part of something bigger than yourself. It gives deeper meaning to the objective you seek or the project you are putting long hours into.

For instance, try thinking about how what you're doing is adding value to your customers and their lives, or about how your business is impacting the world (even in small ways). When you consider the larger effects of what you or your team is doing, you'll feel more connected to the whole and will be more motivated to do your part.

Related: 6 Habits That Turn Dreams Into Reality

2. Don’t over think it.

Overthinkers complicate an easy task by anticipating unlikely problems. When you over think a project you are working on, it creates more stress and pressure. Ultimately, it obstructs your motivation.

Research has shown that chronic stress and anxiety can actually shrink your brain. A relaxed mind is better able to focus and solve problems.

To counter a tendency to over think a problem, make sure to keep your goals simple and small. This will break your objectives into more manageable chunks. Focus on accomplishing each step. This in turn creates motivation, because you see yourself moving forward and accomplishing your goals.

Related: How I Decreased My Weekly Office Hours From 40-plus to Less Than 8

3. Overcome mental blocks.

Nothing is quite as de-motivating as a mental block that feels like glue poured into your brain. Your creative process feels locked up and nothing seems to work right.

Becoming stuck is often a symptom you're caught in a negative thought loop. You tell yourself: “What’s the answer to this problem? What should I do? I should know this!” Round and round you go, and the more pressure you put on yourself, the more stuck you become.

To unstick yourself, start by reasking the question or reframing it from a different perspective. Take a deep breath, relax and allow your subconscious to find the answer. This is your “ah-ha” moment.

Related Book: Think Big, Act Bigger: The Rewards of Being Relentless by Jeffrey Hayzlett

4. Counter negative perceptions.

Observe how you feel as you begin a task. Are you dreading the assignment? Are you anticipating it will be tedious or difficult to accomplish? That mindset will stymie your motivation and sap your inspiration before you even start.

You can change negative perceptions, just as you can train your mind to detoxify bad memories. To weaken a pessimistic perception of something, think about the task and bring the memory of doing it into your mind.

Imagine the memory getting smaller and dimmer, like you’re watching a tiny black-and-white TV. Now add new details to the memory that change it. Make it fun. Make it silly. Make it seem less threatening. Imagine being engaged with and enjoying the work. 

Do this five to 10 times and you’ll discover your perception has changed. The unpleasant memory no longer has the same sting.

Related: 10 Bad Habits You Must Eliminate From Your Daily Routine

5. Strengthen your good memories.

Another way to tap into your natural motivation is to strengthen those memories where you are succeeding and accomplishing your goals. By doing this, you can enhance and encourage your motivation and inspiration.

To do this, recall as vividly as you can a fulfilling memory of succeeding or accomplishing your goals. Imagine this memory as if it were being projected on a huge IMAX screen.

Make the memory bright and loud. Now increase the positive feelings that you experienced, just like turning up a dial.

Do this 5 or 10 times, and you'll discover that what was once just a positive memory is now a driving motivation. The more you experience the memory, the more you'll want to relive it and make it real again.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/286021

Tim Ferriss's Top 10 Rules For Success (@tferriss)

Some more top tips from Tim Ferriss... this time some rules for achieving success. Which rules appeal most to you? 


Take those and act now!

Education, Decision, Action - Notes from a Personal Development Summit

Ready, aim, fire.

On your marks, get-set, go.

Mirror, signal, manoeuvre.

There’s something about a three-step process that makes the final step feel like a foregone conclusion. I suspect it’s because steps 1 and 2 bring order and logic, preparing the participants for what is coming in step 3.

I’m pretty good at going with the flow in life. I’m frequently described as ‘laid-back’ and consider change as one of the main constants in my existence but I like a bit of order and appreciate a formula for success as much as anyone. I’ve a tendency to make life-changing decisions without having always educated myself as to the possible consequences of my actions and as such a 3 step mantra would undoubtedly be useful in keeping me on track.

History also shows that I’m prone to doing things in a different order to most other people, or at least at atypical points in life. My first child was born when I was still 23 (when I was far from emotionally or financially prepared) but I made a go of it. I didn’t discover my love of music festivals until the age of 30 when most of my contemporaries were putting their tents back in the loft for the last time. It took me until the age of 36 to meet the love of my life who is now my second (and final) wife. I shunned sports and fitness for much of my adulthood until my late thirties when I decided to get a trainer and challenge myself physically and I’ve since balanced this interest alongside healing the frequent injuries and seeking the necessary medical help to nurse my ageing and increasingly fragile frame through the demands I place upon it.

In keeping with this approach to life, I’ve only recently opened my mind to the field of Personal Development.

How ironic then that having finally discovered the life-changing opportunities for self-improvement open to me, that the main theme of this weekend’s summit, was:

Education — Decision — Action.

I won’t provide the exact details of the course since that’s not the purpose of this blog, nor do I have any direct affiliation to the organisation that hosted it (other than as a satisfied customer). The pertinent facts are these; my wife and I committed to spend one precious weekend of child-free time to explore opportunities, seek motivation and to meet like-minded individuals who shared an interest in identifying opportunities for freedom from constraints of time and finance.

That it took until just after my 41st birthday to open my mind to this is probably down to a variety of things, most significant of which would be closed-mindedness coupled with a healthy serving of cynicism and arrogance on my part. I have lead something of a charmed life and in spite of various setbacks have always seemed to bounce back, to come up smelling of roses. In the last few months I’ve been doing a lot of self-reflection and whilst the successes I’ve enjoyed both personally and professionally have been gratifying, I’d started to feel like I was missing the point somehow.

Call it what you like, whether the early signs of a mid-life crisis or perhaps just a heightened curiosity as to how I might feel more fulfilled but since the end of summer 2016 I’ve been immersing myself in personal development books, audio and web-based seminars, all with the intention of increasing my free-time, income and peace of mind.

I’ve even started meditating.

The next logical step seemed then to devote some time to attending a group conference with a view to seeing what this could add into the mix. And so it was that my long-suffering wife and I undertook the 3 hour drive late last Friday evening to attend this event.

2 days to change your life

With two exhausting days behind me I cannot yet proclaim myself an ‘old-hand’ but I’m a good deal abler to make a few reasoned observations, all of which reflect my own views and perspective.

It’s fair to say that my world has been thoroughly turned upside down (for the better I should add).

The purpose of the event (which is probably much the same for many of these types of session) was to bring together a group of like-minded individuals in a conference venue to meet, exchange ideas, to have their eyes-opened to new possibilities and to introduce them to alternative ways of viewing the world and of achieving what they want to achieve. In this instance the emphasis was upon both personal development and entrepreneurialism.

All speakers offered philosophies, tactics, business specialisms and systems for achieving what you want to get out of life; in most cases to free up time and to make money from sources other than a typical 9 to 5 exchange of time for a salary. All of this was anchored to the three simple steps:

- Education

- Decision

- Action

What I liked most.

The weekend genuinely opened my mind to real, practical, implementable ideas and strategies that when in place will enrich my life and that of my family.

It wasn’t about ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes or easy paths to fulfilment and inner peace, but rather about a holistic way of approaching life that addresses the pain-points that many share, and simultaneously of helping to achieve the goals and aims that so many of us have, if only in presumably never-to-be-fulfilled dreams.

I’ve seen evidence of new ways to do things from people who seemingly came from similar circumstances as me and who shared the same goals and challenges as I have. I firmly believe through their examples and methods that if I commit to my decisions and most importantly take actions to implement these (something it was suggested that most others don’t do) then I will free up time and lead a more prosperous and enriched life and be a better father, husband, friend and professional; professional-what is still up for debate.

The speakers were also without exception, entertaining, engaging and interesting (as you’d expect given that they were no doubt all well-rehearsed and trained), and each had a personal story to tell rather than just a product or service to sell.

This ensured the weekend wasn’t just a series of dry presentations of theory and principle or ‘death by PowerPoint’ but instead interactive discussions interlaced with philosophy and practicality. The energy of the room was kept high and audience and speaker interaction was an expectation.

What I liked less.

So, it wasn’t all about the product to sell. However, the crescendo of many sessions was the opportunity to pay for and enrol on further training hosted by the speaker and offered at a never to be repeated discount, available only for the next 20 minutes by paying at the back of the room. This isn’t surprising given the theme of the weekend and I firmly subscribe to the viewpoint that education is essential to enable one to make changes, to do new things and to do them differently. I wish at this point I could afford to invest in all the training (and more importantly to take the action required to complete it); one day, I will.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein

The quote above was offered in at least one session; education (and then taking the decision to act on that learning) is key to making change.

During the two days (and they were long days too, starting around 8am and finishing after 6pm) attendees were introduced to products and services (mainly training courses and self-study packs) that would allow them to conquer business and/or personal pain-points, devised by the presenters based on their experience. I went there expecting this and would have been disappointed if it hadn’t materialised since I genuinely went seeking opportunities for relevant learning.

What I found difficult to rationalise was that the speakers, almost without exception left the audience feeling that if they weren’t rushing to sign-up in the moment, they somehow didn’t ‘get it’ and weren’t destined to achieve the goals they were there to learn to achieve. I don’t believe this was entirely how it was meant to come over for if so it would be neither fair nor representative; like us I believe many in the audience were unable to run to the 4-figure costs associated with most of these products, as much as they may have wanted to.

We had chosen which areas interested us most and both enrolled in these at the appropriate points during the weekend. To surmise that we weren’t interested in achieving greatness because we weren’t rushing to sign up to other sessions was unfair and we each have a genuine desire to throw ourselves whole-heartedly into the courses we’ve chosen, to act on the decisions and to embrace the education. Could this effort risk being diluted by signing up for everything and giving no single thing our full-attention?

To counter this misperception, on more than one occasion I felt compelled to approach the presenter after the session to thank them for their talk (which was heartfelt) but also to offer a stuttering apology for not having signed up, emphasising that I would do in future. I hope that the gratitude was perceived as true, and the desire to learn from them also, for in both cases my words were genuine.

Action

Part of my renewed focus on Personal Development after the summer was embodied by a significant action step of routinely awakening to start my day at 5am. I have done this since then (allowing myself a little slack at weekends) in a bid to feel like I can take action and to get more value out of the day by tackling some value-generating tasks before I head to work; this small step has been rewarding in itself.

More recently I’ve started incorporating daily guided meditation in my life during this extra time, reading and listening to audio books whenever I can, and generally utilising my time as best I can. My current challenge is in how to do all the things that I want to do and achieve my goals within the limited number of productive hours I can extract from the day.

This is one of the most self-evident challenges I foresee in personal development journey, and at present I find the burden of choice over where next to direct my efforts in order to achieve the goals that I have set for myself to be significant if not insurmountable.

The extraordinary array of genuine opportunities that I’ve been given over the weekend to learn and implement new things is truly exciting and exhilarating. To receive this opportunity on top of all the other things I already wanted to do in my life has contributed to the slight feelings of overwhelm that I’m currently experiencing too.

Nonetheless I’ll do what I vowed to myself to do, and ensure that off the back of the weekend’s education follows the decision to make changes and the consistent actions to make this happen.

Toby Hazlewood

Toby Writes on topics including Personal Development, Diet, Exercise and Weight Loss and Parenting. You can find details on more of his products and services at shared-stuff.com, ez-lean.blogspot.com, gratitude-and-growth.blogspot.com 

Tim Ferriss's Favorite Productivity Hacks

Tim Ferriss speaks on his favourite ways to harness the best out of a day


What tips do you have for making the most of 24 hours each day?