21 Productivity Tips

Here are 21 tips to get you to your best productivity:

#1. Check email in the afternoon so you protect the peak energy hours of your mornings for your best work. 

#2. Stop waiting for perfect conditions to launch a great project. Immediate action fuels a positive feedback loop that drives even more action.

#3. Remember that big, brave goals release energy. So set them clearly and then revisit them every morning for 5 minutes.

#4. Mess creates stress (I learned this from tennis icon Andre Agassi who said he wouldn't let anyone touch his tennis bag because if it got disorganized, he'd get distracted). So clean out the clutter in your office to get more done.

#5. Sell your TV. You're just watching other people get successful versus doing the things that will get you to your dreams.

#6. Say goodbye to the energy vampires in your life (the negative souls who steal your enthusiasm). 

#7. Run routines. When I studied the creative lives of massively productive people like Stephen King, John Grisham and Thomas Edison, I discovered they follow strict daily routines. (i.e., when they would get up, when they would start work, when they would exercise and when they would relax). Peak productivity's not about luck. It's about devotion.

#8. Get up at 5 am. Win the battle of the bed. Put mind over mattress. This habit alone will strengthen your willpower so it serves you more dutifully in the key areas of your life.

#9. Don't do so many meetings. (I've trained the employees of our FORTUNE 500 clients on exactly how to do this - including having the few meetings they now do standing up - and it's created breakthrough results for them).

#10. Don't say yes to every request. Most of us have a deep need to be liked. That translates into us saying yes to everything - which is the end of your elite productivity.

#11. Outsource everything you can't be BIW (Best in the World) at. Focus only on activities within what I call "Your Picasso Zone".

#12. Stop multi-tasking. New research confirms that all the distractions invading our lives are rewiring the way our brains work (and drop our IQ by 5 points!). Be one of the rare-air few who develops the mental and physical discipline to have a mono-maniacal focus on one thing for many hours. (It's all about practice).

#13. Get fit like Madonna. Getting to your absolute best physical condition will create explosive energy, renew your focus and multiply your creativity.

#14. Workout 2X a day. This is just one of the little-known productivity tactics that I'll walk you through in my new online training program YOUR PRODUCTIVITY UNLEASHED (details at the end of this post) but here's the key: exercise is one of the greatest productivity tools in the world. So do 20 minutes first thing in the morning and then another workout around 6 or 7pm to set you up for wow in the evening.

#15. Drink more water. When you're dehydrated, you'll have far less energy. And get less done. 

#16. Work in 90 minute blocks with 10 minute intervals to recover and refuel (another game-changing move I personally use to do my best work).

#17. Write a Stop Doing List. Every productive person obsessively sets To Do Lists. But those who play at world-class also record what they commit to stop doing. Steve Jobs said that what made Apple Apple was not so much what they chose to build but all the projects they chose to ignore.

#18. Use your commute time. If you're commuting 30 minutes each way every day - get this: at the end of a year, you've spent 6 weeks of 8 hour days in your car. I encourage you to use that time to listen to fantastic books on audio + excellent podcasts and valuable learning programs. Remember, the fastest way to double your income is to triple your rate of learning.

#19. Be a contrarian. Why buy your groceries at the time the store is busiest? Why go to movies on the most popular nights? Why hit the gym when the gym's completely full? Do things at off-peak hours and you'll save so many of them.

#20. Get things right the first time. Most people are wildly distracted these days. And so they make mistakes. To unleash your productivity, become one of the special performers who have the mindset of doing what it takes to get it flawless first. This saves you days of having to fix problems.

#21. Get lost. Don't be so available to everyone. I often spend hours at a time in the cafeteria of a university close to our headquarters. I turn off my devices and think, create, plan and write. Zero interruptions. Pure focus. Massive results.

I truly hope these 21 productivity tips have been valuable to you. And that I've been of service. Your productivity is your life made visible. Please protect it.

Stay productive.

From: Robin Sharma

The Leadership Principle of Listening

Listening . . . the word listen means to make an effort to hear or pay attention, to give heed, or to take advice. The proverb says, "A wise man will hear," meaning that if we are wise, we will be good listeners. The reason that wise men listen is because they know they become wiser by listening. Good listeners are seeking to learn more. Wisdom is not an inherited gift; rather, it is earned by listening and learning, and by observing and understanding. A good listener will usually have these four character traits:

1. They are disciplined listeners and talkers.

2. They are seekers of truth. They want to know what is right, not who is right.

3. They love quiet time - no radio, no TV, no reading, no interruptions. They like to have time to review what is inside them. They are thinkers.

4. They are full of questions. They don't want to misunderstand or be misunderstood.

Jesus was always aware of being misunderstood. That's why He said, "He that has an ear, let him hear." He meant, "Don't just hear My words, comprehend and understand the idea and get the concept of what I'm trying to say." All good teachers try to communicate certain concepts, but they don't always use the right words. So we hear the words, but don't get the bottom line. That's why good listeners will probe by asking questions. If we are not disciplined listeners, we won’t get the point. Sometimes we think that people around us hear what we are saying, only to find out later that they thought we meant something else.

Listening is not enough - we must hear. Listening is not hearing until we fully understand what the other party is trying to convey to us. Television only communicates in part, for it only works one way. Telephones are a better system of communication, for we hear and respond. Fax machines, on the other hand, are perfect in communication: the receiving machine receives exactly what the sending machine transmitted. But we are not like fax machines. We measure and judge the words of others by our own perceptions and emotions (our state of being). We hear the words, then form our own perceptions based on what we think we heard, and interpret it with our feelings from our past experiences. Everything we hear goes through a process of our hurts and disappointments, and we then judge accordingly. That's what we call "reading into it." Someone will take something we said, and they will say that we were talking about them, when it was not even in our mind.

If we are going to be successful in building business and personal relationships, we will need to take the initiative to listen until we know where people are and what they need. Discovering needs is the first step in helping others. We will learn their needs if we can listen. Wise men become wise by listening, and they will keep on listening because they see the value in it.

A good way to make sure we understand someone is to ask him, "Is this what you are trying to tell me?" or "Is this what you mean?" Don't be too proud to ask for clarity. It is time well spent, and will avoid a lot of hurts and confusion.

This principle is a part of the one-year character development program
Foundations for Achievement

Copyright 2003 by John E. Schrock and La Red Business Network