Posted by john on October 27th, 2006 — Posted in How To Be More Motivated And Productive
Laziness can creep up even when you don’t mean for it to. Recently an anonymous reader sent me this question:
my biggest problem is that when I’m waiting for my PC to do something (e.g. load a new web page - my work requires the use of the web), I’m tempted to visit a news page or a web forum, and then I can easily get involved in that (or leads that follow from that) for a long time (sometimes the “quick look” genuinely is quick if there’s nothing interesting there). So - when one is working quickly and enthusiastically, but a delay arises, how to avoid the temptation to “quickly” take a look at a web site? What to do instead?
You sound like me about a year ago. 
News sites and forums are deadly to your productivity. Here’s the 5-part solution…
1. Realize the potential consequences of your behavior.
Have a look here at this from the Canadian government’s Adult Literacy Database:
Top 12 Reasons For Getting Fired
1. Little interest in getting work done. (Bad Attitude)
2. Too many days off work and late starts. (Bad Attitude)
3. Lack of loyalty. (Bad Attitude)
4. Being impolite to workmates. (Bad Attitude)
5. Lack of speed.
6. Not paying attention to detail. (Bad Attitude)
7. Not sticking with things until they are done. (Bad Attitude)
8. No interest or excitement. (Bad Attitude)
9. No pride in speech or appearance. (Bad Attitude)
10. Lack of responsibility. (Bad Attitude)
11. Lack of respect for authority. (Bad Attitude)
12. Lack of respect for the property of others.
Notice how #1, #5, #6, #7, and #8 are all related to laziness? If it sounds like you, your odds of success at work aren’t good.
If you can’t stay motivated about your job, you’re in trouble. I’ve met many successful people — self-made millionaires, winning athletes, and CEOs – and they all share a passion for what they do.
Like you, I also work with computers, and part of the benefits is that you can be relaxed in a comfy office (unlike people like auto mechanics and roofers who do “real” work for a living) — though the drawback is the temptation to goof off.
2. Think about the big picture.
Getting distracted happens when you think about the little picture instead. You get bogged down in the task you’re doing, and then you become bored… and then those message boards and news sites look awfully interesting.
The solution is to constantly take a step back and look at your overall goals. Your current task is just a small step on your way toward a million dollar portfolio, a career promotion, etc.
So remember to keep focused. The downtime when you’re waiting for your slow computer is the perfect moment to reflect on your goals.
3. Give Yourself More To Do.
A lot of times we get distracted because there simply isn’t enough for us to do. For example, think about what it’s like to be a college student. The semester starts, and there’s not that much work. You can hang out with friends and watch South Park on TV.
And then all of a sudden you’ve got 5 tests and 3 papers due the same week. It’s literally impossible to get distracted, because you’re frantically trying to catch up. Going to news sites and forums would be the last thing on your mind.
You get the work done because there’s no other choice. What that means is this: don’t be happy with doing the minimum. Accomplish your goals, then see what more you do. Don’t limit yourself.
4. Limit Yourself To Once Per Day.
One of the best things I ever did was to limit myself to checking news sites and message boards no more than once per day. News sites and forums are likely to have valuable new content once a day, but rarely 10 times a day. You can usually set aside 20-30 minutes a day and pick up everything you need from those sites. Checking them more than once a day adds little additional value, but subtracts significant value because it sucks up so much of your time.
When you place a strict limit like that, those sites aren’t as addictive any more.
5. Take A Productive Break.
I learned a breathing exercise from parenting expert Pam Van Zwoll that both soothes your stress and energizes you. It goes like this:
1. Breathe into your abdomen as much as you can. (You’ll know you’re doing it right when you see your belly rise; your chest should not inflate.)
2. Hold for a 3-count.
3. Exhale through your nose. (That ensures you’ll be slow when you breathe out.)
Bingo!–Now you feel both relaxed and energized.
Think about the time you spend throughout the day. When you’re certain that you’ve spent more productive time than surfing time, you’re on your way to success.
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Posted by john on September 26th, 2006 — Posted in How To Be More Motivated And Productive
“I’d like to get started, but I just don’t feel motivated.”
How often do you hear yourself saying that? It’s a dead end. Let me explain.
The startling truth about motivation is that you don’t get motivated to do something until after you’ve started doing it.
If you sit around waiting until you feel the fire inside you, you’ll just keep doing nothing. This is because, as Zig Ziglar has said,
People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why I recommend both daily.
(Here is the source for that and other motivational quotes.)
That’s not all. There’s a logical problem with waiting till you’re motivated — it means you must want to do that thing more than anything else at the time.
As an example, let’s say you got a job in sales and your task is to call business prospects to see if they want to buy. When would you ever want to do that more than anything else? Never! It sucks to make those calls, especially if you’re not naturally outgoing!
And even if you did decide you wanted to do it more than anything else, you’d still need to make that exact same choice tomorrow. That’s a huge risk since you might decide you’d rather just sit around and play games on your computer that day.
So that is why to get started on a task, what you need is something other than motivation. What you need is a lack of choice. That gives you focus, when your only option is to do the thing you need to get done.
Eliminate all other possibilities. Make a rule for yourself that you cannot do anything or think about anything other than making those phone calls.
When you don’t have time to think about your other options, it becomes 100 times easier to get started on your task. You may think about how much you hate it, but at least you’ll do it!
(Of course, it’s much better have a positive attitude, but that will come in time, once you’ve developed a goal-oriented mindset.)
So remember: never sit around waiting until you feel inspired before starting something.
Action Questions:
1. What is your goal you want to accomplish? (The more specific the better. For instance you could want to make $100,000 this year.)
2. What are you willing to do to achieve your goal? (Again, be specific. If you’re a salesperson whose goal is to make a six figure income, don’t say “whatever it takes.” Instead say, “I’m willing to call as many clients as it takes to have one appointment set up for each day of the week.”
Once you’ve answered those two questions, and you’ve eliminated all other possibilities of things you can do, you’re ready to take action. And then once you’re actually doing it, you may just find yourself feeling motivated!
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Posted by john on September 16th, 2006 — Posted in How To Be More Motivated And Productive
“Where was I?”
That’s the most unproductive thing you can say, according to researchers cited in this Yahoo! Finance article on multitasking.
You see, humans are terrible at doing more than one thing at a time, even though most of us think we’re good at it. But when we multitask, two things happen:
1. We get less done.
2. The quality of what we do is lower.
There’s a resumption cost of several seconds every time you get back to task that got interrupted. You get into flow again, and–whammo!–you switch to some other task and get hit with more resumption cost. As you’d imagine, this lost time adds up.
That means it’s faster to do one thing at a time instead of trying to multitask.
The other problem with multitasking: you make more mistakes, and the quality of your work declines.
“Multitasking doesn’t look to be one of the great strengths of human cognition,” says James C. Johnston, a research psychologist at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “It’s almost inevitable that each individual task will be slower and of lower quality.”
MIT researchers found (by doing MRI scans on brains of test subjects) that it’s impossible for the brain to think about more than one thing at a time. Net result: more emails you forgot to proofread before hitting “send,” more mistakes on the paper you wrote, and more careless errors on your client’s project.
Multitasking can be such a temptation. As an entrepreneur, I struggle with it myself. It’s easy to have a lull in a task and then say to yourself, “Gee I wonder if I got any email.”
But now that you know that you can do things faster and with fewer mistakes if you do one thing at a time, you’ll resist that temptation and stay focused. Just that one change can be worth thousands of dollars in increased productivity.
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