Managers have a lot to consider when hiring employees. Two of the most important aspects to consider are the candidates ability and personality skills. Employees have both soft skills (conscientiousness) and hard skills (general mental ability) in the workplace. Understanding the important skills that someone should have can be a crucial indicator in determining whether or not you believe they will have a high performance level. When looking to hire someone new, a manager should be looking for employees who can do the basics first, and then keep a smile on their face when things go wrong . Both traits are important to have, however, one may be more beneficial than the other.
First, you want to make sure the potential employee fits the mission of your company. Personality is so important whether the candidate has the skills to go along with it. You can teach someone technical skills but you can’t teach someone how to put a smile on their face. Friendly employees keep customers happy and satisfied and will most likely keep them a loyal customer. Kathrine Palju said, “it’s not about electronic or internet skills, it’s not about mechanics. It’s all about interpersonal relationships”. Being able to keep a conversation going and understanding what the customer wants can go a long way.
It is also important that managers and business owners are aware of what type of skills and personality traits their employees possess. In the future this could help managers with their weekly schedules so that they can have a balance of employees with general mental ability and conscientiousness. When managers are able to understand which employees have one or both traits, it can help decide where to place each employee and may help in a better execution of service.
All in all, it is preferred that an employee has both GMA and conscientiousness but it is understandable that this is often not the case. Being able to understand what stages these skills are important and how to find them in a person can really have an impact on the overall performance of a business.
The feeling of waking up on a Monday is so iconic. Tired, still holding onto the bliss of the weekend, not quite ready to work, slightly anxious about what is to come for the week. And yet we face these same feelings nearly every Monday. After so many times of experiencing this, we can learn to notice these thoughts and patterns and accept them, so that we can rise above and not react to these thoughts or let our entire energy be dictated by them. The best way to promote this awareness and create our own energy & perspective for the day is to start off our morning with meditation. This helps to clear the anxiety, the tension, all the bubbling thoughts. The mind is like a cup of sediment-filled water. At first, it is murky and dirt is floating everywhere. But as the cup sits, slowly and surely, all of the sediment starts to sink to the bottom, and the rest of the water becomes clear. This is what happens to our mind during meditation. Especially at the beginning of a week, we tend to have lots of chaotic and frantic thinking, as well as general feelings of avoidance and resistance. Meditation helps us let all of that sink to the bottom so we can see clearly once again. What do I have to do today? Okay, I will do it. It’s that simple, but we make it so complicated with all of our likes and dislikes, our beliefs and opinions about the work we do and what we would rather do instead. Start a daily practice of just 5 minutes each morning and see how it helps your life and work productivity
Even after reading this, you may still have the same feelings arise next Monday. The difference is how you react to those feelings—instead of getting sucked into them and believing them, just note that they are there and then let them go. I am not as successful every Monday, but I’ve noticed that taking this mindful approach really helps work get off to a good start each week. Another really important thing is to try and keep the same sleep schedule on the weekend as you have during the week. When we don’t do this, and we stay up late and sleep in on the weekend, waking up early on Monday morning is an even bigger shock to our system. It is much harder to be mindful, productive, and motivated when we are exhausted. So make sure to take care of both your body and your mind in order to set yourself up for success this week. And just know, hey, it’s a Monday, it’s never going to be that amazing. When we accept this, it takes a huge amount of pressure off how our Monday goes. We shift our view from anticipation to acceptance, and embrace whatever comes. This change of mindset has been incredibly helpful for me in enhancing my enjoyment of work and my overall productivity, and I hope it can help you too.
After a little research, here are 9 habits that the most successful people in the world incorporate into their lives daily:
Wake up early
Having a set routine and following it every single day can create positive outcomes. 95% of the most successful people in the world wake up early in the morning. To name a few, Jack Dorsey who started Twitter wakes up every morning around 5:00 am, meditates, and goes on a run. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple wakes up at 4:30 am and is at the gym by 5:30 am, and finally Steve Jobs wakes up no later than 6:00 am and also works out. Out of these three successful men, they wake up on average around 5:00 am and not later than 6:00 am. For those of you thinking that this won’t work because you’re a night owl, you could do a little extra research and see what you can incorporate at night to help yourself fall asleep and stay asleep earlier.
Write down your goals
Research shows that writing down your goals on a physical piece of paper will help you pursue and accomplish them. There was a study done by Harvard in 1970 for the graduating class. These 100 students were asked what their goals were upon graduating. Out of the 100 students, only three of them had written down their goals on a piece of paper. 10 years later, Harvard followed up with this graduating class to see if they had accomplished their goals. When they followed up that 3% of the class with written goals were two times more successful than the 90% combined. This proves the importance of valuing your goals and taking the time to write them down.
Work ethic
People are not born with a strong work ethic, rather it’s something that you build upon each day. Finding something you’re passionate about and working hard in it every single day can create a valuable work ethic. Over time you will continue to develop it and continue to work harder.
Exercise
Our bodies are incredible temples that help and support us every day. Research shows that the more exercise you give your body the more energy it will give you. The first time you go to the gym you may be tired. But your body realizes this and gives you more and more energy to get through the workout. Eventually, your body will adjust and it will get stronger. This energy doesn’t leave when you exit the gym. It gives your body energy throughout the whole day which allows you to work even harder than you would have otherwise.
Read
The average person reads 1-2 books a year and the average CEO reads 60 books a year. That is a huge difference. You may be telling yourself that you don’t have time to read 60 books a year and that’s okay. CEOs are some of the busiest people in the world and they find time to incorporate reading into their life. However, if this is too much, try starting small and reading one book every month. Not only is reading important but the type of reading you do is crucial. Many CEOs aren’t reading murder mysteries or romance books. They are reading books proven to better themselves such as mindset and psychological books
Plan your week
Most people go in every week hoping that it goes the way they want to. Instead, try going into the new week with a detailed plan that you are ready to execute. Every Sunday try to sit down and have a personal meeting with yourself. Look back at the past week and use the start, stop, and continue the method. The start is the new things you want to bring into the week, stop are the things that didn’t go well and you’re not going to do this week, and continue are the things that went well that you want to continue doing. Writing these things down will give you some sort of list you can follow throughout the week.
Positive, Self Talk, Gratitude
Starting every day off with positive thoughts will help you continue to have them throughout the day. What you focus on magnifies so thinking positively will only be beneficial.
Mentors
On average, successful people have about 7 different mentors that they look up to. This could be a business partner, a fit person, or even someone you admire that is a great father. These mentors are in your life because you seek them out. They don’t have to be someone that you see every day and that is always around you, but someone that you know will always be there for you.
Proper Nutrition
Giving your body the proper nutrients will help fuel you through the day and accomplish your task at hand. Certain types of food will give you energy and some foods that will take away your energy such as cheese, greasy food and red meat. If you feel like you can’t eliminate these foods or that you don’t want to, try eating them for dinner instead. Listening to your body and what it needs is extremely important.
Sales is an interesting career as it is one that is commonly learned not taught. Every salesperson needs to find their own approach rather than utilizing a cooker cutter method of selling. I recently read The One Minute Salesperson, authored by Spencer Johnson and Larry Wilson who give a perspective that far too many salespeople forgot. Their lessons are told through a parable about a young salesperson who took on the traditional way of selling, but, over time he found out this was not working and it was becoming stressful. He received several helpful tips from a well-known salesperson who focussed less energy but closed more sales. Below are my three main take aways from the reading.
1. Focus on helping people
It’s important to take a minute to make sure you’re helping your customers get what they want rather than selling them something you want. Johnson and Wilson added, “I just invest a minute when I am selling to ask myself: Am I more concerned with trying to get what I want? Or am I really helping other people get what they want” (p. 29). Sometimes it’s easy to forget what you are selling to your customer. Taking a minute to make sure you’re helping out the customer for the right reasons will only benefit both parties.
2. Have the right intentions
The successful salesperson told the younger man that once you stop caring so much at trying to get what you want and start helping the customer get what they want, it is a more enjoyable experience for all involved. Sometimes people try so hard to get something they want, such as a sale, that they create more of a hassle for themselves. Salespeople can get too caught up in making a sale that they forget their sole purpose; selling the customer a product or service that they want. Success comes when you help people get what they want and most likely you will get what you want in return.
3. Remember that you’re selling to a person so you need to be respectful
In treating people with respect can help build a level of trust between the customer and the salesperson and may even help sell the product better. Johnson and Wilson stated, “The other person, the one so many people call a customer or a prospect-is in fact, a person. If you treat him or her as a commodity, or as anything but a person, you reduce yourself to a peddler” (p. 18). People can tell when they are not being respected or are seen as anything but a price tag and they are likely to walk away.
Throughout our whole lives we try to sell people ideas such as trying to get a colleague to go to happy hour with us or asking our parents if we can have a sleepover. Whether it has to deal with money or not, we are trying to make a deal with someone. Being a successful salesperson doesn’t exactly mean that you were born one but rather that you used all of the people skills that you learned throughout your life and applied them to sell your product or service. Johnson and Wilson explained, “When I want to remember how to sell, I simply recall how I – and other people – like to buy” (p. 44). By doing this, you are using skills that you already have such as knowing how you would react if someone was selling something to you. This can then be replicated when you try to sell something to someone else. “People don’t buy services, products, or ideas. They buy how they imagine using them will make them feel” (Johnson & Wilson, 1984, p. 49). If you were selling somebody a car, you don’t need to come up with a well thought-out robotic pitch, however, you should find out what the person is looking for in the car. After that you can find how the car you are selling can provide that. By simply using skills that we were born with, anybody can be a great salesperson. It is about getting to know the customer and what they truly want rather than learning pitches and following a script.
The COVID-19 pandemic has stopped travel in many professional industries, especially in the field of consulting. A report from Mckinsey & Company noted that US airline capacity declined by 70% in 2020, compared to the previous year. Currently most business travel is completely on hold, but what will happen to travel in the consulting industry once the COVID era ends and things “go back to normal?”
In terms of the corporate world at large, The Wall Street Journal projected that “between 19-36% of all business trips could be eliminated” post-COVID. In large part, this is due to the rapid adaption of the corporate world into a remote, work-from-home-based infrastructure. Bill Gates recently stated that he believed 50% of corporate travel will disappear. The same CNBC report states that “many CFOs who control company budgets don’t see business travel ever returning to the pre-pandemic level.”
But what about the consulting industry in particular? At large MBB firms, consultants usually travel to the client site Monday-Thursday every week. Will that continue to be the case once COVID is over? Or will firms start off with remote work and slowly ramp up to travel every other week, or once a month? At this point in time it is very difficult to tell, as we simply don’t have enough data yet. None of the major consulting firms have released public statements on this issue, and their approaches will likely depend on the ever-changing COVID-19 pandemic situation. Most importantly, their approach will depend on the needs of the client—how will clients feel about travel after COVID? All of this could have a significant impact on world of MBB consulting, which could trickle down the entire consulting industry. Another question is whether consultants will work from home more frequently after COVID, and whether any of these changes will impact their work-life balance? Again, it all depends on the client and what they want—will they be able to justify million dollar contracts for a series of zoom calls? We shall find out, sometime in these next few years.
What do you think? Leave your thoughts and opinions in the comments for some discussion.
This past year, small business owners were especially impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many had to make the hard decision to shut their doors to keep themselves, their families, their employees, and the community safe. In doing this, owners were struggling with how they will pay rent, wages, and even their expenses.
Nevertheless, small business owners got creative and found ways to stay afloat when the odds were against them.
Small business owner of the City Room Cafe in Nashua, NH, Terry Wade, was just one of many affected by the pandemic. Last May, Terry closed her cafe doors to keep her employees and the community safe during a trying time. While she was closed, Terry made the most of her time thinking of new ways to adjust her business to the “new normal”. She decided this was the ideal time to renovate her cafe. She painted the walls, bought new tables and chairs, as well as new equipment for her kitchen. Not only did she renovate her cafe she also redesigned her menu and created a social media platform where she could stay connected with her customers during a difficult time. Terry was constantly updating the community on the renovation and when she was expecting to open her cafe again. Her customers were eager to be back and see the new changes. Terry was once again able to open her cafe doors in July and people were lining up to eat at their favorite breakfast spot!
Many small businesses like the City Room Cafe chose to get creative during a tough time. According to Kathy Gurchiek from SHRM, “43% of small businesses have started rethinking the way they do business since the coronavirus pandemic began, 32% have found a new way of delivering existing services, and 22% have asked employees to learn new skills to support changes in the business”. Below are a couple of ways for businesses to get creative:
Social media. Many businesses are using social media to further promote their products and services. However, it’s not enough to simply create a social media presence. You need to create content that people care about. Think about the mission and values of your company and why people keep coming back. Then think of how you can use that to create content that people want to see.
During a time when many people are working from home, social media has become ever so popular. Businesses can take advantage of this and create a platform where they can stay connected to their customers as well as new ones. A social media platform can regularly update customers and keep them hooked to the product or service they once enjoyed.
Communication. During an uncertain time, staying connected with customers is extremely important. It’s so easy to think a business isn’t open during this time if they are not constantly letting their customers and the community know the hours and days they are open. Posting this once a week to a social media platform can increase the amount of customers you are getting.
Digital platforms. For the businesses currently closed, digital platforms are a way to promote your product or service from home. For example, a yoga studio could provide live stream videos of their workouts for customers to join in on. The customer could pay for a monthly subscription and the business is still able to make money remotely. Another example would be a coffee shop that may not be getting as much business because of people working from home. Creating a digital platform where customers can buy your coffee beans, syrups, or teas would provide revenue for the business and the customers will benefit from it.
Thinking of creative ways to make money during this difficult time can be hard. However, many people in the community want to support their local businesses, so offering them a way too can be beneficial to both the customer and the business.
Work has been challenging and different for nearly all of us this past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A report from Stanford University estimated that, “42 percent of the U.S. labor force now working from home full-time. About another 33 percent are not working – a testament to the savage impact of the lockdown recession. And the remaining 26 percent – mostly essential service workers – are working on their business premises. So, by sheer numbers, the U.S. is a working-from-home economy. Almost twice as many employees are working from home as at work.” Given all of these unexpected changes to how we work, many Americans are facing increased stress and anxiety. Reports indicate that, “up to 72% of American employees experience daily stress and anxiety that interfere with their day-to-day lives.”
Mindfulness is a great tool that can be used to help handle work-related stress. Mindfulness is the practice of maintaining awareness of our thoughts and feelings, and is often paired with meditation to help calm down and re-center. Extensive scientific research has demonstrated that mindfulness can effectively reduce anxiety and stress. Below are 5 tips to promote mindfulness while you work:
Meditate before work every day. This is very helpful in establishing a calm state of mind before you begin work, and it also helps you let go of anxious or avoidant thoughts about the tasks you have to complete each day at work. A recent study found that “meditation practice may positively influence job performance, including job satisfaction, subjective job performance, and work engagement.”
Take short breaks at the top of each hour. This is really important, because as we work we start to use our thinking minds, and that can create a lot of chaos and pressure inside of us. Take a 1 to 5 minute break at each hour to re-center and clear your mind. Research has shown that taking breaks can improve mental well-being, motivation for work, increase productivity and creativity, and improve learning.
When you notice yourself getting stressed, come back to your breath and slow things down. Try not to rush through the tasks you have to do to get them over with. Instead take things slowly and do them with 100% of your effort. Not only will you do a better job, you will feel calmer and better about the work you’ve done.
Go outside. Many studies have shown that going outside improves mood and concentrations. For me personally, it blows my mind how stuffy and tense things can get when I stay inside working for too long. Then when I finally walk outside, especially in nature, feeling the fresh fair clears everything away, and I realize all that tension I’ve been building was unnecessary.
Exercise after work. This can be really helpful to relieve the tension you build during a normal work day, and it can provide a nice break between work and the rest of your night (dinner, hobbies, etc.). Extensive research has shown that exercise improves anxiety, stress, depression, as well as psychological, physiological, and immunological functions.
So try these tips and let us know if they improved your mindfulness at work, and how this impacted your mood and stress at work. Wishing you all the best during these challenging times.
My business partner always says that for the most part a person does not quit their job, they quit their boss. If you are in a leadership position of any kind, this statement should immediately grab you and cause the hair on the back of your neck to stand at attention. If it does not then you should not be in a position of leadership – period.
Retention is a direct result of the leadership. It’s as simple as that. Leadership is not about telling people what to do, we should know that by now as leaders. It’s about listening, guiding, teaching and doing the right thing. Everything has changed from the days of the baby boomer’s 30 years and a gold watch.
Medium.com writes in a recent blog post that according to a 2018 study by Mercer, a whopping third of all employees plan on quitting their job in the next 12 months. That number is astronomically high compared to when our our parents and grandparents were our age. This growing amount of turnover is getting more and more expensive for companies. In fact, one study revealed that replacing a high-talented employee will cost a company 200% of the employees annual salary.
Leadership is culture. That’s right, the culture developed by leadership is one of the most critical components of retention. How a team member feels they are perceived by the leadership will dictate the commitment and diligence put forth by the team member. Long gone are the days where a simple transaction takes place everyday – a wage is paid to perform a job. The days where an employee shows up in the morning with their lunchbox in hand, punches a clock and leaves at the end of the day with another clock punch.
Today, the working culture is more committed to the overall function of the day. There is more skin in the game and they wanted to be treated accordingly, do you blame them?
Take a look at these stats compiled by Marvin Russell on Medium.com:
In a survey of 2,000 employees, almost half (43%) said they are looking for a new job, and corporate culture was the main reason.
Source: hayes.com
When surveyed, 82% of employees said they’d be more loyal, and less likely if they had more flexible jobs.
Source: FlexJobs
92% of employees said that would be more likely to stay with their job, if their bosses would show more empathy.
Source: Businesssolver
Engaged employees are 59% less likely to seek out a new job or career in the next 12 months.
Source: Gallup
37% of employees would quit and take a new job that allowed them to work remotely part of the time.
Source: Gallup
A strong learning culture led to 30–50% high retention rates in companies.
Source Robert Half
70% of 2,000 millennials surveyed said they would quit a job if lacked high performing and fast technology.
Source: Jive Communications
62% of millennials are willing to quit their job in the next two years and work in the gig economy.
Source: Deloitte
71% of employees would accept a pay cut, just to get a better job.
Source: hayes.com
Money is not the problem. In fact, only 12% of employees actually leave their job because they want more money.
Source: CareerBuilder.com
89% of bosses wrongly believe their employees quit because they want more money.
Source: Source; Leigh Branham, author of The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave
Generation X, employees born between 1961 and 1981, reported the highest levels of stress in the workplace, and thus have the highest risk of leaving your company.
Source: hayes.com
Employees who feel they get to use the best strengths and abilities and work are 15% less likely to quit their job.
Source: Gallup
When surveyed, 76% of employees who don’t feel valued at work are seeking other job opportunities.
Source: Lifeworks
Over 70% of “high-retention-risk” employees want to leave because they see no future advancement in the current job.
Source: Willis Towers Watson
20-50% of the reason people quit is burnout, according to almost half of all HR professionals surveyed.
Source: Kronos
In a global study, 60% of millennials have worked at 2 to 4 different companies, and 43% of them feel like their company only cares about profits.
Source: O.C. Tanner
42% of millennials, who have worked at 2 to 4 different companies, said their job creates a huge amount of stress, and 36% feel their job has a negative impact on their health.
Source: O.C. Tanner
30% of employees would consider quitting if they were unhappy at work, and 79% of employees said their bosses didn’t care about their happiness level.
Source: One4All
Organizations with poor on-boarding programs have double the chances of experiencing employee turnover.
Source: Digittate
Clearly the paycheck is not the major issue here. It’s important that as leaders we recognize and value the team members in a way that brings them into the fold as pseudo partners and contributing assets. If we are not able to do that the simple truth is that they will move on and look for that with another company.
Are we listening and recognizing talents? Are we taking the time to talk with the team? Are we spending time in the trenches with them to see what it’s like from their perspective? How does a person manage when they have no idea what goes on in the various departments that they have charge over. Have you given your team members a voice? Do they feel like part of the solution and therefore part of the success of the company?
These are questions that really need answers and those answers will dictate your leadership style and also the changes that need to take place.
If you’re unsure about what the culture is in your workplace, let us help. We can get these answers for you and customize a workplace mindset and new culture, just give us a call.
It’s very important that companies understand the difference between the two plans. I tend to use the river and pond comparison. A pond is, for the most part, static. That is, it remains what it is and there is an entire eco system involved with the pond. A river, in contrast, is always moving and changing direction. A tree falls across the river and the water will find a way around. It’s always adapting to its environment and those unforeseen things that impede it’s progress.
The business plan is the pond. It is an independent eco system that provides a means in which a business is created and developed. It is the necessary steps that need to be taken in order to create a business. A business plan does not indicate strategies or marketing. What it does include, in addition to a multitude of things, is the development of a marketing plan, the river.
The marketing plan is a wholly separate document developed for growth of your company. It is a necessary adjunct to the business plan. It determines marketing channels, demographics, competition and so much more. The marketing plan is something very fluid, remember the river comparison? A marketing plan changes and adapts to the market. The current pandemic is a great example to the fluid nature of a marketing plan. If you own a screen printing company and your marketing plan dictates that you continuously search for an emerging market and the pandemic hits. You immediately identify the need that your customer base would have and you order face coverings and offer to screen print their logo on the covering. That would be an example of something that probably was not in your existing marketing plan but you simply add face coverings to the existing need of t-shirts, etc. You already have a marketing plan in place that is designed to reach new and existing customers, add the face covering to that plan, rinse and repeat.
As a business consulting firm, we work with companies that are starting out and need a business plan developed. That business plan is designed as an instruction manual to move forward and the marketing plan is one of those steps. Often times we are contracted by existing companies that have been in business for some time and need help modifying their existing plan based on emerging market trends or industry shifts and they become lost because they only know what they know. Learning something new is a difficult task to overcome for an established company as many times the company is steering the ship and not the management. They react to fires and internal issue and forget to focus on growth and new technology.
Other times we are asked to develop a new marketing plan simply because the company never developed one to begin with. Take for example a manufacturing company that started producing a specific widget because there was an intense need to be filled and they filled it. No marketing plan or business plan just a startup with a great product – A quick business is formed and grown on the merits on a small market and a need Now, because of new technology, competition, obsolescence or lack of demand the company is sliding. The need for a marketing plan emerges.
Becoming organized with a business structure, process development and strategic goals is becoming more and more critical to the success of any and all businesses. Competition is fierce and speed is a huge factor. To quote Clint Eastwood in the movie Heartbreak Ridge “You must improvise, adapt and overcome”
As always, we are at your service and eager to help.
Life is short and often times we are just working to get to the weekend. In addition, we find ourselves saying “there just is not enough time in a day.” That is just not true, it is all about how we use the time that we have and by measuring your results rather than your time.
Time management is the number one factor in successful people. They know how to work hard and often how to play hard. Time is the one resource that we can not waste. It all begins with a solid plan that includes short term plans and long term goals. These two points play in together as all your short term plans/lists should coincide with your long term goals. I have said before that when I work with businesses my number one objective is to increase a companies valuation making it more attractive for purchase. In a personal career or life, the long term goal should be retirement which is essentially the same thing for the sale of a business.
Goal setting is the first priority in working smarter. Set your end goal, say it is to retire by 40 years old with 2,000,000 in the bank. Then, as I have said before work backward from that end goal. Start with the end in mind. Then you know what you have to do to get to the goal, if you fall short one day, week, or even year, then you know exactly what you have to do to make up for the loss.
With all that said here are the top 3 ways to become more productive and to achieve your longterm goals.
Plan your days and weeks in advance
Each day I set forth making a to do list. This to do list encapsulates everything that I would like to get done on a given day. Often times, it is a mix of both personal and professional activities. If you have a cloudy mind in your personal life your professional will suffer, so be sure to stay active and up-to-date with your personal priorities. The list starts with the most important tasks that I absolutely have to complete by days end. The list ends with tasks that are “less important” but do have to get done at some point.
As I go through my day I complete my tasks and typically start my to do list for the following day. Anything that I will not have time to get to, I move to the top of the list for the following day. Additionally, as your day progresses you get new projects that have later dates and thus you are able to start to do lists for the following days. Often times I have a to do list scheduled out for the week. I spend much time scheduling and compiling lists as it keeps me on track and organized. It is important not to take too much time that it becomes a distraction but you do have to make it a priority. Having a road map for your success is critically important to staying on track.
Measure your results not your time
This is a tough benchmark to wrap your head around and typically requires a complete shift in mindset. This productivity tip is why it is so important to know where you are going and what your ultimate goals are. If I close or complete a large job at 10am or 11am I may call it a day or even take the next day off. I am measuring my results not the time I have into it because the week before I probably worked 80 hours. I know how much money I want to and need to make so when I hit that benchmark it is my decision if I want to keep working for the day or week. However, I am measuring my results not my time. You may not have to work 40 or 50 hours to make the amount of money that you want to make. Even with a normal 9-5 job you still have the power to measure results not time.
Measuring your results is a great way to mind your headspace. As Americans, we get very wrapped up in work, putting in 40+ hour weeks fully encompassed by our profession and often let the results fall behind. Time card punchers should never be the goal, have pride in the work you do.
Minimize Distractions
Distractions are the root of all evil. Distractions are, where the phrase, “there is not enough time in a day” stems from. Hate to break it to you but everybody has enough time in a day to accomplish what they need to the issue is with distractions. Fortunately or unfortunately, we live in a technological world where just about everything is available at the tip of our fingers. Our two most productive tools, phones and computers, are also our two biggest distractions. It is important to silence or delete apps that cause distractions while you are trying to be productive at work. Not only does it take away precious time but it also affects your results. Distractions affect both time and results.
Bottom line is there is plenty of time in a day to achieve the results we desire. We simply have to be well organized by compiling lists and scheduling your tasks, we need to measure results not time, and strive to minimize daily distractions. When beginning this life altering shift, start with the end in mind by setting goals. If you have questions on setting goals check on our blog on “Don’t dream, set goals.”
