There is a massive difference between being busy all day, even burning the midnight candle day after day, believing that by outworking everyone around you, you can achieve anything, when the reality of being effective, efficient and productive is something completely different. Most people confuse feeling busy with being productive. This cycle of constant busyness and activity, where we are striving to be superhuman, where we attempt to apply excessive activity to everything we do, overstretches us and actually steals our productivity and effectiveness from us. This just results in us feeling overworked, overstretched and in many cases even overwhelmed and yet we still do not get to see the type of results, this level of activity should deliver. I want you to take a breath and begin to change your life from feeling overworked, overstressed and with a schedule that stretches you to one of efficiency and real effectiveness. You can produce amazing results with far less effort and in much less time if you learn to apply a few new routines and habits into your life.
The place to start is to first look at the real top achievers that have achieved extra-ordinary results in their lives. These people have exactly the same amount of time each day as we do, yet they are able to achieve incredible results with their time, whilst we seem to work longer and harder and achieve less. What makes them different? The thing that stands out the most for me is that people like Oprah, Richard Branson, Donald Trump and Nelson Mandela do not do more than everyone else. In fact it is not what they do that makes them so extraordinary, it is what they choose not to do that makes them so amazing. The one most powerful skill that all extraordinary achievers have that makes them stand out is the ability to know when to say no to the good, so that they have time to say yes to the great. The skill of knowing when to say no is the master skill possessed by all achievers.
We all have limited time in our schedules and limited resources available. Every time we say yes to something, we are effectively closing ourselves down to say yes to something else. The secret to move to the next level of achievement is not to pack more and more into your schedule, it is to take a step back and look at everything you are doing each day. Identify the things that are or have the potential to deliver great or extraordinary results and focus your energy on those and have the courage to delegate or remove those things that are just taking up your time from your life altogether. We are constantly pulled and tugged in many different directions each day, until you take some time to slow down and see the few important issues requiring your attention and you remove the unnecessary clutter from your life, you are going to remain stuck on the treadmill of relentless busyness. Look to remove the time, energy and effectiveness activities form your life and start to focus your energy on only things that matter and will make a difference in your life.
Make the decision from today to learn the art of saying no, more often and start to take more time to focus on the few things that will bring you the greatest return. Take time to look back over your calendar for the last month and see where you could have said no to anything. Look to identify areas where you spent time and energy on activities, over the past month that were no aligned with your top major goals. Now have the courage to remove these activities from your schedule going forward.
The next step is to look at your schedule going forward and to use the insight you have gained from looking at your previous month and remove any activities that are not contributing to your overall big picture. Learn to delegate, delete or decline anything in your schedule that does not contribute to the most effective outcome you want in your life. This may feel difficult at first, but once you have mastered this very necessary skill, you will begin to see time almost miraculously clear up in a schedule that you thought was filled to capacity. You will begin to feel less overwhelmed, have more energy and time to focus on things that really matter and you will become far more effective and productive.
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