“Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them.” – Vaibhav Shah
Kevin Kruse
is one such person. He recently interviewed over 200 ultra-successful
people, including 7 billionaires, 13 Olympians, and a host of
accomplished entrepreneurs. One of his most revealing sources of
information came from their answers to a simple open-ended question:
“What is your number one secret to productivity?”
In
analyzing their responses, Kruse coded the answers to yield some
fascinating suggestions. What follows are some of my favorites from
Kevin’s findings.
1. They focus on minutes, not hours. Most
people default to hour and half-hour blocks on their calendar; highly
successful people know that there are 1,440 minutes in every day and
that there is nothing more valuable than time. Money can be lost and
made again, but time spent can never be reclaimed. As legendary Olympic
gymnast Shannon Miller told Kevin, “To this day, I keep a schedule that
is almost minute by minute.” You must master your minutes to master your
life.
2. They focus on only one thing. Ultra-productive
people know what their “Most Important Task” is and work on it for one
to two hours each morning, without interruptions. What task will have
the biggest impact on reaching your goals? What accomplishment will get
you promoted at work? That’s what you should dedicate your mornings to
every day.
3. They don’t use to-do lists. Throw away your
to-do list; instead schedule everything on your calendar. It turns out
that only 41% of items on to-do lists ever get done. All those undone
items lead to stress and insomnia because of the Zeigarnik effect,
which, in essence, means that uncompleted tasks will stay on your mind
until you finish them. Highly productive people put everything on their
calendar and then work and live by that calendar.
4. They
beat procrastination with time travel. Your future self can’t be
trusted. That’s because we are time inconsistent. We buy veggies today
because we think we’ll eat healthy salads all week; then we throw out
green rotting mush in the future. Successful people figure out what they
can do now to make certain their future selves will do the right thing.
Anticipate how you will self-sabotage in the future, and come up with a
solution today to defeat your future self.
5. They make it
home for dinner. Kevin first learned this one from Intel’s Andy Grove,
who said, “There is always more to be done, more that should be done,
always more than can be done.” Highly successful people know what they
value in life. Yes, work, but also what else they value. There is no
right answer, but for many, these other values include family time,
exercise, and giving back. They consciously allocate their 1,440 minutes
a day to each area they value (i.e., they put them on their calendar),
and then they stick to that schedule.
6. They use a
notebook. Richard Branson has said on more than one occasion that he
wouldn’t have been able to build Virgin without a simple notebook, which
he takes with him wherever he goes. In one interview, Greek shipping
magnate Aristotle Onassis said, “Always carry a notebook. Write
everything down... That is a million dollar lesson they don’t teach you
in business school!” Ultra-productive people free their minds by writing
everything down as the thoughts come to them.
7. They
process e-mails only a few times a day. Ultra-productive people don’t
“check” their e-mail throughout the day. They don’t respond to each
vibration or ding to see who has intruded into their inbox. Instead,
like everything else, they schedule time to process their e-mails
quickly and efficiently. For some, that’s only once a day; for others,
it’s morning, noon, and night.
8. They avoid meetings at
all costs. When Kevin asked Mark Cuban to give his best productivity
advice, he quickly responded, “Never take meetings unless someone is
writing a check.” Meetings are notorious time killers. They start late,
have the wrong people in them, meander around their topics, and run
long. You should get out of meetings whenever you can and hold fewer of
them yourself. If you do run a meeting, keep it short and to the point.
9.
They say “no” to almost everything. Billionaire Warren Buffet once
said, “The difference between successful people and very successful
people is that very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.”
And James Altucher colorfully gave Kevin this tip: “If something is not a
‘Hell Yeah!’ then it’s a no.” Remember, you only have 1,440 minutes in a
day. Don’t give them away easily.
10. They follow the
80/20 rule. Known as the Pareto Principle, in most cases, 80% of results
come from only 20% of activities. Ultra-productive people know which
activities drive the greatest results. Focus on those and ignore the
rest.
11. They delegate almost everything. Ultra-productive
people don’t ask, “How can I do this task?” Instead, they ask, “How can
this task get done?” They take the I out of it as much as possible.
Ultra-productive people don’t have control issues, and they are not
micro-managers. In many cases, good enough is, well, good enough.
12.
They touch things only once. How many times have you opened a piece of
regular mail—a bill perhaps—and then put it down, only to deal with it
again later? How often do you read an e-mail and then close it and leave
it in your inbox to deal with later? Highly successful people try to
“touch it once.” If it takes less than five or ten minutes—whatever it
is—they deal with it right then and there. It reduces stress, since it
won’t be in the back of their minds, and it is more efficient, since
they won’t have to re-read or re-evaluate the item again in the future.
13.
They practice a consistent morning routine. Kevin’s single greatest
surprise while interviewing over 200 highly successful people was how
many of them wanted to share their morning ritual with him. While he
heard about a wide variety of habits, most nurtured their bodies in the
morning with water, a healthy breakfast, and light exercise, and they
nurtured their minds with meditation or prayer, inspirational reading,
or journaling.
14. Energy is everything. You can’t make
more minutes in the day, but you can increase your energy to increase
your attention, focus, and productivity. Highly successful people don’t
skip meals, sleep, or breaks in the pursuit of more, more, more.
Instead, they view food as fuel, sleep as recovery, and breaks as
opportunities to recharge in order to get even more done.
ense is one of the Most Reliable and Most Trusted PTC sites who passed the test of time. It has been online for more than 9 years, and it’s getting stronger by the day. Clixsense never missed to pay a single member so you can put your mind at ease that this PTC will give you an opportunity to earn money and pay you without hesitation.
