Schooley Mitchell - The Pulse - Ready for Anything

The First Major Area of Productive Behavior: Completion

1. Clean up your current projects before starting new ones

To create energy and clarity for a new project, go through and mentally clear the decks first by:

Completing all the projects you’re half-way through.
Processing everything in your in-basket.
Answering or purging all your mail and e-mail.
Clearing your desk and workspace.
Working through your stack of material you must read.

The more things you can get completed, the clearer you’ll be able to think about your new project. Clearing the decks also energizes you, and creates a feeling of accomplishment. That’s important to have at the start of a new project.

You should also arm yourself with a tool for capturing new ideas. This needs to be something you’ll always have with you to capture new ideas the moment they occur to you. Configure it to suit your needs – a pocket notebook, three-by-five cards, miniature recorder – whatever works in with your preferences.

2. Get into the habit of writing everything down

Too many people have jumbled thinking. To avoid this, do a “mind dump” – that is, write down everything that pops into your head, regardless of how important or how irrelevant that thought is. You can then take the material from your mind dump and evaluate it logically, deciding on some priorities. If you try and do this mentally, all you’ll end up creating is confusion. Instead, capture ideas by writing them down and then work through them, deciding what’s actionable and what’s not.

3. Make better choices by tracking your commitments

Until you know what you’ve already committed to doing, it will be impossible to agree to take on any new projects. By deliberately and consciously tracking your present commitments, you’ll also become more selective about any undertakings you give to other people.

What you want to do is hit the right balance between controls and constraints. That is, you want to be able to concentrate on what’s important without having so many systems in place that your thinking becomes stifled. One way to achieve this is to create some simple daily processes for taking care of the important details of your life and career. With a thorough process in place, you deal with the important elements with a high level of awareness and attention.

4. To achieve your goals, know your current realities

Before you can set meaningful priorities for the future, you have to take inventory of where you are at present. Find the answers to six key questions to do that:

What are your current daily tasks?
What are the projects you are now working on?
What specifically are your current areas of responsibility?
What changes do you anticipate happening in the next year?
What’s the big picture of changes over the next few years?
What do you see as your purpose for living?

Once you make a thorough inventory of all your present commitments, you then have a more accurate perspective on how much time and energy can be committed to new projects that will move you towards your goals.

5. Visualize positive results and act constructively

To achieve more with your life:

Get things on paper – because if you try and remember everything, you’ll get muddled and confused.
Make decisions when things show up – not when you’ve delayed deciding so long they become problems.
Organize reminders – so you follow through and complete the projects you start rather than abandoning them.
Keep your system current – so you can trust it completely rather than being out of date. That frees your intuition to help prompt you in what you should be doing.

6. Avoid conflicting commitments

Your mind is constantly tracking and reviewing all your commitments – big and small, professional and personal. Having too many open projects at any one time creates frustration and anxiety, impeding constructive actions. Therefore, to avoid this, spend time and energy clearing up all the “loose ends” before embarking on a major project. You’ll be able to focus on what’s needed to succeed far more effectively if you don’t have open loops nagging at the back of your mind.

7. Inventory all your open projects on paper

Never try and track all your open loops mentally. That will only cause confusion and stress. Instead:

Make a list of all your open projects (probably 30 -100).
Write down the next step for each project.
Update your list regularly so it is current and applicable.

Don’t worry if you don’t actually do anything on a project – that’s fine because it’s your conscious choice rather than the result of circumstance. Once you’ve specified what actions are required to move forward with each project, then you can start on the efficiency game of finding ways to get them all done.

8. Generate more energy by closing open loops

The more of your current projects you can complete, the more energized you’ll feel. Therefore, don’t worry about setting priorities. Get some projects finished each and every day. Clear out the mental clutter of unfulfilled commitments and you’ll be amazed at how great you feel.

9. If it’s on your mind, it won’t be getting done

Whenever something “bugs” you, take that as an indicator that you need to;

Do something that will progress the project; or
Decide what your next action should be; or
Put in place a reminder you’ll notice to act in the future.

Don’t even attempt to keep all your self-commitments in your head. All that will produce is jumbled thinking or stress, neither of which are helpful. Instead, get into the habit of writing things down. Save your mental energy for bigger and better things. If you get into the habit of doing all your planning on paper rather than in your mind, you’ll be using your energy where it can produce the greatest benefits. Be smart about what you choose to think about, because that will have a large number of flow-on benefits and advantages.

10. For creative thinking, you have to make space

Instead of saying to other people or yourself: “You know, if I didn’t have so many responsibilities, I could be very creative”, you need to take more control. The key is:

Write everything down.

Think about it all, not just what you get to.

Decide what needs to be done about all your projects.

Manage all your options in a consistent external system.

As you do this, you’ll find the experience highly liberating. The release of the pressure of trying to remember everything will create a surge of self-esteem that will cut through the fog and allow you to achieve much more. Once you get started, it then becomes a matter of being consistent as you work the system.

11. Set up your life for expansion, not contraction

Do whatever it takes to make it worth your while, personally and professionally, to generate new business. That may mean raising your prices so you’re genuinely enthused when a new customer comes along. If you don’t do this, you will subconsciously resent new business, which is not helpful. Simplify your business systems, create the capacity for expansion, clear your mind and then go to work developing new ideas that will allow you to serve more people better than before. That way, you’ll welcome new opportunities, not shun them.

12. Periodically review where you’re heading

To think less about what you should be doing and thereby create more time for actually achieving, run regular reviews of the key elements of your life:

Every week, review all your open projects and write down a suitable next step for each.
Every month or two, go over your life and career and check the right projects are getting the right amount of attention.
Every year, formulate a plan for where you want to be by the end of the next year.
Every few years, sit down with other key people and think about your life’s direction and your lifestyle needs.
Every so often, stop and reconnect with what your personal grand purpose of life is.

13. Be the master of your work, not its slave

By accurately categorizing and tracking everything you need to get done, you’ll have the confidence to think more about what really should be done. In other words, writing lists of actions to take is exceptionally useful because it helps you be more efficient, but effectiveness requires that you do the right things. Sometimes the right thing to do will not be something that’s on your lists, but because you’ve taken the time and thought to develop lists, you can feel confident that nothing important is being overlooked.

In essence, the system works but not always in ways that you have planned. When you reach the stage where you process 100-percent of your requirements into a good system, you can then pay attention to what really counts without distraction. The true payoff will be that you’ll get the right things done, not necessarily that you’ll do everything on your lists.

The Second Major Area of Productive Behavior: Focus

1. For greater clarity, shift your focus to a higher plane

When things get tight or unexpected problems arise, that’s actually a great opportunity to reassess what you should be doing. To do this in practice, you have to remove yourself from your present stresses by:

Accepting your present realities.
Refocusing on what your goals are.
Decide and take the next physical move forward.

The sooner you get moving again, the better. There’s nothing to be gained by commiserating over bad breaks, so get back into action. Remind yourself the old battles count for nothing.

2. To start seeing patterns, visualize the outcome first

The human brain is actually very good at recognizing patterns. To harness this ability, visualize the outcome you desire first, in as much detail as possible. This will trigger your mind to start recognizing and noting the habits, competencies and methods which will be required to achieve that goal in reality.

Mentally draw the blueprint by visualizing your outcome and then let your mind fill in the blanks on how to go about realizing that objective. Things might not happen exactly as planned, but you’ll be amazed at what you do ultimately end up accomplishing.

3. Do what’s most important, not what’s easiest

Always prioritize your tasks in a good system which makes sense to you. Your time should be allocated to doing what’s most important for the achievement of your goals – rather than what’s most recent, loudest or in-your-face.

To do this in practice, you’ll need to develop your own task reminder and rating system. This will probably need to be more sophisticated than Post-it notes on your computer screen or phone slips left on your desk. The steps are simple:

Centralize all your tasks in one consistent location.
Set priorities in the context of what’s most and least important.
Make deliberate choices good about what to do next.

4. Your energy will always follow your thoughts

As a reminder system, many people leave items they have to take with them by the front door. That way, they are reminded of those items when they go to leave. The same principle applies to what you think about. To work towards your goals, leave reminders in places where you’ll take notice of them frequently.

To achieve this, find something that suits your work style. For example, you might write down your long-term goals and affirmations on 3x5 index cards you carry with you or have displayed in prominent positions around your house. Consistently channel your thoughts and your actions will follow in the same direction.

When you first start thinking about a long-term goal, it will be difficult because you won’t be able to visualize all the details. As you continue to think about the same goal again and again, it will become easier and easier until your mind delivers a plan to achieve what you’re thinking about. Consciously and deliberately focus your thinking in this way, and you’ll be pointing your mental energy towards your goals. That will activate your thinking even more, enhancing your opportunities to find ways to deliver what’s required.

5. The clearer your thinking, the better you will perform

To enhance your creative instincts, clarify the purpose of why you are doing whatever you’re doing. Take an inventory of all your major assets and procedures. You’ll probably find many of them relate to historical needs rather than present requirements. Clear them out. Write down a purpose for each, and dispose of any that have outlived their usefulness. The more specific and unambiguous you are about your long-term goals, the easier it becomes to unleash your creativity. Clear away the clutter and move forward.

6. Aim to be the best at whatever you do

If you’re absolutely committed to doing your very best at whatever you do rather than attempting to just be good enough to get by, you’ll find previously untapped reservoirs of creativity and intelligence will open up to you. This will be refreshing but a little scary because you’ll have to leave behind your self-doubts and commit to excellence. Those who are attempting to excel in everything they attempt, however, experience incredible exhilaration and energy. This, in turn, will be highly motivational and satisfying. It all starts with a commitment to excellence.

7. To get different results in life, change your focus

How fast can you get back to a “ready” state of mind when unexpected events have occurred? Professionals get into the habit of refocusing in this way all the time, so they can be centered and balanced moving forward rather than mulling over past misfortunes. To achieve more with your life, you need to develop the ability to get back to “ready” quickly and frequently.

8. Learn how to bootstrap your thinking

Always carry something with you to capture the positive thoughts that will come to you from time to time. As you mentally try and put your challenges into perspective, quite often solutions to problems with come to you out of the blue. Capture those ideas before they are replaced by different thoughts. Stimulate your thinking by carrying with you some personal affirmations and goals. You’ll be amazed at how many great ideas will come to you over the course of an average day if you only take the time and effort to encourage and then capture them.

9. Think clearly about where you need to be

To increase your personal productivity, you need to get into the habit of doing three things consistently well:

i. Make decisions about what the next step is for all of the projects you’re working on.

ii. Write down these actions and keep a centralized list for all the projects you currently have active. (By writing everything down, you can then concentrate with a clear mind on the task at hand rather than worrying about neglecting something).

iii. Put reminders in places where you’ll see them at an appropriate time to encourage you to actually get into action on each project.

These are the three master skills of productivity, and yet almost everyone will admit they can and should improve significantly in these skills.

10. Trust your system

Once you’ve captured, organized, tracked and planned all your commitments, you’re then able to attack the present moment with all your energy rather than having something nagging at the back of your mind. In other words, once you have your system in place, trust it implicitly to remind you of everything you have to do. Focus on the task at hand with all your mental energy and then go on to the next task with equal fervor. This is far better than jumbled and disjointed thinking about all the elements of your life.

11. Efficiency requires certainty of direction

If you inject clarity of purpose into your life, you’ll find that you’ll have a much better perspective on the big picture issues as well. By focusing more on the reason for doing things and less on the mechanics of the tasks themselves, you also become more open to inspiration. You get a clearer sense on where everything fits in the grand scheme, rather than having your vision blurred by the actual mechanics of anything.

In essence, efficiency (which everyone strives for) only becomes possible when you have first determined how to be most effective in doing the right things.

12. To get “in the zone”, focus on one thing at a time

The hallmark of high performance is an ability to give full attention to the task at hand. This is easy when something obviously has top priority, but most situations in life are far more ambiguous than that. The real key is to have everything else in order as part of a workable system. When that occurs, your conscious mind can focus on the moment rather than dedicating part of your mental capacity to trying to remember what else you have on.

The key to getting more done can be summed up as: Achieving the appropriate amount of attention focused on the most appropriate task for the appropriate length of time and with the appropriate perspective applied. Do that consistently well and you’ll be “in the zone” for the bulk of your working career. You’ll also achieve more than you ever thought possible.

13. The real value of a goal is the change it fosters

The value of a future goal is not limited to what you will receive when you achieve it in the future. Rather, a goal changes what you perceive and how you act in the present. A good goal changes the quality and substance of the decisions you make today. It affects what you choose to feel, do and experience at this moment in time.

This is why goals have a dual nature. In one sense, a goal specifies a destination, but in another sense it also defines the quality of the journey. Set exciting goals for your own personal future and you’ll find your present activities become equally invigorating because you know where they lead. This balance between outer circumstances and inner self-dialogue is dynamic and healthy. You can take great satisfaction from your outer activities, secure in the knowledge that your inner thinking is also changing to align itself with the direction you want to head. Achieve this day-in and day-out and your life will become a succession of smaller victories leading to a great goal.