When you’re on your deathbed, you’re never going to say you wish you’d attended more meetings. But at work, meetings are a necessary evil.

The key to an efficient meeting is a strong leader. Their job is to keep things on track, not be afraid to cut off long-winded discussions, and be willing to end things early once the business is done. Brief and well-run meetings create an organizational culture of respect for everyone’s time.

Read the complete article.

It’s that time of year again, where we set goals for the year ahead and one month later these goals are long forgotten.

Some reasons why we don’t achieve many of the goals we set include:

• To many goals. Think quality over quantity.
• The goals are unrealistic considering your current situation or mind-set.
• Goals are set without an action plan or any idea on how to get there.
• And the list goes on.

1 – Define Your Definite Major Purpose and Fulfillment Factors
What moves you in life? How do you see your life? What are your passions, your purpose in life? These are not your goals, they are the “WHY” for your goals.

2 – Review Your Task Chart
Your organizational or task chart is the framework for your business or your life. When working towards your goals there are many tasks that need to be done where you will need to wear many different hats or assign some to someone else in order to maintain the standards needed to move forward.

3 – Set Income & Life Goals
Goals can be based on financial income or can be lifestyle based. Keep in mind that almost all lifestyle goals have an associated cost, thus requiring an associated income goal. Be sure you set goals that are achievable, measurable and that they are aligned with your Definite Major Purpose.

Take some time to look at what you want in life, lifestyle, physical materials or experiences. Take a look at your current income. Set and write down your goals for 2010 and what income level will it take to achieve them.

4 – Backward Plan For Achieving Your Goals (Work Back Plan)
If the goals you set in the previous section is your destination, this is the plan or road map for the journey to your goals. Just like a road trip you need to have a plan on how to get to from point A to point B.

Define what is the step that is required or what need to happen just before achieving your goal. What action is required just before that… And so on…. Do this until you get to your current situation. The last identified step or action will be the first to take in order to move forward.

5 – Evaluate Your Projects
At this point it’s important that you evaluate all the projects in your life, projects such as your job, school, community activities, your businesses… You need to focus on what takes you closer to your goals. We often tend to be proud of our multitasking abilities, but multitasking will only dilute your quality and diminish your focus.

• Measure your passion to what you do
• What kind of emotional response do you have to what you do
• What kind of cashflow does it have

6 – Your Action Plan – The Critical Six
Now that everything is set, it’s time to take action and move forward. Here’s a very effective strategy that I do everyday and that I talked about in the past. It’s called The Critical Six and here’s a recap:

• Each day write down the six most important things you need to do to get closer to your goals. Only six per day, no more.
• Put them in order of importance.
• Start on item number one. Do not skip to item number two until you have fully completed number one.
• If you get to the end of the day and have not completed your full list of six items, roll them over to the next day as the most important.

7 – Do Not Rely On Faith & Destiny
Faith and the belief in your destiny are the greatest cop outs, great excuses to evade the need to think, evaluate evidence and take action.

8 – Just Do It
There are no secrets when it comes to achieving your goals. Get off your ass, stop reading all these “HOW TO” and “Productivity” articles & posts and take action.

Don’t Multitask And Don’t Rely On Faith & Destiny

TAKE ACTION & STAY FOCUSED

Angie decided to put together some last minute harmonies to fit the season. Hope you enjoy!

All the best to you and your family.

Jocelyn

An individual had an idea in 1999. This year millions of people around the world will mark 21 September – Peace Day – in whatever way they can.

www.peaceoneday.org

Do you want to achieve more or in life?  Here’s a simple strategy to adopt call “The Critical Six”.

Write Them Down: At the beginning of each day or at the end of the day before the following day, write down the six most important things you need to do that day to get closer to your  goals, intentions or dreams. Only six per day, no more.

Order: Put them in order of importance, one being the most important, two being the second most important and so on…

Execution: Starting tomorrow first thing, start on item number one. Do not skip or go to item number two until you have fully completed number one. Then continue in succession with each number.

Rollover: If you get to the end of the day and have not completed your full list of six items, roll them over to the actions items for the next day. If item five and six are left one day, they will become item one and two for the next day. The only exception to the rollover is if, and only if, something more high leverage arises for the next day.

The secret is to have the courage and commitment to stick with it.

It’s also important to keep in mind that:
1) Activity does not equal accomplishments.
2) The lis is not for daily chores…  it’s for goal focused activities only.
3) No matter how many things screams for your attention, stay focus.
4) Unless they get you closer to your objectives, ignore the distractions.

In 2 weeks, take a few minutes and review yourself by asking:
1) Am I writing my Critical Six action items each day?
2) Am I prioritizing them correctly?
3) Am I really doing them?

Don’t fall into the trap of getting distracted with daily busywork goals, like doing the laundry, doing the grocery and so on…

STAY FOCUSED!

Be proactive and not reactionary.

Take decisions based upon where you want to be, not where you are at.

During times like these, most businesses and people tend to want to cut back, thus creating opportunities for proactive companies and people like us…

This is the time to step up while other cut back. Successful businesses don’t wait for the tough economic times to turn around. They go out and make the changes happen for themselves.

“More millionaires where created during the great depression than any other period.”

Are you going to take hold of the opportunities or are you going to sit, wait, worry, cut back and freeze-up?

While others cut back, increase your advertising spending and gain new customers and market shares.

While others sell off their stock holding out of fear, seek out bargains

As lending rates fall and foreclosures are on the upswing during though times, look at buying a home or a business.

And the list goes on….

Although our modern economic system is a very complex monster, think about this…. Is our panic a reactionary behavior to a real and current recession or do we freak out in reaction to the doom and gloom media speculation, thus creating a recession?

There’s a lot of money out there… You just need to find a way to attract it.

Think about it.

An economy slows down and heads towards a recession.

Why?

Because we stop spending due to a fear of losing our jobs and livelihood…  Jobs are lost because we stop spending. You see the cycle?

A recession is just an illusion that we create out of fear feed to us by media speculation and the doom and gloom they paint.

Maybe it’s time we stop taking all this garbage and start taking control of our lives.

Below is a short text that I recently came across written by Dr. Joe Vitale.  He was one of the teachers featured in the book/movie The Secret.

Stop paying attention to the media.

Stop paying attention to the doom and gloom of anyone and everyone around. Stop getting sucked into being a victim.

STOP IT.

You won’t go anywhere buying into the cultural trance that there isn’t enough and times are tough.

You won’t accomplish your big goals, or do anything of real greatness, as long as you give in to outer circumstances.

You have to take back your power.

You have to take back your control.

You have to “awaken.”

Recently I told a woman who was interviewing me that I was homeless and in poverty only as long as I stayed stuck in survival “thinking.”

As soon as I put my mind on what I “wanted” to have instead, I began to shift and get better results.

This can happen for you, too. It took me ten years. You can do it in one weekend.

But you have to stop listening to the media paint a picture of darkness.

The media paints it by finding something dark to report on, whether it’s true or not. You and others listen to it, believe it, and before you know it, you have “created” what the media painted.

They predict a recession before there actually is one.

But people believe the media, fall into fear, stop spending, and suddenly a recession is here.

This has to stop. And it can stop right now.

Break free from money worries.

Break free from job worries.

Break free from health worries.

Break free from love worries.

Break free — PERIOD.

Before you accept or schedule a meeting, ask yourself; is this meeting really necessary? If it gets canceled by any means, would that meeting fade away, or could it be taken care of with an e-mail, or, would it in fact prove to have genuine value?

“When you take care of your life, do you develop overcomplicated processes for getting things done? Do you spend your free time coming up with systems and programs for buying birthday presents or making dinner or feeding the dog? Do you have regular family meetings to discuss whether or not people are doing heir chores, what the status of those chores is, and what kind of outcomes those chores are expected to achieve?

Why do we spend so much of our business life talking about the business we need to take care of rather than simply taking care of it?”
-From Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It

Some believe, including myself, the solution is in a ROWE.

ROWE stands for Results-Only Work Environment. In a ROWE, each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. The old rules that govern a traditional work environment—core hours, “face time,” pointless meetings, etc.—have been replaced by one rule: focus only on results.

In a traditional work environment, the coworker who gets in early, leaves late, attends every meeting possible and is an avid buzzword user looks like they’re a superstar. In a ROWE, they’re just making a choice about when, where and how they work.

For all you managers out there; praise the outcomes, not the behavior.
Stop praising/admiring people for their “dedication” and start
praising people for what they accomplish.

Stop and think about the following:

1) We rush to work everyday and then spend the first hour at our desk reading the paper and drinking coffee?

2) If you’re done with your work for the day at 4pm, why do you have to stay that extra hour and pretend to be busy?

3) Why do we assume that time = productivity instead of talking about the kind of results the person is actually getting?