We each get exactly 168 hours every week. No scientist or philosopher or great person of the past has ever gotten more. In today’s world we can get bombarded with interruptions from every side and before you realize it your day then week then year is gone and you can not even remember what you had yesterday for lunch. I hope you guard your time because it is a precious commodity I have gathered a few ideas below that may help keep the guard up.

1. Get away. You must take time for yourself. If you will take one hour per week to plan the next week you will save a day in trying to figure out what to do next. I do not use a day planner to keep time down to the fifteen minute block. I do have a 3X5 card my to-do list for that day only written on it. Remember it this way: one week per year, one day per month, one hour per week and fifteen minute per day. If you take these times to plan your life and set goals you will be more successful than 95% of Americans.

2. If possible put yourself on an information diet. I know this sounds harsh but try to only check your email twice to three times per day. (If you are still reading thanks) If you think about it your email reading and sometimes rereading takes up significant amounts of your time. On my website I tell people I only check my email in the morning and in the evening so the know that when they send me mail it will not get answered right away. In the last week I have even turned off the auto check feature so if I am at the computer I will not even see that mail has come in.

3. Move to online mail such as Gmail or Yahoo mail or the new windows live which uses Hotmail and send or set up your online mail to check your work and personal mailboxes. Once you have moved the convenience is that you can check mail from anywhere in the world. If you set up filters for your incoming emails you will know which ones to check and what can wait until later or never at all. (Your can do this with windows outlook also but online is much faster and we will all be there eventually) If you use Firefox as a web browser there is a Getting Things Done (GTD) add-on for Gmail so you can label your mail as it comes in and then act later.

4. When you do check your email do it quickly and efficiently. If it is trash; trash it. If it needs a response respond immediately so you don’t stick yourself with trying to answer all of your email two days after you have received it and then you get bogged down for two hours trying to catch up. Steven Covey says in his book Focus that we should either a) file it; b) act on it; or c) DELETE IT, in my opinion most mail goes in this category.

5. Let the phone go to voice mail. If it is not someone you need to talk to right away then don’t. They will either leave you a voice mail and you can check it like you do your email or they will not and it must not have been that important.

Everything you do needs to be done with this thought in mind. If you are working on a project and you stop to talk to someone it takes you at least five minutes to ramp back up and start your thinking process again. If you are a boss this should apply to your employees also. If you want them to be productive then leave them alone and let them work.

Bonus: Get rid of Nextel or set strict limits on its use. it is the biggest time waster on the planet. Most alerts are for bogus things or just to chit-chat not work. Those of you that use Nextel know what I mean. You will alert someone to ask them what they had for lunch, but you would not call someone and waste cell minutes to ask that. Either ban it or teach people how to use it.

When Henry Ward Beecher was asked how it was that he could accomplish so much more than other men, he replied: “I don’t do more, but less, than other people. They do all their work three times over: once in anticipation, once in actuality, once in rumination. I do mine in actuality alone, doing it once instead of three times.”

Did you read that statement? How many times have you created a list; or just did not put something on a list; or maybe sat outside a customers office because you were playing out in your mind what would happen when you did the thing your knew you were supposed to do? Chances are you have procrastinated before. Nike gave us the phrase, “Just Do It.” I think they took Mr. Beecher’s sentiment and condensed it. If you want a balanced life you must stop projecting your thoughts on something before it happens and quit worrying about what you should have done after it is passed.

Three good ways to break this cycle are:

1. Change your thoughts. I know this sounds over simplified but it is true. The best way to change your life is to change your mind. Think about people in your life that affirm you. Think about what made you happy when you were a kid. Think about what makes you happy now; wife, husband, family, art, music, football, whatever.

2. Change your heart. What you let into your heart is what stays in your life. If you are constantly playing out what the next business deal is or where the next sell is coming from or how the bills are going to get paid stop because these things are going to become habits then you may get stuck in a rut you will need more than coaching to get out of. I’m not saying don’t plan and set goals. I am saying quit playing in your mind and just do it.

3. Change your future. Find someone to come along side you as a coach or mentor that can help you set goals and keep you accountable to those goals.

Plan daily what you are going to do and do your most important things. Do not spend time wrestling with the; “should I do this or the”, “I wish I had done that.” Make quick but solid decisions and trust your gut. Always focus on the task at hand.

Each of us is created with certain gifts that we are to use in the time we are here on earth. What I would like for you to see is that no matter who you are, what you put into life is exactly what you get out.

Jesus tells us that a good tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree gives bad fruit. Beyond that your attitude will determine how many friends you have and your level of relationships with these people. Your attitude at work will depend on whether you are advanced at work or whether you work at all. Your attitude toward learning will determine whether you spend time learning or not.

We are very fortunate in America to live in a free society. We can chose to take advantage of the freedom we have and make a life that we were designed to live in the job we were designed to do. Or we can sit on the sidelines and complain about the lot we were cast and become miserable old curmudgeon who have no true friends and die mostly alone.

If you knew you would die on a certain day at a certain time would you choose to live a miserable unfulfilled life or one where you choose to use the talents you were given by God and live a joyful life doing what you were designed to do.

Here is some news, you are going to die someday so why not use the gifts God gave you and make something of what you are.

If you let life happen to you, you will probably lose. Sitting around and waiting to hit the lottery is not a long-term goal. You have to start paying attention to the calling that is in your heart, start setting goals, and start reading books to help you see beyond tomorrow.   When you realize you control your future and you start making better choices; then you will start to see changes in your life that you never thought would happen.

Here is the stuff you do not hear in goal-setting seminars. There will be times when you think you have failed. These time of doubt come into every persons life. Unless you quit, you have not failed. Mistakes and setbacks happen but they are not failures and you need to see them for what they are, setbacks. If you keep going you will see success.

Why can we not just show up? We hear all the time about the kid that makes a million dollars just because he or she just did one small thing. So why can’t we just show up and be successful. I know a couple that was in the right place at the right time and are now millionaires. The problem is the right place was managing McDonald’s. Are you willing to start at the bottom cooking fries and flipping burgers to make a million dollars? Probably not; so you waste tens of thousands of dollars trying to find the next get rich scheme on the internet or in mail order or where ever it may come from.

Personal Development is the key to changing your life.  John Maxwell once said, “What your are reading today, is who you will be ten years from now.” Do you understand the implications of watching the news or just television in general everyday for hours on end. It consumes you it becomes who you are. you begin to see that life is bad. everyone is out to get everyone else. Our government is out to get us. You lose your will to be the success you were called to be. You take on the personification of someone you are not.

If you want to succeed tomorrow then start by bettering your life. Go Buy a book or get some coaching. If you think coaching is to expensive then try email coaching or hit me up on Facebook. I do email coaching all the time because it is more affordable for some people. Some books you can read are Zig Ziglars Better Than Good: Creating a Life You Can’t Wait to Live and John Maxwell’s Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success. Both of these books will start you on the road to personal development. But don’t stop with two. Read every book you can find on personal development and if you need someone to keep you accountable get a coach.  I am not saying read self-help books that tell you that you need a better view of yourself.  Read books that give you an outline of how to succeed.  You are not going to agree with or enjoy every book you read but if you get one nugget out of each book you will see yourself begin to change.  Over time ever thing you read and do adds up to help you rise above the rest. 

I have a coach to help me get better and my coach has a coach. Tiger, Oprah, and countless others have coaches.  Successful people have others around them that can speak encouragement to them and help them develop themselves.  If you have friends that are of the same mindset then begin to meet with them and start to sharpen each other.  If your friends are people who make fun of you and try to pull you down to their level then they are not the ones to speak encouragement into your life.  Get someone in your life you can count on to help in your development. 

If you want to be truly successful then you must develop yourself. I want to also suggest the bible as daily reading. If you are of a different faith then by all means read your holy books. But as a Christian I read the bible and suggest it to those I coach. Don’t let the rest of your life slip away. Make the choice today to become the person you were called to be.

Ever since James Allen wrote “As A Man Thinketh” people have asked that question.  do you lay in bed every morning and think about how bad your day at work will be?  Do you stay awake at night because you think about how bad it will be to get up in the morning?  Or, do you Spend time at night focusing on the possibilities that lay ahead of you the next day?  Do you take time every evening to lay out the things that need to be done the next day and think about the success you will have when you accomplish them?

All the examples above focus on thinking about your work, but two focus on the bad and two focus on the possibilities.  If you spend your time every day thinking about how to get out of work or how bad your job is, that is what it will be.   You will always get what you think about.  I’m not talking manifesting millions of dollars.  I’m talking about just changing the way you view your life and career.

1.  Change the questions you ask .  If you are asking how can I get out of this, or how can I kill time this afternoon.  You will get the answers.  Ask those questions enough you will get to answer them from the house, and then you will be asking how do i pay my bills.  Instead of asking questions that will get you out of work ask, “How can I make this fun,” or “How can I get better ideas for this job.”  You can get all the answers you want if you ask the right questions.

2.  Finish an important task.  When you spend time focusing on how to get out of work you tend to leave the things that really need to be done until the last-minute.  Stop procrastinating and do the things that need to be done before the deadline.  When you get an important project off your desk you feel better and a great weight is lifted from your soldiers.  Don’t say if I do the work they will only give me more.  That is bad thinking.  If you want to succeed you will have to pay the price and if it means doing more work you can handle it because you are asking better questions.

3.   Don’t focus on the past.  We all work with someone who has gotten under our skin at some time.  You can not dwell on those past arguments or on people who have gotten promoted before you.  If you focus on why she said this or why he got promoted and you didn’t you will never get promoted and possibly not keep your job to long.  Focus on what can be.  focus on that next promotion opportunity.  focus on who is in charge of that promotion and begin to find out what he or she is looking for in a candidate for promotion.  When you look to the future, the past will become very dim.

4.   Don’t focus on your critics.   “Just Drop it.”  Have you ever  said that, well us it to your advantage.  Just drop it.  If you focus on people who criticize  you are going to become angry and they will gain power over you.  Think about it.  No one can make you mad, unless you let them.  When you let them make you mad you give them power over you so they can come back at any time and change your whole attitude.  this will make your work poor and your focus from the good to the bad and how to get out of work.

5.   Focus on Others.   Giving back is a vital key to a successful life.  when you turn your focus off of yourself and begin to look at how you can reach out to others you begin to see success in a different light.  When you work with anyone who is handicapped in any way, you begin to see that success is not just having things. some times it is just seeing, or standing, or just listening.

If you follow these five steps you will begin to see your mind focusing on what it takes to succeed more and more and on failure less and less.