Podcast: Play in new window | Download
We all have the same amount of time, 24 hours a day, and yet some people get more stuff done in that time than others. Getting things done makes you a producer… and that is a superpower.
People with more accomplishments have a secret. I am going to share this secret with you.
I had this secret, but truth be told, it was a secret hidden from me too until about an hour ago.
I signed up on the waiting list for the article writing course with Sean D’Souza.
I want to be able to write articles that can bring me new readers from other people’s websites… that is the idea.
So I need to learn writing article differently… and learning to do anything in a new way is painful.
So I am listening the Sean ‘delivering’ the first principles of writing differently, and I experience my muscles tightening. Resistance. I see myself shelling out a thousand bucks to buys me suffering… lol.
But Sean, in his audio, assures me that the end result will be sweet…
So I decide not to jump ship just yet.
I decide to use his methodology of breaking up the task to morsels of parts… OK, he does more than morsels in a part, but I think morsels is a more manageable size for me.
I use my favorite activity: pondering while playing Freecell… and occasionally I drop a word or two or three on the document I prepared to capture the morsels.
An idea here, an idea there, a memory here, a memory there… My experience is not that I am working, I am chilling. Energetically.
What does that mean, energetically? I am either working or not working… so what’s going on?
On the surface I am not working… but something is getting done. It doesn’t look much at this moment, but it’s building, morsel by morsel.
Below the surface I am not trying to do anything. Not trying to win the game of Freecell, not trying to outline the article, not trying to WRITE the article. I am just chilling, my mind is doing what the mind does… it is working on the article and the new idea that articles need to be outlined to be tight and to the point.
Energetically it is a low energy consuming ‘job’, and Freecell replenishes the spent ‘glycogen’ almost instantly… Freecell is, for me, in my system, an energy generating device. Your mileage may differ.
And when there are enough morsels in my text document threatening to fall over… I am now writing full sentences.
At any point I may stop… when the morsels are all used up, or they are few and spotty.
Then I do what I did before, or go and stretch on my machine, or eat, or do something else.
The partially done article is a strong magnet, by the way, it will pull me back (if you are energetically unencumbered. That is the job of the incomplete cycles, by the way_
A rule of thumb I use that makes it sure that I will be back to continue the process: I preferably don’t immerse myself in anything for longer than 45 minutes… After 45 minutes the world seems to disappear and I’ll end up with things not dealt with, I’ll end up with the kind of life most people have… a life in shambles.
On the rare days when I have a lunch appointment, I have to deal with the disappearing life… And immerse myself in my work back slowly.
One of the incredible benefits of the four daily task system Robert Plank taught me is this: I have four small tasks always on my agenda, no matter what other things are happening, four tasks that will get done today… And all four small tasks are to forward my business, forward my life… Total one hour, but they are the most important trimtabs anyone can ever have: they will always steer your ship in the direction you want it to go.
But I digress…
Back to energy management: The body, the brain use up energy, and with a lot higher speed after 45 minutes… double, maybe even triple.
So breaking up the tasks, whatever you do, to smaller chunks is the proper management of energy: a new activity first generates energy, instead of using it.
Like watching Netflix. In the first 45 minutes it is enlivening… the second 45 minutes it is dulling, and after that it is deadening…
Sean says your best friend is a timer. Because it is too easy to 1. spend too much time with no real production, while you look and feel busy, 2. get it done and leave it done. You had an hour, and your result is from that hour.
When you are learning something new…
…make it a requirement of yourself to put what you learned into reality, i.e. implement it as much as you can in 10-20-30 minutes right after you learned it.
Two benefits from that: 1. you may realize that you didn’t quite learn it, that there are gaps in your knowledge 2. you actually reap the benefit from learning: if you did it once, you can do it again and again.
Back some 10 years ago when I did classes with Robert Plank, I aimed to be the star student. I did every assignment as soon as it was given, and endeavored to be the first to post it.
This is how I learned to create and lead webinars, create and publish videos, create and sell products.
The only class i didn’t do this was the php programming class. Why didn’t I do it there? Because the class was over a whole day… no time between session, no energy between sessions to implement.
To this day I am clueless about php.
Was it my fault? I don’t think so. It was a design flaw.
My classes are 120-180 minutes long… I learned my lesson. And yet no one in my classes is actually doing what they are supposed to do.
It is a habit. It is a habit to do things when they are easiest to do.
I listened to Sean’s audio, and I turned around and implemented what could be implemented immediately.
It is my habit… I guess people who think learning by osmosis, or understanding is the goal have never developed the habit.
And because your life is the sum total of your habits, unless you make this a habit you likely will never amount to much.
When I look, not doing anything or trying to do everything in one sitting in the last minute are the most frequent habits of people who never amount to much.
I teach the four daily tasks method in the Integrity Workshop.
But even without doing that workshop, there is one thing, one important thing you can implement from this article: break up activities to small chunks and you’ll have a whole lot more chance to make them stick, to make them well done, and still have some energy for life.
Some people won’t listen.
I once had a student who was a gamer. He would place a bucket next to his computer so he wouldn’t have to interrupt his game to go to the bathroom.
So his whole worldview about things was that they get done in one sitting, like his dissertation.
He resisted, he never learned how to chunk something, thus his dissertation never got written. Instead he ended up with buckets full of piss… sorry, that was in bad taste. But somehow I had to express my disappointment.
The Integrity Live is closed… but you can get the home study course. A new video is released as soon as the session is processed… a day or two after the session.
There has been only one live session. You have two weeks (if you buy today), to do the things, to implement the principles we learned in session #1.
You have one month to practice between sessions. If you follow the principles of chunking, by the end of the course you’ll have integrity, and your life will work. And you’ll have increased your ability to produce immeasurably.
Get integrity to make your life work.
