Before you start choosing goals for the new year, it’s important to step back and take a look at the year that's finishing—take a personal inventory, add it all up, and see how you did. After all, businesses take inventories regularly to recalibrate, confirm, and set themselves up for a successful future—so should people. What were [...]
The idea of making New Year's resolutions is, in fact, not very new! Babylonians made promises to their gods at the start of each year that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts. The Romans began each year by making promises to the god Janus—for whom the month of January is named. In Medieval [...]
The Importance of Weekly Planning and Scheduling Realize it or not, your week has rocks—big ones, small ones, and even some sand and water! “Rocks” are a metaphor for the biggest priorities of the week. (See The Story of the Big Rocks in the sidebar and how it relates to weekly planning.) In both [...]
If you’re like most PlanPlus Online Essentials customers, every day of the week there are vitally important things you want to do—and yet, you’re just not getting to them. Good thing for you, discovering your mission statement will help you accomplish these things. Here are some of the reasons people choose PlanPlus Online Essentials—do [...]
Karkorrhaphiophbia is the fear of failure—and who doesn’t have a little of that, am I right? Interestingly enough, the major symptom of karkorrhaphiophbia isn’t actual failure—it’s paralysis. You don’t do anything because you’re afraid you might fail at it. Two gifts Over the years, life will offer you many gifts. Two of the more valuable [...]
Every year, the city where I live hosts a triathlon. Top athletes (triathletes) from all over the world attend. In order to make the course route safe, the city barricades dozens of streets. You can imagine, it would be a disaster to allow regular traffic to drive on the same route while the participants were [...]
Why did you choose to become a productivity expert? I’ve always been fascinated by why some people achieve extraordinary levels of success and yet others struggle. I wanted to know what separates success from mediocrity, abundance from scarcity, and happiness from depression. What was it that made some people rise above challenges and others hide [...]
Excellence is never an accident. It’s always the result of the commitment to intelligent practice and effort—even during the mundane, and professional, subjective coaching. And, surprisingly, excellence is possible for any of us to achieve with deliberate practice, patience at mastering small details, and working with a professional, subjective coach. Olympic-caliber excellence In less than [...]
As a leader, you must make sure that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined for your team. No matter how smart, talented, driven, or passionate you are, your success as an entrepreneur or small business owner depends on your ability to build and inspire a team. A successful leader is one who can spur his [...]
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy…” It's time to reward yourself! Full day ahead? Feeling overwhelmed with your task list? Promise yourself a reward for completing each task—or finishing the total job. Then keep your promise to your yourself for staying focused and working. The reward rules are simple: No reward (no [...]
You’ll never get ahead of the game by only looking at today and never thinking about tomorrow—which is exactly why you need to work by the day, but plan by the week. You choose the best time to do this—when you feel ready to look ahead—Sunday evening seems to work for most. Here are some [...]
“We’re free!” we all shouted. Graduation was over, and we were free! We thought—now that we’re finally out of high school and free—that freedom is the ability to do whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, without interference from any authority. Well… that was a long time ago, and it’s taken a lifetime [...]
