Everyone struggles with distraction and low productivity, at least in the beginning. But many people have been there and found ways to create amazing change … and then shared it. There are some great books that give you practical systems for doing this. I’m going to give you the titles and the writers of these books. And I’m going to recommend that if you’ve had trouble with any of the things I just mentioned, please go out there and get these books, at least start with one of them:
4 Hour Work Week – Timothy Ferriss
Now let me give you some background. No matter who you are, half of that book will not apply to you. The same half that applies to me may not apply to you. And vice versa. The half that applies to Kathleen may not apply to Beverly, but the half that applies to Beverly may not apply to Kathleen. It is an amazing book. Fully complete. But it is more information than anyone needs. Is incredible. The only way I could have done a better job with him would have been to write 6 different books, and that would have been inefficient. So, read it, take out what you need, and leave everything else behind. Don’t let the course of your entire life change, choose what works for you.
The next books that I recommend are called
Work less, do more – Jan Yager
The Power of Total Engagement: Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
Never check email in the morning – Julie Morgenstern
Now Julie’s book, Never Check Email in the Morning, gives you lots of advice on how to be more effective. It’s less about time management, it’s more about being effective. The concept of not checking email in the morning is not that it takes you 20 minutes to reply to email and that you can get lost and spend 3 hours on email, that’s not the reason. Although, that’s reason enough not to check email in the morning.
The reason you don’t want to check email first thing in the morning is because email is reactive. When you answer emails, you react to other people’s questions and problems. It puts you in a reactive phase. As if you were defending yourself in a street fight and someone was attacking you from the corner of a dark alley, you would be fighting defensively the entire time. If you’ve fought for 20 minutes defensively and then had to go attack another opponent, it would be difficult. Because you would be in this defensive mindset. That’s what happens when you check your email in the morning. You get very defensive. Everything you do is reactive. And then 30 minutes later, when it’s time to be proactive and create a new product, your mind is in the wrong mode for creation.
So the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is create that product. Write that sales letter. Write those 7 emails. Do whatever it takes to be proactive, and then you can get your things reactive at the end of the day when they don’t matter. That’s just one of 50 different ideas in that book. It is full. That’s never checking email in the morning.
The power of total commitment is about managing your entire life, making you more productive throughout the day. I highly recommend that book.
Work less, do more … I have not finished all the work less, do more, as I have the power of total commitment and the 4 hour work week. However, if you are going to read the other 3 books, read this one too. It has been really shocking so far.
Remember, you are not going to get everything out of all these books, you are going to take what works for you. And, if you buy these 4 books, or take them out of the library, read 1 a week for 4 weeks. And learn to focus on the things that are important, rather than wasting time on the things that are not. You will become 5 to 10 times more productive than you are now. I highly recommend that you do this.