I’m a big proponent of ACTION! I write about staying in action and dreaming. The people in the 28 Days community and groups will tell you that I always talk about it. But, I need to ask your forgiveness for a moment. There is something that I need to tag on to the action quite a bit more often…two P words…Purpose and Plan. You see, it’s fairly easy to stay active. It’s really easy to be busy. And most of us as grown-ups are able to do that pretty well.
The other day, I sat down in front of the computer to get some things done. I started writing a bit of a course I am working on. Then I decided it was social media time (TRAP #1). I hopped on to Hootsuite to do some engaging on Twitter. Then I spent some time on Facebook just browsing (TRAP #2). Then I went into my 28 Days groups and engaged. Then, I stopped by Pinterest for a quick minute. Then I moved over to LinkedIn. Then I moved on to Instagram and Quora (TRAP#3). Before I knew it, 3 hours had passed instead of the 20-30 minutes that I had originally locked into my mind.
I didn’t follow the plan that I had set for myself (HUGE TRAP). I was in ACTION. But not all of the action was productive. Not all of the action provided BIG value for my commitment. Now, none of the things that I did was “wrong” and in fact all provided some level of progress in my social media world. But, they didn’t contribute in a BIG way to my plan. And that’s just it. Sometimes there are things that we do that provide little value. But, you’ve got to determine what is going to give you the most bang for your buck. Figure out what is going to bring you the BIG value (And the BIG value is what you want) Look at what is going to bring you purposed results.
~Jawaharlal Nehru
How do you determine what you want? What’s the right way to go about this? The honest truth is that it’s going to be different for everyone. Some people make a to-do list and then use David Allen’s Getting Things Done method. Some people use the Pomodoro method with their lists. What I have learned to do is create two lists. The first list is what I call my Income Producing list. In this list I place all of the activities and projects that lead to immediate or near term income. These are the activities that I will prioritize for my day. Why? Well, if you have to ask that they you probably don’t need money.
The second list is my Building list. This contains activities that I need to do in order to build my passion, my dream, my business but will not lead to any immediate profit. These are things that I must do to sustain my plan and grow it but won’t bring me a check next week. I prioritize these as well but I space them out a bit.
The key for all of this is being able to evaluate what’s working and what’s not. Now, when I say what’s NOT working, I’m not necessarily referring to things that are broken or are yielding nothing. I’m referring to activities that are not yielding a result that connects in a BIG way to your commitment. If I am implementing a program to create more Twitter followers and I am getting 2 per week, it’s working but not in a BIG way towards my committed goal. it’s not providing me BIG value. So, what do I need to do? STOP, just STOP!! Evaluate, re-evaluate, then prepare and new strategy to execute. I might only need to modify the current strategy slightly.
This is not only a business technique. This is LIFE. What do you want out of your life? How are you moving forward to success? If I plan to lose 10 pounds and my current workout regimen is not making it happen, do I keep doing it the same way? Or do I STOP and evaluate the strategy? Sometimes, that’s JUST what you need to do.
Where in your life or business do you need to STOP so that you can re-evaluate and reach success? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.