Three tips to stay on track and keep focused

Keeping track of your day
I was once told to look at the time in a day like a jar to fill. You fill them with the rocks, the pebbles, and the grains of sand. The rocks are the big stuff. Things like strategic initiatives. The medium ones are important things, but not core objectives. And the grains are like the little things, like sending an email or an invoice. It’s easy to fill your day with grains of sand, but if you do, it will leave no room for the real goals. But if you fill it with the rocks first, there will still be room in between for the pebbles and sand. Don’t pack your days with tiny little things to do. Balance it out, and every week, you’ll be sure to move that much further along.

Learning from the successful
A lot of people look at what successful people do and copy that. The thought being that if you copy the successful, you’ll achieve the same. There are a number of fallacies here. What was successful once isn’t always successful again. The world changes. Sometimes, exactly because of what worked in the past. But, the most significant part is this: don’t copy what successful people do. They have resources and power well beyond yours. Copy what they did to become successful. So don’t think that someone you admire has a great car, so you need one too. That will just get you broke. Think that someone you admire broke the rules, or waited to release a fully refined product, or went cheap and saved money when things were tough. Whatever lessons there are to learn, they’re as much in the past as they are in the present.

Staying happy
Can you be successful through a recipe? I actually think you can. It’s part of learning. The question isn’t whether a recipe can work. The question is whether it works for you. Is there a fit? Have you ever noticed how much of seminars are dedicated towards convincing you to suck it up? Who wants to dedicate a whole career to sucking it up? I’m not doubting that a lot of things work. I’m not doubting that people have more resistance than they should, which is why they need that motivation. Give it a go. Try something before you dismiss it. We create all sorts of reasons not to act. But if all you do is suck it up, and it never gets easier, it’s time to find a different solution.