See How You Can Become More Effective Not Busier

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Transcription

Hello again and welcome back to Coaching Really Works.

I am Abe Stone, the life design coach.

A Story of Not Getting Fired for Doing Less

There was a story that I read recently about a man. He was an executive in Silicon Valley. He was a very busy man already and apparently there were some changes in the company and at the time of those changes there were a lot more demands being made on his time.

He was getting busier. He was called to more meetings. He was a very active person and as he did that he found that his creativity and his projects, the things that he was really passionate about, the quality of that work, was going down.

So one day, he was really discouraged, he was about to quit. He wanted to just let the whole thing go and maybe start with something private. He was not sure what to do. He spoke with a mentor and the mentor helped him out and gave him a tip. He said:

How about trying to just trim down the things that you are not an essential a part of, the things that aren’t making an impact on the things that you are involved in and the contribution that you make?”

So he started and he did it little by little.

He noticed that as he did one thing, instead of the negative repercussions or problems and things falling apart, it turned out people respected him for making that decision.

He was able to focus more and get more quality work done on things that really mattered. Eventually he was able to roll it out into many areas of his life. He started benefiting from more time for his family and his children.

In fact in that year, after he found that his productivity was going better and things were doing quite well, he was doing well in his reviews. He ended up  getting one of the biggest bonuses of his entire career. (Read Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less)

What is Essential in Your Life?

By pulling back and being able to sort of focus to be able to understand what is important, what is essential in our lives, we can do much more that will take us in the direction of the goals that we have set or the ideal life that we are looking for or working towards.

I would like for you to take some time to think about this very idea. It has so many applications. It can be applied to many goals that you have in your life, or in your fitness, or you have goals with your family. You are raising your children and you want to be able to get to a certain level of communication and you find out that there are things that are keeping you busy, pulling you away  you are leaning towards.

Maybe it is your home environment that you are interested in making some changes and turning things around, but you you find that when you come home there are some things that keep you active, keep you busy. I like to call that busy work and it keeps you away from real forward work and growth work.

Make Daily Progress Toward Your Goals

Someone once told me that a goal, the goals that you have set for your life or in your business or whatever they are:

Goals are not goals unless you are working toward them on a daily basis.”

That’s something to consider when you are busy and you are getting into things.

Is this really taking me in the direction of my goals?”

I know that there are some things that are important and that need to get taken care of every day, they need to get done and you cannot just focus, focus, focus, on the goals. You have to maintain other areas in your life and you need to keep a good balance but think about this;

If I have a goal, what are the key things that I need to accomplish this year or in the next six months and how is this activity going to move me towards that goal?

Well, if it is not then find a way to either move it to the side, give it a different level of priority and focus. Even just taking one hour on a daily basis to work concretely in the direction of your goal, not busy work but real solid work towards your goals will make a big difference.

This can be done in other ares, in your personal life, in your business, in your work.

A lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs, they can get really busy answering emails or some things that they need to get involved in -getting involved in social media or trying to tweak things just right, perfecting things, rather than maybe pulling aside and just thinking about product development or planning, effective planning and doing things that only you can do in your position.

Let People Help You

There are other people that can help you with other things that are just busy work. For them it will be great, because that is what they are hired for. Maybe even children helping around the house with things that tend to be more busy things. Then you can take time to focus on things that would make a bigger impact on your home or in your life.

There are a lot of broad applications for this idea but what is important is..

..learn how to keep away from busy work, pull away from things that just keep us active for the sake of being busy and focus on things that really matter, that really make us effective.

This quote is from Robin Sharma, he says:

Don’t confuse activity with productivity. Many people are simply busy being busy.”

Robin Sharma (Read The Greatness Guide)

And for the affirmation for the week:

I am making space for more success to come into my life. I let go of my excuses. I am productive and focused on results.”

I’d love to hear from you, what your challenges are or maybe you have tips that you can share. I know that I can use tips in this are as I am constantly learning and growing in these things. Maybe you can head over to Facebook or if you are on Twitter drop me a line there. Or leave a comment in the comment section below.

I am Abe Stone, a life design coach at Coaching Really Works.

Bye for now! Take Care!