The Key To Overcoming Procrastination

In my ongoing life quest to get more done by managing my time, I read a book by time management guru, Brian Tracy.

The book is called ‘Eat That Frog.’ The premise of the title is that if the hardest thing that you have to do in a day is to eat a live frog, but you don’t want to do it even though you know it’s the most important thing you have to do and that it will benefit you the most, eat it first just to get it out of the way so that you can stop worrying about it.

Although the thought of eating a frog, alive or dead, is a disgusting idea, I can see how getting the most important task of the day done first, can save time and stress.

He also says that no matter what you’re doing you should always ask yourself, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” This, he says, is the core question of time management.

Answering that question is the key to overcoming procrastination and becoming a highly productive person.

Every hour of every day, one task represents the most valuable use of your time, at that moment.

Eating the frog and asking the core question may not sound like much, but they are transforming if you use them.

Let’s face it, none of us want to tackle our biggest and most important jobs first. It’s much easier to start with small, easy tasks. Easier, but they don’t help much.

What’s your ‘frog?’

And why aren’t you eating it?

Eat That Frog

Ignore Everyone. Just Write

I read an article recently that said to be a successful writer, you must have confidence and self-esteem to put your work out in the public.

I thought about whether or not that was true. Maybe it is, but it wasn’t my experience when I first began writing.

I just wanted to write, and so I did. The first thing I ever submitted was a short story I sent to a woman’s magazine. It was accepted straight away and I was paid $600. That boosted my confidence. But then again, it wasn’t luck. It was a good story, and I had to write it and submit it.

I later branched out to the max and wrote and published a novel. For that, I was criticized deeply by other writers all saying that publishing my own book was wrong and that I wasn’t a real writer.

Others wanted to know how I did it because back then self-publishing was almost unheard of, and it was scorned and frowned upon by those who had never done it.

So I wrote and published another book called ‘Self Publish Worldwide’ where I explained how I did it. That book was a hit. I was overwhelmed by how many people bought a copy. But I still had those haters all hating on me.

I ignored them all and carried on writing and publishing books and set up several money-making websites that I also wrote content for.

I was busy writing and happier than I’d ever been. I also went on to co-author two books as well.

So was it confidence and high self-esteem that kept me going?

Maybe.

What I do know is that I was on a writing and publishing mission and I had no intention of letting anyone or anything stop me.

Mission Critical For Life

The Danger of an Over-Loaded Schedule

We all have a finite number of hours in a day, but if you’re anything like me, you try and cram too many things into one day.

I use a diary to keep track of my time. It’s an A5 notebook where I write down everything I need to do every day. And not just writing projects. I include everything I want to do. But nearly every day I discover that things take longer than I thought. Even things I’ve done before many times can often take longer than expected.

And do you know what? It drives me crazy.

The worst thing about it is that if I don’t get everything done, I feel like a failure. I sit there in the evening, diary open, rolling things over to the next day while wondering where all the time went. I begin every day with good intentions, but by midday I’m struggling to keep up.

So now I’ve figured it out. Plan how long it’s going to take to do each thing, then double it. Other things always come up that need doing, like an email that needs a quick response, or a phone call I wasn’t expecting or there’s an issue with a piece of software that needs updating.

Just a couple of days ago, I needed to quickly print a couple of pages, but my computer kept saying that it couldn’t communicate with the printer. I kept retrying it and trying different things, but it wouldn’t print. It took me almost 30 minutes to figure out that the printer software needed updating because of a recent computer update.

So, a job that should have taken 5 seconds ended up taking almost half an hour. This is why a time buffer is needed for everything.

And it starts with knowing how long things actually take, and then you can buffer in extra time.

It’s the only way I know to be able to get everything done, and sometimes even have enough time left for fun.

 

Mission Critical For Life

 

 

 

 

Never Even Consider Copying Someone Else

Do you know what’s the most important thing about being creative?

Being authentic.

Being yourself and writing in your own voice.

There is no other way.

Years ago, someone tried hard to be me. He even bought my website for writers (Writeaholics.net) and published all my old articles on it.

Naturally, it was a huge failure.

Why?

Because he’s not me. The articles on that website were written in my voice so there was no way he could mimic that in the future. So, he didn’t even try.

And because he wasn’t me, he also couldn’t earn money from that website like I did. For one thing, I had a huge number of subscribers who I kept in touch with every week. But I don’t think he knew that. So, while he was failing to earn money from my old website, I began a new site, carried on making money from it in my usual way, and kept on emailing my subscribers.

There was no way that he could earn money from that website because he wasn’t me, so he couldn’t write like me, and he also wasn’t aware of how I was earning money online. How could he?

No one can work the same way someone else does. It’s impossible.

But if there is someone whose books and work ethic you admire, then there’s nothing wrong with letting what they do spark ideas of your own.

Just so long as they are your ideas, and you stay true to yourself.

And if you want to find out more about the guy who bought my website and tried to be me (he even published my old “about” page with my photos and all my information about myself until I told him to take it down), you can read the article that I wrote about it at the time by clicking the link below.

 

Writeaholics.net: Why I Don’t Trust This Website