If you were like billions of people around the world, you kicked off the New Year with a resolution to do more. Make more. Network more. Call more. More, more, more…

But instead of always seeking to do more, wouldn’t most of us benefit by actually doing less? Did you feel frazzled, always rushing, never quite getting everything on your list done? For many of us, a New Year is the time to de-clutter your mind and your life (See Work Life Balance).

When we resolve to do more activities for our business or outside of our professional lives, we can run into the classic problem of biting off more than we can chew. And when you promise to do something and fail for lack of time, you’ll be in worse shape than before, because now you’ll be dealing with the guilt of failure and procrastination.

I know from personal experience and from helping my clients that good things happen when we organize our activities to focus on a few things – and for everything else, have someone else do it.

Revisit your resolution from last week. If you really do have the time to commit to this promise, that’s great. Stay with it. But if you don’t really have the time to do it, then you’re better off canceling that resolution sooner than later (Think of it as a 10-day resolution return policy).

Have a look at your calendar and note all of the hours you’re putting into various activities. Now, think about the time you put into each activity and what you’ve gotten out of it. Make sure you’ve got a red marker handy to start crossing off those activities that aren’t really doing much for you and aren’t likely to produce in future. When you’re done, make a new resolution to stop those activities and focus on the ones that are really getting results. As Chris says, do more of what works and less on the stress.

Linda Chu
CEO – Out of Chaos, Professional Organizing Solutions
www.outofchaos.ca

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit – Aristotle

Human beings in and of themselves operate on autopilot for much of their day. We complete daily activities like, showering, brushing our teeth, drinking coffee, reading the paper, with little or almost no thought about what it is that we are actually doing. These habitual behaviours add up throughout the day and by the time we go to bed, somewhere between 75-80% of our activities were exactly the same as yesterday and will be exactly the same as tomorrow. This can’t be possible you think – take stock – I guarantee you’ll find what I’m saying to be true.

This month we’ve been writing on ways you can automate your business so that you don’t have to be the one doing all the work in order to be successful. Today, I want to draw your attention to your own personal autopilot mechanism, known as your ‘habits’, because, as positive as all the tools are that we’ve been sharing with you all month, your own personal habits can be equally as detrimental to your success.

For example…

Almost every person that I know, with the exception of a few, and especially entrepreneurs, complain that they don’t have enough time. It’s become somewhat of an epidemic. Stock answer to the question ‘how are you doing’ has become ‘busy!’. People are running around like mad men, always in a hurry and rushing. Not to mention what these raised levels of cortizol and adrenalin are doing to your body, how is this ‘habitual way of operating’ affecting the success of your business?

Being in a habitual state of ‘busyness’ is doing nothing for your health personally or professionally and if this describes you in any way, it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate. There is no way, at least that I’m aware of, to add hours to the day, so the 24 that you’re working with, is all you have. How you spend those 24 hours, however, is directly reflected in the results you are achieving in your life.

Go back to you goals for 2009 and read them over. Are you getting closer to accomplishing? If not, it’s time for you to take a look at your habits. What are you doing everyday and how is that contributing to the achievement of your goals? If you’re doing things that are not contributing, time to ditch those activities. Getting what YOU want in business and in life is 100% up to you, if you’re willing to take responsibility for your own success. The actions you take in your life are producing your current results. If you don’t like what you see, time to change your actions.

All the best,

Heather White, CEO 2020 Communications Inc.