Growing Professionally

We all too often find ourselves wasting our precious time and energy seeking out short-term meaningless comforts and thrills rather than investing in long term, meaningful, and impactful endeavors. Stop it! Use time wisely… starting today.

Take time to think; it is the source of power.
Take time to play; it is the secret of perpetual youth.
Take time to pray; it is the greatest power on earth.
Take time to love and be loved; it is a God given privilege.
Take time to be friendly; it is the road to happiness.
Take time to laugh; it is the music of the soul.
Take time to give; it is too short a day to be selfish.
Take time to work; it is the price of success.

Photo by Alex Guillaume on Unsplash

Each day brings new opportunity to strengthen our resolve towards staying focused on what is most important. Given the constant stream of distraction and competing priorities it is becoming increasingly more difficult to keep our time and energy focused on purpose and priorities. I’ve placed all the big rocks into the jar and am working hard to focus on those big tasks but others continually pour into the jar pebbles, sand, and water in an attempt to fill in what they may perceive as available margin in my life that they can make use of, rather than letting me enjoy the margin I have created for myself.

Fight distraction. Focus on purpose. Work on “big rock” priorities.

Our minds are too easily cluttered with competing thoughts that cause nagging stress, anxiety, and worry. Competing thoughts are all vying for prime attention in our poor, addled brains. We can’t stop thinking about it all and we certainly don’t have time to actually do everything in one day.

So what do we do?

Many elaborate solutions have been promoted by experts over the years, but I so often find these solutions are too difficult to implement as a daily routine. They feel like just another set of competing tasks that seem too difficult to achieve and don’t help me stay focused on my purpose. I have discovered success by implementing a simple, daily, systematic, and purposeful workflow wherein each step is intentionally pointed at not only dealing with and resolving all the “stuff” that is cluttering my mind and environment but also inching me a little closer to achieving my life purpose.

It all starts with implementing a 7 step process focused on dealing with both mental and physical clutter:

1. Identify things in life that are out of place. Determine a clear purpose for your life and then make note of those things (activities, stuff, clutter, todo’s, commitments, etc.) that don’t serve a role in achieving the clear purpose.

2. Empty the mind of unnecessary worry, stress, and anxiety. Mental clutter can result from trying to keep too much in our heads. The brain is not meant to be used for keeping checklists but rather to solve problems and be creative. Empty your mind of todo’s and checklists into an application or notebook so as to ease the mind of its worry and anxiety.

3. Give stuff away that is not needed. Physical clutter that is not serving a purpose or is not giving us enjoyment should be given away to someone in need.

4. Create a trusted place to put all remaining important things. Select an application (i.e. Evernote) or a physical notebook that is your trusted place to keep notes and track important things.

5. Consistently put everything in the one trusted place. Develop a process for ALWAYS putting EVERYTHING important in that one trusted place.

6. Assign priority, time, and energy to each item in the trusted place. Spend time with each item in the trusted place determining what its contribution is towards achieving your purpose. Organizing, prioritizing, categorizing, and tagging important things can make using the items in the future much easier.

7. Repeat the system and continually review for improvement opportunities. Periodically re-examine your now-organized stuff from various levels of granularity to make sure your vertical focus (individual projects and their tasks) is working in concert with your horizontal focus (side to side scanning of all incoming channels for new stuff).

In summary, turn all the clutter into real, actionable items or things you can just get rid of. Everything you keep has a clear reason for being in your life at any given moment, whether it is needed now or in the future. This process results in an amazing level of confidence leading to a methodical and organized way for keeping the mind focused on priorities and purpose.

Following a daily, systematic, disciplined process is the key to productivity, and I encourage you to implement these ideas starting today.

Sources: many of these thoughts can be attributed to David Allen’s Getting Things Done system of productivity.

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What does freedom mean to you?  Freedom for me is defined as simply staying out of debt, purging my life of junk, and doing what I love to do.  If I don’t purposefully take the time to answer this question for myself and stay focused on the answer, there are lots of people, companies and organizations that will work tirelessly to try and answer it for me.  Society’s “default script” says that we should work to get the most toys so we can keep up with the Jones’.  Rather than following that default script, I choose to live my dream, even when I have no idea what I’m doing.  Living a dream can be scary, confusing, and uncertain, but very rewarding.  Write your own script and choose to do what your heart (not culture) tells you to do.  Take steps starting today to realize that dream.

Stay out of debt and purge life of junk.  It is a known fact today that Americans store old stuff so they can buy new stuff.  It is scary to admit but there is 2.2 billion square feet of storage space in the United States.  What have we come to?  Why are leaders from other countries amazed when they see the size of our trash cans?  Why do we feel that surrounding ourselves with stuff will bring us security?  Identity and happiness do not come from physical things and I will never regret selling or giving away my stuff.  Purging ourselves of debt and stuff give us the freedom to capitalize on opportunities.  Our identities should be based on collecting rich experiences in life rather than on what we own.  This freedom means we no longer have to work hard to buy into a lifestyle due to debt – a lifestyle that requires acquiring more and more debt that can only be paid off by working for decades at job that we don’t like.  Life is too important for us to be trapped in the “work-buy-debt” cycle that never ends.  Start today to collect experiences and not things.

Discover your freedom and dedicate you life starting today to what is important and what you are passionate about. You will not regret it.

(these ideas were formed based on notes I took while viewing a popular TEDtalk)

 

There numerous tools and techniques available for use in effectively evaluating talent, measuring performance, and mentoring others.  Of the many resources I have read, one framework really stands outs to me as the most common sense and easy to understand method for gauging the performance and success of an individual.  Particularly in the business world these days I find that these three tenets must be present for a professional to be considered high performing.  These ideas can be applied not just to business professionals but really to any individual at any stage in life that wants to learn and grow.

Get out of your comfort zone.  True learning and growth can only be accomplished by stretching beyond perceived capabilities, taking chances, being willing to fail, and learning from mistakes and pain.

Ask for help.  Self-awareness, humility, and openness are keys to growth and high performance. Be willing to admit to a shortage of answers and that there are others who can help fill in the gaps that exist in my own understanding, skills, or education.

Learn and apply.  Make the most of every situation, both good and bad, by reflecting on what led to success or failure.  Documenting and applying what works and doesn’t work are keys to continually improving performance and growing as an individual.