Hard Work

For many, the idea of success is always just that, an idea. Follow the footsteps of anyone who has made it in any industry and you will discover someone with a work ethic.

What follows are some thoughts on HARD WORK for Thought Leaders.

Three UNWORKS:

1. When you align your work to your passion, you don't ever feel like it's work.
2. When you choose who you want to serve, it hardly ever feels like an effort.
3. When you teach others you personally grow, teaching therefore is not a 'to-do', it's a joy.

AND five WORK Smarters:

1. Get three things done before 8am each day. Quick wins are key to success momentum.
2. When your working day starts, focus on the one big thing that if you only did that, you can call your day a success.
3. Increase your capacity to work. Get fit, eat right, get organised, read, go to courses, learn stuff.
4. Obsess about workflow hacks and personal productivity strategies.
5. Launch new projects all the time.

New Webinar Recording on Productivity

Complimentary Download | White Paper: Work Smarter Not Harder

This month's White Paper is Work Smarter Not Harder by Matt Church; A chapter from the 3rd book in the Ideas Series.

This article is written with the hope that it will set a few people free, who, like me, have several books on the go at once, work better in noisy places than sterile offices and lurch from one project to the next following the feel-good energy.

At the same time, I want to reassure everyone that regardless of who you are – even if you like to-do lists and have a spotless desk – you can work smarter if you simply understand your personal productivity platform.

Download your complimentary copy today. We only ask that you please complete a few brief questions prior to downloading.

Enjoy!

M@

The Mega Productive Practice

You have to become a serious doer if you want to be successful in a practice. Leveraging your time becomes one of the major pieces of the success puzzle.

A practice is different to a business. The principal or CEO of the practice must be awesome at doing things and helping others around them to also get things done. In a practice, you add the greatest value you can, then get out of the way. In a business, it's about the CEO getting out of the business altogether.

We teach information experts how to create million dollar expert practices selling their thoughts. Contrary to the internet marketing and wealth creation deluge on the NET, we show people how to create a labour of love practice. To find out more about the distinction between a practice and a business you can check out the back issues on my BLOG.

My thoughts on being mega productive:

1. Figure out your productivity platform (past issue on BLOG about this)
2. Set a context for the day. Today is a writing day, today is a mentoring day. And try to do just that. (Cheers David Allen)
3. Focus on 50 minutes of doing and 10 minutes of float time. (Cheers Taki Moore)
4. Do the toughest thing first. (Thanks Brian Tracy)
5. Empty your mind onto a list. (Thanks Lexie Church)

M@

Watch Matt's 15 ideas on how to work smarter

In this 10-minute video, Matt has a slightly different take on how you can Work Smarter. Packed with 15 ideas to get you on track to working smarter, just click on the image below to get started.

8 good reads on productivity

In the below 6-minute video, I share with you my 8 favourite books on productivity. I briefly discuss the main idea behind each book.

Books on being more productive

Divide and conquer

If you want to create a more interactive presentation, use a simple 4 part segmenting tool like DISC with the room and the ‘Gang Belonging Effect’ will create a more social and responsive conversation. People who feel they belong are happy to take risks and share. Divide and conquer.

If you have a huge task you need to accomplish break it down into it’s component parts and get to work knocking off the stages. Next time your daunted by the mammoth task ahead of you its simply because you didn’t divide and conquer.

Finally, if you need to engage a community or enroll a list of people, break them down into segments and develop specific campaigns that engage these segments around what they care about.  It might be efficient to send one message to all people but its not likely to enroll them effectively. Segmenting lists is an example of divide and conquer.

Its an idea that’s as old as time but its really the key to making anything large project a reality.

More than just talk!

Thought Leadership has to be more than just talk and ideas. You have to develop a bias for action. Get off your behind and do something. Thought leaders are creative by nature but commercially smart by decision. It is commercially smart to get projects across the line. So... how good at this are you?
 
Neen James, a Thought Leaders Mentor based in the US, worked with me on this about 10 years ago and created the following matrix as a literature review on all of the productivity principles available. Develop an understanding of each of these productivity strategies and use them to help you get more done.

The first column with Efficient, Effective and Leveraged is all about how you work personally. The second column with Systemised, Functional and Engaged is all about how you help a team of people to get things done. The third column with Active, Strategic and Aligned is all about how you engage a community of people to be productive.

The rows also have a frame of reference. The bottom row with Efficient, Systemised and Active are the 3 ways you can manage scarce resources (such as time) efficiently. The second row with Effective, Functional and Strategic is all about how you manage attention and focus. The top row with Leverage, Engaged and Aligned is all about how you manage energy.

Be efficient: Efficient people are able to get their heads across all the details and elements that need to be done.
Be effective: Once you are across the detail you have to manage your focus so you pay attention to those things that will reap the highest return. It’s about focusing on the things that matter most and doing them first.
Be leveraged: Each task you work on with a small amount of extra effort can reap more benefit than simply the task you are completing. Look at what you are doing with a view to other projects and tasks.
Get systemised: Systems are the key to making sure the repetitive tasks in your life and those of your team get done. Systems also save time in the long run as they reduce the re-works that eat into your time.
Be functional: Functionality is about people being clear about what their job is and what it is they are meant to do. It’s also about you letting go of controlling everything.
Build engagement: When people want to work, they will work without extra monetary compensation. In all things, look for the opportunity to keep people into what they are working on.
Get active: A community that develops a bias for action will achieve amazing things. It’s about moving from meeting for meetings sake and instead meeting to advance projects.
Get strategic: Strategy is about knowing where you are going as a community. It's less about the big vision and more about a certainty of direction. Thought leaders maintain a clear sense of direction.
Get aligned: Make sure that all participants in the conversation are participating for the same or at least complimentary reasons. This frees up energy and decreases the friction that typically occurs when many people work together.

M@

What comes first (now) and what comes next?

As you focus on bringing your great ideas to fruition, you may hit some recurring road blocks like:

• The minute you get focused and make a clear decision about anything, you are often presented with an alternate opportunity that tests your resolve.
• When the going gets tough on an idea you quickly get attracted by the next new shiny object rather than sticking at the hard work part.
• You may develop a habit of focusing on the bigger opportunities than the one you are working on. Sometimes discussing a long term, big pay off goal is a form of procrastination from doing the things you need to do now and next.

So what do you do?

Well, there are no hard or fast prescriptions, but some useful self-talk dialogue and scripts I personally use include;

• If it’s not a yes it's a no...
• If you need a quick answer it's no, if I have some time to think about it, it's maybe.
• What is the single most important thing I can focus on right now?
• What's my sequence? What comes first (now), and what comes next?
• I can have everything I want in life, just not always at the same time.
• What's driving this decision?
• What's the worst thing that can happen if I say YES/NO?

Good luck becoming a productivity hunter!

P.S. This month I suggest you watch my friend Dr Jason Fox as he explores how you can make clever happen.