Before I go on to share with the benefits of being an early riser let me share with you a typical day for me:

4.30 – 5.00 – Get up looking forward to the day ahead, in fact really excited about the day ahead.  No alarm clock to rudely awaken me out of a good nights sleep as I get up naturally.

5.00 – 5.15 – Check in with important emails, prioritising what needs to be answered now and saving other emails for later replies.

5.15 – 5.45 – Check in with connections on SU, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  I have recently become the Guest Post editor at TheDailyBrainstorm and linking with new exciting people is one of the remits here so this part of the day is now  important.

5.45 – 6.00 – Cup of coffee and walking around the kitchen (I do all my thinking and come up with some ideas whilst walking around), put notes in my ideas book.

6.00 – 6.30 – walk for two miles or some other form of exercise.

6.30 – 6.40 – Meditation or relaxation

6.40 – 7.00 – Write for new ebooks or work on the blog, follow up with connections.

7.00 – 7.15 – Get the boys up for school and wake Sharon up to get ready for work

7.15 – 7.30 – Shower, brush teeth.  Make sure the boys are actually up

7.30 – 8.00 – Spend time with my wife just talking about the day ahead, dreams, chilling.  Having breakfast with Sharon, toast and tea whilst boys watch a little TV (if they are ready )

8.00 – 8.15 – Last minute preparations to get house in order, school bags, lunches for the boys etc, kiss Sharon goodbye (very important )

8.15 – 8.30 – Take boys to school

8.30 – 8.45 – drive to work whilst listening to a business or personal development book on my ipod

8.45 – 12.00 – work as addiction worker

12.00 – 13.00 – Go home for lunch and check in with connections, have a 10 minute Micronap.  Grab a coffee, open letters.

13.00 – 16.45 – work as addiction worker

16.45 – 18.00 – Spend time with Sharon talking about our day, chilling, cup of coffee and talking with boys if they are around.  Take them to clubs if necessary.

18.00 – 19.00 – Write, emails, connect, put dinner on if I am making it, otherwise Sharon will do it.

19.00 – 20.00 – Sit down to dinner with Sharon and the boys and talk about day

20.00 – 22.00 – Coaching calls, write some more, deal with more emails,

22.00 – 22.15 – Get the boys ready for bed and hug goodnight

22.15 – 11.30 – Chat with Sharon, watch TV, read

11.30 – 04.30 – Great nights sleep

This routine obviously changes at the weekend.  Friday night is movie night and we sit in to all watch a movie together or go to the cinema if there a good movie we all want to see (Looking forward to seeing Inception)

I still get up at 4.30 – 5.00 on Saturday and Sunday and work a little longer as Sharon doesn’t get up until around 9am and the boys around 10am.  So weekends are family time and I’ll do a little work when Sharon and the boys are watching TV, later on.

5 Benefits of Getting up Early

1. Start the day excited

I honestly wake up feeling excited about the day ahead and getting up early makes it all the more special as I love the solitude of me being the only person up at that time.  I value my alone time and this is the great time to start whilst I have no distractions.

2. Productivity

You can see a large part of my day and a lot of my work is done from when I get up at 4.30 to 6.30 and it’s within these hours I get a lot of my online work completed or started.  Without getting up early there is no way I would have the time to fit these important tasks into my life without it eating into my family time and work time, so the family/work balance is totally balanced out.

I also get time to exercise and relax with meditation or relaxation, and there is no way I would do this if I was getting up at 7.00 and rushing around getting myself and the boys ready.

3. Get time to chill out

I actually enjoy my half hours with Sharon in the morning, just chilling and talking about the day ahead and it relaxes me before going to employed work as it’s quite a mentally draining job.

4. Prepared mind

My mind is not all over the place in the mornings.  It’s actually a serene time, I’m chilled, relaxed, and happy.  This is the time I am mentally preparing for the day ahead and before I go to work later on I know exactly what I have to do for the day ahead which means I can cope with unexpected events which happen at work much better.

5. Work on my life goals

I have to admit to being extremely lucky in that I have a job I love doing in the addiction work field and I love, even more, my online work: coaching, writing, blogging etc If I hated my job it would be a lot harder to cope and I think I would feel more anxious, but for now I have time to work on my goals of doing my online work full time.

There are many more small benefits to being an early riser but for me the 5 above shine above the rest.

There are ways to train yourself to  become an early riser and my research has shown I unconsciously meet all the right conditions to help me become an early riser.

How do you feel in the mornings, are you an early riser or do you dread getting up out of your warm, cosy bed ?  Would love to hear your thoughts on this, leave a comment below.

Achieving success is an innate desire in all healthy people.  Although the meaning of success is unique to each of us, we are all driven to do our best to achieve it.  This is true whether success means becoming the CEO of a company, raising children to be happy and healthy, growing our own business, writing a novel, or just living a serene life.  Whatever our definition, we all want to be the best we can be at whatever it is we choose to pursue.

So how can we operate at our best to achieve our goals?  How do we achieve peak performance?

A great deal of research has been done to identify common characteristics of people who have achieved great things.  Some of the characteristics of peak performers include setting a vision, having a sense of adventure or curiosity, being willing to take risks, a devotion to personal growth, and a strong belief in themselves.  While there are others, I believe these 5 characteristics are the most important, and most commonly shared among top performers.  Each of these deserves further discussion.

Peak performers have vision. Before we can achieve something, we must be able to conceive it.  We must have a goal or a mission that is worthy of the sacrifices we are likely to make in achieving it.  For this reason, this mission must evoke passion and commitment so strong that it becomes larger than yourself.  It must be aligned with your values and enable you to see beyond the sacrifices, beyond the now, and into the future.  It must inspire you, and preferably others around you.

Peak performers take risks. John Paul Jones, the Father of the U.S. Navy, once told his men, “He who does not risk, cannot win.”  This has been a favorite saying of mine since I learned it on my very first day as a Midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, and to this day I use it in my email signature.

JPJ realized that in life we face many decisions, and each of them has consequences.  Anything worth achieving carries an element of risk.  I have found that the greater the potential achievement, the greater the risk.  Peak performers weigh the risks of achieving their missions against their vision.  While they are not reckless and may seek to mitigate risks through planning and preparation, they often take significant risks to achieve their goals.  If you are unwilling to take risks, to “lay it on the line,” for your vision, then it is almost certain you will never achieve it.

Peak performers see life as an adventure. Challenges and the unknown are part of life.  We can react to each in a number of different ways.  We can become frustrated, agitated, fearful, or angry.  Or, we can approach both with curiosity and interest.  Peak performers are people who see challenges and the unknown as part of the adventure of life.  They reframe challenges as opportunities to learn and accomplish; to adapt; to grow.  They view the unknown with curiosity and a sense of adventure.

Peak performers are dedicated to personal growth. Steven Covey introduced the concept of “sharpening the saw” in his blockbuster book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  He states that in order to be as effective as we can be, we must take time out to reflect and grow.  Peak performers routinely take time out, placing a priority on their own growth and development.  In doing so they learn from their experiences and are better able to adapt to the challenges and ambiguity that they face in pursuit of their dreams.

Peak performers believe in themselves. Perhaps the most important characteristic of over achievers is they possess a certainty that they will achieve their vision. This faith in themselves is not born of arrogance, but of a deep-seated belief in their mission and their abilities.  The source of this confidence comes from within, and is developed by deep reflection that leads to self-understanding and self-knowledge, and builds as peak performers learn from their mistakes and accomplishments.

Developing the characteristics of peak performer’s is not easy.  It takes courage and a dedication to the process.  It becomes a mission in itself.  However, we all have the ability within ourselves to achieve our goals and lead successful lives.

Learn from the pros

The best way to learn how to stop procrastination is to know what the professionals do

No I am don’t mean productivity professionals but I am talking about people who are professionals at wasting their time

I have interviewed some of my friends who are famous for their procrastination and came up with few mistakes that they all did and that made them become procrastinators

In this post I will tell you about those mistakes and how to avoid them so that you can help yourself put an end to procrastination.

It’s a promise that if you followed these advice then you will never be a procrastinator.

How to end procrastination today

• Not being focused: If while doing any given task you answered your phone, checked your mail, opened face book, replied to a text message or even went to eat something then you will never finish the task on time. After all you will never feel that you are wasting time because each of these tasks takes less than few minutes but their combined effect results in wasting your time. If you want to be productive then be focused on the task you are doing and don’t do any side task while doing it.
• Waiting for the right mood: Lots of procrastinators delay important tasks with the excuse that they are waiting for the mood but the truth is that this mood will never come and if it came it wont last for long. At one day you might find yourself irritated, at another you might find yourself angry while a third day you might find yourself feeling bad. Even if you felt good who told you that these feelings will continue forever? The key to being productive is not to feel good all the time but to keep working even if you are feeling bad, sad or even depressed.
• Waiting for the right time: A large group of procrastinators claim that they are waiting for the right time to start but the truth is that they are afraid of failure, they like to stick to their comfort zone or they perceive the task to be very difficult. In order not to hurt their egos they deceive themselves by claming that they are waiting for the right time while in fact they just need to be brave enough to face the truth. The right time is now and If you waited for the right time you will wait forever.
• Not having a clearly defined set of tasks: Lots of people procrastinate because they don’t know exactly how to start or what to do. Productive people on the other hand usually have a list of tasks predetermined in their minds before they begin working and that’s why they never waste time thinking about which task to start with.
• Are you doing that you hate: Sometimes we blame people for procrastination while they are innocent. In many cases procrastination happens when the person hates the task that he is doing, that’s why most children waste time instead of studying. While not everything that you hate can be avoided still you can make different choices in your life that ensures that you will be doing what you like more than doing what you dislike.

Stick to these tips and procrastination will be a memory

This might be one of the shortest posts I have ever written, but there’s a reason for it.  The reason is that the technique I am about to share with you is so simple, yet so profoundly life changing that it need only be explained within a few sentences.

We are all looking for ways of being more productive and cutting out time wasting activities in our lives.  There have been countless books written about it, countless blogs blogging about it, and countless gurus doing seminars on it.

Well, here is the one most powerful methods for being the most productive person you will ever be:

Work as if you are being audited,

and have to explain every single

minute of your day.

That’s it.  I can guarantee you that this technique alone will double your rate of productivity.

The technique works in two ways:

Notice time leakages

Working as if you have to account for all your time and explaining yourself will let you see exactly where you waste time.  When you know where you are wasting time you can cut the practice out.

Being mindful

When you work like this you are being what Buddhists call ‘mindful’.  You are focusing on the work you are doing and talking to yourself about it:

‘I am on the internet.  Why? I shouldn’t be on it I am being audited, I’ll get back to writing my notes up.’ All day long, you are constantly being mindful of what you are doing.  this is extremely powerful, as this is not a normal occurance.  Our mind wanders all over the place.  the technique above will stop it from wandering and help it to focus on what you deem important.

Of course you have to be disciplined to be mindful, but the more you practice the better you become.

Did you ever have to wash dishes when you were younger as part of your chores? I did and I hated it until I found a quick way to do it.  At this point you might think I’ve lost it and am actually going to write a post on how to wash dishes, well I am and I’m not, keep reading you’ll see what I mean.

When I had to wash the dishes I done it haphazardly, wash a knife here, wash a dish there and consequently it took me ages to do them and they weren’t done properly.  I was then shown a way to do them which seemed to make the chore less of a chore and I would zip through doing the dishes.  Now I have shown my children how to do the dishes properly they see it as less of a chore as well (no we don’t have a dishwasher thank goodness).  My son said he done his homework the same way  I showed him how to do the dishes, when I asked him to explain I thought the intelligence required to link dishes with doing homework was amazing and I told him so.  Having expanded on it a little more you could apply washing dishes system to anything in life.

How to wash dishes

Pre-preparation

About 10 minutes after dinner, in my house, you’ll always hear me shouting through ‘who’s not rinsed their plate off?’ and one of the boys will come trundling through and rinsing their dinner plate off under the tap.  Rinsing the plate will obviously make washing the dishes a lot easier, especially if they sit for half an hour before they are washed and dried.

So it is with any chore or task, pre-preparation is a good habit to get into.  Imagine you’ve been given a report to write for next week, you have a thousand other things to do so can’t do it right away.  What you can do right away is a little pre-preparation.  You quickly skim the task and find out what it is about and in your mind what you will have to do to prepare it, you write this down and put it in with the folder for the next time you pick it up.  What this does is sets unconscious triggers in your mind and your mind starts to work on the report without you doing anything.  It keeps it fresh in your mind and when you sit down to do the report a lot of the work has already been done, without you even knowing it all because you’ve done a little pre-preparation.

Preparation

So the dishes have been rinsed half an hour before they are due to be washed.  The next stage is preparation.  This involves making sure all the cups are emptied before washing, any bowls have been rinsed, the sink is cleaned before washing , all the dishes are grouped together and the right amount of hot water and washing up liquid is put in before starting.

This preparation is applied to any task.  It is a vital component of reducing any stress when starting a task.  You get everything ready before starting any task.  I work as a homeless tenancy support worker and I see about 30 clients week who are at various stages of homelessness.  My week is prioritised and I see the ones who need a lot of work done on a Monday and Tuesday and I prepare any paperwork that they might need done or any information they might need before going to see them.  This could involve filling out a benefits form, getting more information on an education course, or helping them with an application for funding for furniture.  Then I group the clients together in order of area as I have to cover an area of possibly 100 square miles in a week, grouping them makes it quicker and easier to get through all the work required. Every single task in the world requires preparation, if no preparation is done then time, money and energy is wasted which causes undue stress.  I always leave about 90 minutes per day in case of emergencies and for writing notes.

The task

Now it’s time for the dishes to be washed.  These are done in groups; cutlery first, plates, cups, glasses and then pots and pans.  Grouping makes them easier to stack and quicker to get through.  Each dish is washed and then rinsed to make sure there is no dirt, if there’s still a little dirt it is then washed and rinsed again.  To make the task a little less of a chore I remember playing games in my head when washing dishes.  I used to play cutlery Olympics whereby all the cutlery was  put in the sink and I wanted to see if the knifes, forks or spoons would win the gold medal i.e. what one would finish being washed first, there were four possible winners as the spoons had teaspoons in them as well. I always willed for the underdog and hoped the teaspoons would win, I don’t know why but the teaspoons always used to come last and the knifes or forks used to win.

When writing articles I use the same method as above.  I group my writing tasks on subject.  So if I have 5 articles to write and two of them are on self help, two on property, and one on making money online, I group the and write them in order of groups.  I also find photos to go with each.  To make the task more interesting I try and finish as quickly as I can without compromising on quality.  I then re-read the articles and make sure they are okay and feel okay to publish.  This often involves, in fact, always, involve a little re-writing.  I then publish them to various blogs, or compile an ebook or send out to a newsletter group.

Post task

The dishes have now all been washed and rinsed and stacked on the rack.  It’s time for a cleanup.  This involves cleaning any water and soap bubbles off the sink area, cleaning the sink out and rinsing out the sink.  Voila dishes are done in record time and the forks have won the gold medal again.

Going back to writing articles, after I have completed checked, and published  them I always save the files to somewhere I can find them quickly and easily.  I also answer any queries via email on the various articles or any blog responses, although I have become a bit lax with this lately.  I then sit back and chill out knowing I have done a good job and done it to the best of my ability.

Now, go and get the dishes done!

Life can become a movie sometimes where we are the ones sitting back and watching life pass us by. We have many ideas to make our lives better but we seem to be stuck in an inertia phase.

If you don’t take action, you will regret it, whatever it is you need to take action for. You are someone who is filled with the get up and go to change your life in so many fantastic ways if only you would get up and do something about it.

Here are 8 ways you can get up and take action:

Wipe the slate clean – If you have too many projects on the go, clear them all and start from scratch. When you have wiped the slate clean, concentrate on thing at a time until it’s finished and then move onto the next. If you can’t clear everything, just drop them temporarily, concentrate on one thing until it’s finished and then move on. You will find you move a lot quicker through everything you need to get done.

List everything – Make a list of everything you would like to do, whether it be cleaning the house to taking the dog a walk. Write it down.

Prioritise – Pick the most important thing you have to do for the day, or week or year, and then pick the next most important thing and so on until you have reached the bottom off your list.

Eliminate distraction – No I don’t mean kill your partner! Eliminate the things you do from day to day that distracts you from taking action for example TV, books, computer. When you eliminate distractions, your mind wants something to do and this makes you more inclined to take action on the things you want or need to do.

Take a day off – Maybe a bit contradictory this one. It’s a simple piece of advice but one that is hard to do. Just take a whole day off, the world will still turn, the work will get done and nobody will die because you are not there. You will come back refreshed and ready to take action again which means you will be a lot more productive than you would have been should you have kept going.

Clear the clutter – Clearing the clutter, whether it be from your desk, your house, or your wardrobe. When there is clutter in your life there is clutter in your mind, clearing the clutters clears your mind.

Analysis paralysis – This is the term given to people who are analysing things too much and it keeps them from moving on. Stop analysing and just do it. There comes a time when you have to stop evaluating something and just bite the bullet and do it, if it doesn’t work out do something else and start again.

Change the narrator of your thoughts – Do your thoughts predominantly sound like Elmer Fud on dope; ‘Yeah, I have to get up but I can’t be arsed, I’ll do it tomorrow’. Change Elmer Fud to someone who gets you going, someone who can motivate you into doing something. It can be anybody from your best mate to your wife or a film star, anybody as long as they can motivate you. This can be quite amusing and the results can be great.

I have been thinking about ways to help my son with his concentration levels, as he gets distracted easily. I used some techniques, which I had tried when I was younger, and made some new ones up, more fun ones.

This gave me the inspiration for this article.

Concentration can be taught and learned and can aid us in so many ways. A few benefits of developing your powers of concentration are:

• It benefits short and long term memory
• Helps us to focus better
• Gives us inner strength
• Choose your own thoughts (instead of drifting)
• The ability to decide quickly
• Greater will power

10 concentration exercises

1. A candle flame – sitting in front of a candle and concentrating on nothing but the flame for 5 – 10 minutes will enhance your powers of concentration considerably.

2. Stumbleupon – Stumbleupon 100 sites without stopping for a break. Great for traffic to your blog as well.

3. Have a freezing cold shower – One of my favourites. Have a freezing cold shower. To take your mind off the cold think of all the things you are grateful for in life and your mind will be taken off the fact that your bits are almost frozen solid.

4. Do one thing at a time – I have a huge problem with too much stuff going on in my head at once. I have so many ideas about different things it’s hard to concentrate. When I focus on one task at a time, it helps my concentration enormously.

5. Get rid of worrying thoughts – Sometimes as you are trying to concentrate on a task other worrying thoughts will pop into your head; like you remember you’ve got to pick up some work from the office, you’ve got a meeting at the school, etc. To get rid of these distractions write them down on a piece of paper. This way you do not dismiss the thought altogether and you are telling yourself it is important enough to write down.

6. Count from 100 backwards down to 1 – This may sound simple enough, and it is, however it takes a bit of concentration to do it.

7. Recall a photograph – Study a photograph, which is unfamiliar to you. Do this for 5 minutes and then try to recall as much as you can about the picture.

8. Spell words backwards – This is great for kids as well and has the added bonus of helping them to spell.

9. “I went to the shops and bought…..” – This is a great car game and is a great one for concentration.
10. Do mathematical calculations – When I am driving, I like to do some mathematical calculations in my head e.g. I have 20 miles to travel, I am travelling at an average speed of 50 miles per hour, how long will it take to get to my destination. Nothing huge but things like this are great for your concentration skills.

I hope this has helped you. If you would like to add more concentration exercises why not leave a comment.

Creating a parallel you

There are many things we wished we could change about ourselves. Being more productive, being thinner, being well off financially, and being more intelligent: a whole host of other attributes that we would want for ourselves.

Imagine a world where there are multiple your’s, there is another you walking about who is 14 pounds lighter, there is yet another you who is 14 pounds heavier, there is another you who is a millionaire and there is another you who is homeless and destitute. Sounds like science fiction but we cannot say for sure that this is not the case.

Your world is just a theory

Now it may be hard to imagine a world like this, after all it’s just fiction posited by some mad science fiction writers. Not so, there are now many scientists working with superstring theory and other theories that postulate that our world is possibly made of lots of worlds all within a millimetre of each. One such theory called the M-Theory brings together all other superstring theories and is a complex and unfinished theory, which proposes that there could be multiple universes existing side by side.

What the hell theories have to do with our lives. Well if we think about it, we are living our life based on theories.

• We believe that the study of psychology is a science, therefore fact, when in fact it is all based on theories.
• We believe in evolution when it is really based on a theory, albeit a very convincing theory.
• Most of us believe in a God of some kind; yet again another theory and a belief system, one that most people get angry about when questioned.

Now these three statements alone are a huge part of most people’s lives but they are all theories and nothing more. Yes, there has been evidence put forward for evolution, there has been studies carried out in psychology but they are still nothing more than theories.

Our own world theories

Why not come up with our own world theories? A lot of us do not think we are intelligent enough to come up with a theory and leave it to scientists to do that kind of stuff. A scientist is someone who has managed to get a great education and has undoubtedly studied hard and spent their lives, some of them, studying a specific field. However that does not mean their theories are any more valid than our theories.

Beliefs and theories

We live our lives based on the theories of the world and we base our beliefs around some of these theories. What about if we change our beliefs and our theories about the world.

I am not suggesting proposing a theory of the universe, although it is possible, but rather come up with micro-theories and change our lives around them.

For example, imagine a world where there were multiple universes and another you were living your dream life in another universe. Now imagine seeing the other person knowing that you are living 1 millimetre apart and the time difference between your dream life and your current life is whatever you want it to be. For example, a thin you is only 1 millimetre away but they are 1 year apart. You now know you will reach one of your ultimate goals; to be thin. Knowing this could change your perspective and your life. Now it is just crazy thinking stuff like this as it is not true! Who is to say it’s not true? You are living your life based on theories, make your own theories and make them work for you.

Question your beliefs and live your own theories.

I think a lot of us live our lives without questioning our beliefs. I know I have spoke about this before but it is worth re-iterating. Question everything you believe in. We have based our lives on what other people have told us when we were young and we have been brainwashed to a degree, we naturally believe our parents when we are children, but our parents were conditioned when they were children by their parents and peers and their parents and peers conditioned them.

We are all special enough to question ourselves, our beliefs, and the theories of the world.

I am working on a theory whereby I can control the cells in my body to burn fat quicker. It might take a few years to get my brain to believe this theory, when it believes my theory the cells in my body will follow my brain.

Hi Everyone! This is Laura Young, the Dragon Slaying member of the Positive Blog Network. I’m filling in for Steve today while he’s on vacation. This goes out to everyone who thinks a bit of discipline is all they need to make them more productive. Maybe. Maybe not. Discipline flunkies, take heart!

“I need to become more disciplined.”

This is a common problem for many, particularly creative and entrepreneurial individuals. Many people believe if they were simply more disciplined they would have caught up on their taxes by now, have a clean home, a profitable, well-managed business and, most importantly, the peace of mind they imagine will come with all these achievements. The problem is that setting a goal of being more disciplined is a difficult one to get enthusiastic about. In fact, for some it may take the creative wind right out of their sails. For people who create by breaking rules and challenging conventions, trying to maintain a commitment to become a better rule follower and schedule minder often ends up as a series of false starts, frustration, self-loathing and Ben and Jerry’s binges.

While the desired end results of discipline may be worth dedicated pursuit, perhaps focusing on discipline as the means to goal achievement creates more problems than it solves.
For example, Twyla Tharp, a highly disciplined dancer and choreographer wrote an excellent book on this subject entitled The Creative Habit.

Sounds much more appealing than “The Disciplined Dancer,” yes? Developing a habit seems far easier that developing discipline. This may be a matter of semantics as in the end their outward manifestations may look quite similar but consider the energy and connotations each of those words has for you. Habits are easy to follow and hard to break. Discipline on the other hand sounds like work every day. Discipline is continually applied effort to achieve a certain end. Relax your focus and discipline falls apart. By contrast, habits take on a life of their own, apparently driven by their own power whether you want to engage in them or not.

In my experience, when people talk about having a need to be more disciplined, they are really talking about a need to be more consistent in the pursuit of their endeavors. What can be done to help you become more consistent?

Stop talking about discipline unless you really love the word. In fact, any word that feels like it has lead weights attached to it is one to strike from your personal vocabulary. If you want to make sustainable lifestyle changes they have to feel positive, powerful and attractive or you will be doomed from the start. Anyone can be disciplined for a weekend, but if the goal is consistency and the creation of habits which support you over a lifetime, you have to be enthusiastic about the process.

Remember Pavlov’s dog. Any pet owner knows that animals easily fall into routines and patterns of behavior. Just as your dog or cat recognizes the sound of the cabinet door opening that holds their food and rushes to you in eager anticipation, Pavlov noticed that a dog, used to hearing a bell prior to being fed would start to salivate just at the sound of the bell alone. This is called “classical conditioning.” When I was young, my father would play Marvin Gaye’s album What’s Goin’ On every Sunday while we were cleaning the house. To this day, when I hear those familiar songs I get a compulsion to start dusting. You probably have noticed some songs always make you think of summer. Some scents always remind you of your Aunt Millie. It’s the same principle.

Make this conditioning work in your favor by creating an environment that energizes you when you have to buckle down and tackle a project that is going to take some effort to achieve. Involve all your senses and think in terms of creating a ritual. Writers do this all the time, using specific writing instruments, sitting in a certain place, arranging the desk a particular way and maybe drinking a specific beverage when they sit down to write. With the cues set in place consistently, the mind begins to associate the setting with the activity and slides with increasing ease into a productive mode. The key is consistency combined with inherent appeal of the environmental associations. The more pleasant the setting, the more likely you will even start to look forward to the activity. Think about the sounds, scents and feel of your environment. Use the same attention to invite yourself to show up to a task that you would use if you were preparing to greet the love of your life. How delicious can you make the experience for yourself? Isn’t thinking about creating a delicious experience far more appealing than thinking about how to become more disciplined?

Think in terms of shifting energy. This is probably the most overlooked and most powerful technique you can use. Cleaning a closet is nearly a silver bullet when it comes to jump starting one’s productivity. The thought of cleaning a garage, doing your taxes or organizing your office may be overwhelming. Don’t worry about that. Simply focus on one place in the environment where you notice the energy is stagnant and shift it. Have an article of clothing in your closet that looked good in the store but that you hate wearing because it’s somehow wrong in a way you can’t quite identify? Why is it still in your closet? How about the refrigerator? Have some old condiments or a hunk of old cheese that you haven’t tossed out yet but that make you feel like “there is nothing good to eat in the house” every time you open the door? Just clear out a bit of dead energy. Same with that old stack of unread magazines and junk mail. You are not obligated to go back and read anything that has been sitting around untouched for a year or two before you toss it out or pass it on. I recently lost a five year history of e-mails for my business before switching to a more reliable webhost. Problems created? None. Very minor inconveniences for about 48 hours. Minor. And this was my livelihood. You have a lot of latitude here.

What does tossing out an old blouse and some stale Gouda have to do with getting your office clean and your taxes done? Nothing and everything. When your environment is draining you because of all those little pockets of dead and stagnant energy it will be nearly impossible to build the momentum you will need to approach tasks you dread. Have you ever gone to check the fridge while procrastinating on setting yourself to a task only to have the thought “there’s nothing good in here” come to mind? The fridge checking and the thought did nothing to add to your productive momentum. It’s okay to start doing work in an area unrelated to your goal. Energy is energy and once you are able to build it you can start to direct it.

Think thematically and integrate. Integration is far more powerful than discipline. Consider what is important to you in your life and what you value most. What does having a clean office really represent to you? What would it mean to have all your bills and paperwork filed? What would be significant for you in committing to getting out your canvas and paints? Rather than thinking of the activities and the outward signs of productivity try to identify the themes that underlie them.

Consider your personal definition of success. For example, several of the business owners I work with are able to name a financial goal that represents this. A common benchmark is making a six-figure income. It never fails when I ask someone what would change in their lives if they were making that wage that they confess much of what they are tolerating in themselves and in their environment would no longer be acceptable. One woman said, “I wouldn’t slouch and my desk would be clean.” What does slouching have to do with one’s checkbook? For her, there was a whole image of success that she became aware she was not embodying. While she may have had work to do before the money would start to come in, her posture and the self-respect coming with improving it was something she could work on immediately.

You don’t have to have a dollar figure attached to success, of course, but play with the concept however you wish to define it. I guarantee using your personal image of success as a litmus test for your current decisions will help you spot numerous subtle and powerful ways to bring your energies in alignment with your desired goal achievement. From the television shows you watch, to the food you eat, to the people you spend time with and the things you read, simply asking yourself, “Would I agree to this if I were successful? Is this consistent with where I want to be heading in my life?” will help you weave together all these seemingly tangential choices into an integrated lifestyle pattern which give you more energy and momentum.

What does energy, momentum and integration give you? Freedom. Freedom to say yes when you mean yes and no when you mean no. Firm boundaries make one a better gatekeeper so energy drains don’t get a chance to accumulate allowing you more freedom to devote yourself to what you most want to create. Establishing a solid foundation of self-respect and integrated healthy habits which demonstrate that self-respect will give you more energy. Having clear standards for where you are willing to let your energy be spent only strengthens the foundation creating a self-sustaining cycle in which your activities actively support your path to success.

Ergonomics of life

I was speaking with my wife, who is an extremely organised person both mentally and in her physical location. I asked her a few questions about being efficient and well organised and what she does to do it. She advised she does it naturally and hasn’t really thought about it. So, I studied her for a bit.

At home she lumps all her tasks into one area. For example if she is in the kitchen doing dishes or something, she will do something else that has to be done in the kitchen like cleaning the cupboards, or clearing out the drawers. Now when I do these tasks I usually dart from one room to another and am running about like a headless chicken until it’s all done. I like to create a bit stress in my tasks to motivate me to get it done. My wife likes to live ergonomically and is stress free and relaxed when doing household work.

I started noticing other people at work and even myself naturally living life ergonomically. When I am visiting clients I visit all the ones who live in one area before moving onto a group who live in another area. My day is planned ergonomically and I didn’t realise it.

Ergonomics

Ergonomics: The applied science of equipment design, as for the workplace, intended to maximize productivity by reducing operator fatigue and discomfort

We can apply the principles of ergonomics in our daily lives to improve our productivity and save some time during the day and the week.

5 tips to live by ergonomic principles

1. Lump all tasks that are similar and do them until they are finished. For example if you have to write notes up at work every morning, you could try checking your e-mails at the same time, and then making all the return phone calls you have to make.
2. Lump all tasks together by area. For example if you are cleaning the dishes and know that later you have to clean the cupboards, or dry the dishes then do it all until the task have finished. This way you don’t lose focus by leaving the kitchen and getting distracted by something else.
3. Make all your phone calls at the one time. I constantly forget to call my family and friends. And feel guilty when they call me first every time. Make sure you call them first and call them one after the other in the middle of the week.
4. Only check your e-mails twice per day. In the past I have tended to check my e-mails as soon as they came in. You can get caught up so much with e-mails and become easily distracted by their content.
5. Get the money you need for the week at the beginning of each week. We tend to get money out of the cash machine whenever we need it. For example we need some bread and other shopping so we go to the cash machine and get some money. The next day we need money for the kid’s school meals, so we go to the cash machine. The next day we need to pay the milk man, so we go to the cash machine, you get the picture. We could save a whole lot of time by estimating how much we will need for the beginning of the week and take it all out at once. We usually spend about £120 per week, so we take out £120 on a Sunday night which should do us for the week. We have saved so many miles travelling doing this and so much time. You might not think a five minute journey up to the cash machine will add up to a lot of time. However when you think its 5 minutes there, 5 minutes back, time spent waiting in queues, time spent talking; time spent asking everybody if they would like anything from the shop etc. Each trip can amount to 30 minutes, that’s a possible 3.5 hours per week.

A hundred ways

Do you have some tips for living life ergonomically if not why don’t you share them here.