Posted January 17th, 2013 by bbsadmin & filed under General Business.
To be successful in business, do these things everyday.
1. “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning”
Mark Twain once said, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day” (Good reads). Now, put that frog down. I am unaware of any secret health benefit that makes people successful by eating live frogs, however, we can learn a great deal from the concept itself. Some of the most important tasks can be some of the least appealing tasks. If you start out doing the less important tasks that you really love first and push the tougher and more important tasks to the end of the day, you could end up struggling. If you are like most of us, things don’t get easier to do after working seven and a half hours. If you are able to get the tougher and more important stuff out of the way early on, you will have a lot to look forward to and a lot less to not look forward to.
2. Enthusiasm
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm” (Good Reads). I would add that great achievements typically come as a result of many consistent successful days. Thus, preparing to be successful everyday is preparing to be enthusiastic every day. Because enthusiasm is an attitude, it requires you to become. You must make the choice to be enthusiastic every day. Passion and having the end in mind can help lead you to becoming more enthusiastic.
3. Review your goals
If beginning with the end result in mind is hitting the snooze button, because you will be sleeping at the end of the day, then you are getting up on the wrong side of the bed. Look at your goals as a source of daily direction. In my experience, goals should be reviewed regularly regardless of their time frame. If you are able to get into the habit of reviewing your goals, understanding what is required during the day to achieve these goals, and committing yourself to meet these requirements on a daily basis, you are preparing to be successful every day.
4. Adjust the sails
People who prepare to be successful everyday in business are able to differentiate between what can and what cannot be acted upon and they act to their advantage. William Arthur Ward once said, “the pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails” (Good reads). Get in the habit of recognizing what you can and cannot change through your direct actions. Learn to put your energy and focus into those things which will change for the better as a result of your direct actions.
5. Stop multitasking
According to research, “multitasking can reduce productivity by approximately 40-percent” (Cherry). There may be many people out there who can check twitter, update their LinkedIn profile, watch a movie, or even do another project simultaneously while working on a project. The question is, “at what cost?” People who prepare for success every day realize that sometimes one cannot get away from situations where multitasking is required, but they understand that multitasking dramatically reduces the quality of their work and increases the time it takes them to finish tasks.
6. Processing information
We live in an “information age.” There are so many news sources which publish every day that you could probably spend a whole day learning about current events, if you wanted to. While it is true that successful people keep up-to-date with what is going on in the world, it doesn’t require a knowledge of everything. People who prepare each day to be successful can distinguish between that which is informative and that which is strictly entertaining. With so much information, it is easy to get sucked into analysis paralysis of things that are completely irrelevant to your success. There is nothing wrong with an occasional “bubble gum for the brain” (fun to chew, but without substance) but make sure to distinguish this as a treat rather than a “necessity.”
7. Focusing
Have you ever seen an NBA player texting while on the court. I doubt you ever will; and if you do, I doubt you would see him on the court again. It is the focus and competition that makes watching sporting events, such as basketball, fun. Business is a much more competitive environment with many more variables. Be “in the game.” Focus is one of the reasons why the last point (about multitasking) rings true. Take the time to get rid of distractions in your office space. One idea is to set a time to check your email rather than checking it whenever you (this does not work for every industry). Another suggestion is to set a timer for projects you are working on. Set the timer for a specific amount of time and put away all other distractions while you perform the task at hand.
Works Cited
Cherry, Kendra. Multitasking. n.d. http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/costs-of-multitasking.htm. 21 January 2013.
Good Reads. n.d. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=enthusiasm&commit=Search. 9 January 2013.
Good reads. Find quotes. n.d. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=realistic&commit=Search. 9 January 2013.
—. Mark Twain > Quotes > Quotable Quote. n.d. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/168105-eat-a-live-frog-first-thing-in-the-morning-and. 9 January 2013.
—. Quotes about procrastination. n.d. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/procrastination. 9 1 2013.