How To Stop Putting Things Off And Make Yourself Get To Work

How To Stop Putting Things Off And Make Yourself Get To Work

No more excuses: Stop procrastinating and get to work with these tips

One of the biggest problems you need to solve if you work for yourself is how to make yourself do work.

The best entrepreneurs have figured it out and just pound out the work they need to do.

But many others put off their dream careers, or stay in jobs they like, because they’re afraid to figure this out. Being in a job, or staying in college, means that you have someone else imposing work and deadlines on you, and you’ll get fired (or dropped from school) if you don’t do the work. So you put off doing the work until you can’t anymore because of the fear of being fired.

What does this say about us? It’s saying that we can’t trust ourselves enough to figure out how to motivate ourselves. I know, because I was in this boat for many years. It wasn’t until I started to learn to solve this problem that I found the courage to work for myself.

It’s solvable. It’s not easy, but it’s doable. And you can do it just as much as I can--I’m no superman, trust me. I feel lazy, I procrastinate, I fear failure, just like anyone else. But I’ve learned a few things that work for me.

What works for you will be different, but here are some ideas I use that might help:

SHOW UP

If you need to write, the main thing you need to do is just to sit down in front of your text editor. If you start cleaning the house, or watch some videos, or read stuff online, to put off the moment when you have to start to write, then you’re never going to write. Instead, show up. The rest will come.

THINK ABOUT WHO YOU’RE HELPING

Sure, there’s a lot of fear involved in doing hard work. But when you look at the fear you’re only looking at the downside. What about the upside? By showing up and working, you’re going to help someone. I think about readers who might need what I have learned. But sometimes you’re just helping yourself, building a new career or business. And that’s okay--you’re a person deserving of that help, and that’s a worthy endeavor.

RUTHLESSLY CARVE OUT THE SPACE

You’re too busy? Bullshit. Make the time if it’s important. Stop watching TV, reading news, browsing things online, looking at social media, saying yes to other people’s requests, going to lunches, get out of being the head of those committees, whatever. Carve out the time. Put it on your calendar daily and make it happen. Make that time sacred, and don’t let anything interfere. You have to be incredibly ruthless to make this happen, but you can do it.

DO THE SMALLEST POSSIBLE STEP

Yes, I mean smallest possible. That doesn’t mean, “Write the first section of that report” … it means, “Go to your computer and open a document.” Or “Get up off the couch.” Or “Write one word.” Call that a success. Trust me, if you can take that first tiny step, the next step is a little easier. Get over the initial hurdle by making that hurdle as low as possible, and then keep clearing really easy hurdles until you’re an unstoppable force of nature.

LET YOURSELF FEEL THE FEAR

We tend to not want to be afraid, and so we think about anything else. We don’t admit the fear to ourselves until we have to. Well, it’s time--you have to. Admit that you’re afraid, and see that that’s okay. We’re all afraid. I certainly am, all the time. It’s perfectly okay to be afraid--let yourself feel it. Be open to the feeling of fear, be present with it, really experience it. See where it’s coming from. What scenarios have you imagined that cause you to be afraid? Are those scenarios real? What would you do if they happened? Could you survive? I bet you could.

COMMIT TO OTHERS

Social motivation is probably the most powerful motivation there is. If you’re having trouble, ask a friend for help. Ask for some accountability. Give yourself a consequence if you fail. Don’t fail. You can do this.

You can make yourself work even if you’re afraid.

You can ruthlessly make the time, take the smallest step, feel the fear and overcome it, find inspiration in the people you’re going to help. You can show up.

This article originally appeared in Zen Habits and is reprinted with permission.

By Leo Babauta

Source: Fast Company

5 Simple Ways To Bring Out The Best In Your People

5 Simple Ways To Bring Out The Best In Your People
It’s something all managers want to do, yet, as every manager knows, it’s easier said than done: bringing out the best in your people. How often as managers are we frustrated by chronic employee under-performance? Studies routinely show that an unacceptably high number up of employees – up to 70 percent – are disengaged, emotionally disconnected from their companies. Yet the most effective management is often the simplest and most basic. All five of these management tips have a common cost: nothing.

“Tone at the top” – Lead in a way that makes it easy for others to want to follow. Setting the right example by your own business behavior – your own evenhandedness and ethics – makes it easy for your employees to respect you. Nobody wants to follow somebody they don’t respect, yet they’re eager to follow those they do. It’s always surprised me how often management doesn’t play by the same rules they ask others to – when setting a fine example costs nothing and only breeds productivity.

Take a sincere interest in the course of their careers –Studies show that high-performing companies routinely motivate their people by emphasizing career development. Any manager can too, easily. It’s human nature and only makes sense. All employees at all organizational levels are keenly interested in the course of their own careers. Showing genuine interest in helping employees gain the skills they need to succeed is a solid way to build lasting loyalty.

Ambitious but not unrealistic expectations – Both in formal job objectives and informal day-today managerial expectations, you want to set targets that stretch your employees but are attainable. Let them know you have high (but not unreasonable) standards, and at all times expect excellence. Competence breeds confidence, and successfully achieving ambitious goals motivates them to do it again.

Provide honest insightful feedback on a regular basis – The key word here is “honest.” As in candid feedback traveling in two directions – positive and negative, up and down… feedback that neither ducks the hard stuff nor ignores the positive stuff. If employees aren’t receiving regular feedback, how will they know if they’re doing well or need to course-correct? How can they give their best if it’s not completely clear what their best looks like?

Get to know who your people are - If you want to bring out the best in your employees, you have to, at least to some extent, understand them. Gain a basic understanding of what interests them, what bothers them, what they care about, what motivates them. Is it money, respect, praise, a bigger office, or a chance to spend more time with the kids? There are a multitude of possibilities. The better you know your people, the better chance you’ll have to pull the right managerial levers.

I’ll be the first to admit nothing on this list is inordinately complex. But just because something is common sense doesn’t mean it’s commonly practiced. The best managers are insightful and employee-centric. They understand their employees, and know that bringing out the best in them – to ultimately drive positive business results – is the absolute best thing they can do as a manager.

By Victor Lipman

Source: Forbes

3 Things Failing Miserably Teaches You About Leadership

3 Things Failing Miserably Teaches You About Leadership

Skip the painful process of falling flat on your face, and learn these important lessons from one CEO who has stumbled badly.

You've no doubt been told countless times to stop fearing failure and accept it as a growing experience and precondition of innovation and accomplishment. It's a popular mantra, but in a world filled with corporate CYA and zealous reputation management, examples of it in practice are pretty light on the ground. But there is one standout example: meet James Altucher.

A serial entrepreneur who has started 20 companies (17 of which failed), Altucher has built a massive following by admitting in detail all the incredible ways he's screwed up. But reading Altucher's work isn't all about reveling in another's missteps. He's also a generous giver of advice on what all that failing has taught him.

Take, for example, a recent in-depth answer he wrote to the question, "What is the most important thing you have learned about leadership?" on question-and-answer site Quora. In his response he once again admits his shortcomings. "They fired me as CEO. Then they fired me as a board member," he writes. "The reason? I was a bad leader. Here are some things I didn't know about my own company: I didn't know what our product did. I didn't know any of the clients. I didn't know how much money we made. I didn't know how much we lost. And I had crushes on the secretaries and maybe two or ten other employees."

But he doesn't stop there. Altucher also goes on to share what his failure actually taught him about leadership, offering up 10 lessons he took away from these experiences. That's handy as a practical illustration that all those touting the educational value of failure might be on to something, but better yet, it offers entrepreneurs hard-won knowledge without actually having to walk Altucher's painful path. Here are a few examples:

1. Yes, and...

Saying no is easy. Far more difficult than shooting down ideas is encouraging creativity and drawing out better ones. In order to do this you need to take a page from improv comediansand learn to tame your knee-jerk, "No!" response to innovative suggestions. You need to get better at fielding ideas and improving them. You need to develop the habit of responding with "Yes, and..." Altucher lays out his bullet-pointed suggestions for a better way to give constructive criticism:

• "Yes, and"
• List what's good
• How you would improve
• Figure out the vision that is the base of the idea that you are talking about.
• Connect the "Why" of what you are suggesting to the initial vision. Does it work better than the initial idea?
• Be open to the fact that you might be wrong. ALWAYS ALWAYS you might be wrong.

2. Be the Storyteller-in-Chief

There are limits to how many people any individual human can build meaningful connections with (your 600 Facebook friends notwithstanding). Altucher calls this the 30/150 rule: below 30 people you're a tribe; from 30 to 150 you can know of everyone by reputation at least; after 150 forget about personal connections entirely. So what ties together organizations as they grow past this 150-person barrier? Stories.

"We united with each other by telling stories," Altucher writes. "If two people believe in the same story they might be thousands of miles apart and total strangers but they still have a sense they can trust each other." Leaders need to leverage this truth by telling visionary stories such as "we are delivering the best service because... We are helping people in unique ways because... A good story, like any story ever told, starts with a problem, goes through the painful process of solving the problem, and has a solution that is better than anything ever seen before."

When you're past the point of listening to and taking care of every employee individually,telling these sorts of unifying stories is essential for a leader. "Companies live and die on this," Altucher insists.

3. Lead Yourself

Altucher isn't the only leadership expert who makes the incredibly essential but all-too-frequently overlooked point: You're unfit to lead others until you're pretty good at leading yourself. So before you develop lofty aspirations of guiding others, make sure you've done the necessary work on yourself.

"Before I can lead anyone I have to lead myself. I have to read. I have to try and improve one percent a week. I have a handful of interests and I have a lot of experience. I have to get better at the things I'm interested in. I have to understand more deeply the painful experiences I've had, I have to every day practice the health: physical emotional mental spiritual, that I suggest to everyone else," he writes.

What leadership lessons have you taken away from your failures?

Source: Inc.

By Jessica Stillman