Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Taking Action

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Action, Execution, habits, moving forward, Planning, rituals, Steps, Taking the next step

“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen… yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.” – Bradley Whitford

Read more at: Brainy Quote

One of the simplest things I have discovered is the need to take action. You can plan, dream, and use every trick in the book to motivate yourself, but action is what gets things done. Action eliminates procrastination. Action achieves. Action is what turns dreams into reality.

When I read this quote, it explains the crux of what each of us must do if we want to get where we want to go. Take that next step. Make the move. Decide. Your action will get you moving toward what you want.

Taking action does not eliminate the need to plan or strategize. These steps are also necessary. If you act without deciding where you want to go, you’ll waste time. You have to take the time to list out the actions you want to take before you execute the plan.

If you are taking action on a new goal or trying to learn something new as part of your action plan, there will be mistakes. You will fail. Failure is not a problem, as long as your failures do not cause you to quit trying. Your failures are your guide posts. They are nudges that suggest a different way to your end result. Failing quickly is a great strategy because it causes you to notice what is not working and learn from it. Every plan will have its weak points. Reality will identify those weak points much more quickly than trying to outwit a mistake before you make it. Make the mistakes. This is where the learning is. Winners fail more than losers do. Winners take those failures and turn them into victories. Losers give up. Losers keep making the same mistakes because they don’t take the time to learn from them and adjust their sails.

Think about this for a moment. If you do not quit, you cannot fail. Keep moving forward. It is that simple.

This week will focus on my rituals, which are daily reading, learning, writing, programming, exercising, and meditating. It is surprising how efficient it is to pursue key areas and just work on each of them a piece at a time. Each day I am building new skills, crafting new ideas, and taking action in little chunks that slowly build on the previous day’s work.

I hope each of you has a great week! Attack! Get at it! You can do it. If you’re stuck, take some time to read, take a course, do some research, and you’ll find the solution to your problem. Then you can adjust your plan, get it scheduled out, and then it’s back to execution again.

Until next time…

Dave

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Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Thinking before doing

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Contemplation, David Allen, Execution, Getting Things Done, Learning from Others, Prioritization, reflection

“Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” – Peter Drucker

Anytime I’ve taken the time to really think through a project before I begin working on it, the more effective I am. It took me a long time to realize the wisdom in this. I, like a lot of my colleagues, would just jump in and get working only to find out we wasted time, missed critical steps, or hit the wrong target.

This quote offers a simple truth: Anything we create is first created in our mind, then brought into reality. I accomplish this kind of work by thinking about what I want to do. Then, I take some time to research, investigate, inquire about what it will take to accomplish a certain goal. Most of the time, someone else has already done this. So, it makes sense to look at what steps they took and then use this as a model for my own projects. Obviously, there may be some unique steps you need to incorporate to accomplish your specific goals but always remain open to other people’s experiences. They may offer a way to do something that helps avoid problems they already experienced.

This idea was reinforced by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free productivity. He talks about the natural planning model, which looks like this:

• Defining Purpose and Principles
• Outcome visioning
• Brainstorming
• Organizing
• Identifying Next Actions

Each of these steps is natural to the way we create things. We first develop an idea and begin thinking about how that idea would look in our reality. We then brainstorm and research all of the things we need to do to make our idea a real thing. We then organize the actions we uncover during our research and brainstorming and then begin working through these actions in the form of next actions.

The real challenge in using this model or way of working is to take the time to really reflect. What do we want? How do we get what we want? Take your time. Think. Then execute. After you begin executing the action steps you’ve devised, you’ll begin to realize some gaps or the need for further action steps, particularly if this is something you’ve never done before. That’s ok. The key is to reflect each day on what we did yesterday, plan what we will do tomorrow, and execute.

Planning becomes easier when we learn the length of time it takes to do something, it also helps us figure out what is really important for the next day and helps us complete things in the order we’ve set them to be executed. Take some time at the end of your day or at the beginning of your day to choose which action steps you’ll take and then get them on your calendar, keeping in mind all of the other commitments you have made (dentist appointments, gym time, etc.). Once you have your plan in place, just knock out the steps. Then do the same thing the next day.

David Allen defines a project as a task which contains more than one step to accomplish. Subsequently, you probably have a lot more projects to accomplish than you would initially think. Take the time to brainstorm each of these projects. What do you need to do first? What do you need to do next? What other steps need to be added based on your current activities? Take the time to think through all of these things and you’ll get closer and closer to your goals much sooner and in a more organized fashion. You’ll also capture the things you learned along the way, so if you ever tackle this type of project again, you’ll have a much easier time knocking that one off of your to-do list the next time around.

Well, that’s it for today, folks. I hope you have a great Wednesday!

Until next time.

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Mindfullness

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Circle of Concern, Circle of Influence, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Execution, Initiative, Mindfulness, Planning, Stephen Covey

“Amazing how we can light tomorrow with today.” – Elizabeth Barret Browning

For those of you who are pursuing a “mindful” life, know how important it is to truly live in the moment. We cannot correct the past; we can only fret the future. Worrying about the past paralyzes us with the fear of failure and sets up expectations of future issues based on what “happened before”. Worrying about the future only brings anxiety. How do we really control all of the infinite amounts of variables that truly predict what we will end up doing?

Every year I read Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the major epiphanies for me is Covey’s focus on what he calls the Circle of Influence and the Circle of Concern. The Circle of Influence (COI) is you, focusing on the present moment, laying your plans and executing your priorities. The Circle of Concern (COC) is the past, the future, and all of those things, people, and events you have no control over. People that reside in the COI pay attention to what they can affect and that one thing only. They make plans, execute their plans, and adjust accordingly in the moment.

Those that live in the COC, are so worried about past mistakes they never endeavor to do anything, other than the mundane things that are not risky. They are more worried about what someone else is doing than they are, and they are consistently looking for something “out there” to alleviate their pain.

It is obvious which circle is more beneficial. Another interesting facet of this is the way these circles evolve. The COC people’s circle of concern, if not checked, will continue to expand and their lives will appear to be more and more out of their control. The CIC people, however, will experience greater freedom and control because their circle of influence will expand.

Folks, concentrate on you and stop worrying about the things you cannot control. Focus on the present moment. Dream about what you want, create a plan, and execute it, with the faith that there is enough for everyone. You will feel 100% better, more relaxed, and will feel more control over your life than you ever have before.

That’s it for today folks.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Cycles and Focus

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Cycles of Rest, Cycles of Work, Execution, Focus, Planning, The Pomodoro Technique

Today’s Quote:

“Don’t waste a single second. Just move forward as fast as you can and go for it.” – Rebecca Woodcock

This is one tough order to fill. Can we ever just move forward as fast as we can without some period of rest and recuperation? I don’t think we can.

Cycles

Our reality is filled with cycles. We awake, and we sleep. We work and rest. Even our hearts have pauses between the beats.

I think each of us has a consciousness about when we work best and when we just need a break. These breaks could be a nap, relaxing on the couch, doing some mindless web surfing, or taking a breather at the gym. We must have periods of rest that accompany our work.

Focus

When we work, we should focus on the work. Like I’ve said before, I use the Pomodoro technique when I am doing focused work. I work for 25 minutes, take 5 minutes for a break and again and again. Try this for yourself. Maybe 25 and 5 don’t work for you. Maybe 30 and 10 or 45 and 15. Whatever the break down is, use that as a starting point. Heck, you can even reduce these numbers. Say you start with 15 minutes and take a 5-minute break. Whatever you start with, begin with this and adjust the numbers as you gain more comfort with it. The timer on your phone or computer is just fine. There’s no need to download an app for this.

If you’ve never done this before, you’ll find that your focus muscles will need work. It is so easy to drift off and do something else. If you find yourself having difficulty with focus you can also use another tool that I have used over the years with great success—meditation.

Meditation in its simplest form is literally nothing more than focusing on the breath. Breath in. Breath out. Again, you’ll find this to be a little challenging initially. I use two different meditation apps to help. One is called Calm; the other is called headspace. There are probably a number of others out there, but these are the two that I gravitated to. You’ll find over time that you’ll be more relaxed and focusing will be much easier. You can focus on your breath at any time.

So, remember that there are cycles of work and rest. During our work, we should focus on the work and nothing else. Pick one task, focus on it until you’re complete. If it is a big task, break that into smaller tasks that can be accomplished with one or more 25-minute periods of work. Once you’re done, move on to the next and so on.

This stuff works if you give it a chance. You’ll find yourself getting more done in a shorter amount of time and you’ll automatically be more productive. I hope you give this a try. Feel free to reply to this posting with any questions, successes, or challenges you come across.

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Execution and Personal Hacks

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creativity, Execution, Planning, Scott Belsky, Taking action, Visualization

Today’s Quote

“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” – Scott Belsky

Ideas are always needed to create something new or improve some aspect of our life and work processes, but without the actions that are necessary to bring those ideas into reality, the effort of creating an idea in the first place is wasted. We need to visualize what we want, come up with a plan to achieve what we want, then execute that plan.

So simple, but so hard for some folks. I’m one of them. I overthink, procrastinate, you name it. To overcome these self-imposed obstacles, I come up with “hacks” that work for me. Exercise is one of the things I have created a hack for. I know myself. If I do not workout first thing in the morning I will not workout. That’s just me. There are many who have no problem with going to the gym at the end of the day or during lunch. Not me. If I don’t get up and go to the gym first thing, it won’t happen that day.

So, I schedule my exercise everyday in the morning. This is what that looks like:

8 am Rise

8:15 – 9:00 am Morning Ritual (Pre-workout drink, weigh in, make bed, get dressed, and head to gym)

This routine works for me. It may not for you, but you’ll have to figure out hacks to overcome your weaknesses. The key is to come up with a way for you to overcome self-imposed obstacles. Whatever they are, figure out a way to get over them, under them, or around them. If one hack doesn’t work, come up with another and another until you find a solution. Then it’s nothing but executing daily to knock out your plan and achieve your visualized goal.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote

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Beginning, Execution, Procrastination, William Wordsworth

Today’s Quote:

“To begin, begin.” – William Wordsworth

So simple, yet so difficult.

This is what divides those that are focused from the procrastinators, the motivated from the lax, and the dreamers from those that execute. Whenever you start something new, realize you will make mistakes (It’s something new!) and just get moving. You will reach your destination much more quickly by doing, rather than by over-thinking, over-planning, or procrastinating.

Here’s to new beginnings…😊

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote

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Execution, Goal Setting, Planning, Scott Reed

Today’s Quote:

“This one step—choosing a goal and sticking to it – changes everything.” – Scott Reed

Setting goals cause us to focus. It causes us to make choices. It causes us to create mechanisms to measure what we are doing and our progress toward the goals we set.

Example:

I want to increase strength by 20% by the end of a 13-week period.

Plan:

• Follow routines created by Jim Stoppani that concentrate on strength and muscle growth.
• Exercise 6 days a week working with weights, cardio, or both.
• Check progress each month
• Follow Jim Stoppani’s nutrition advice, focusing on protein and fats and adjusting carb intake to achieve goals.

This is as simple as can be. A lot of my success will be determined by my focus on this goal daily and not stopping my efforts until I hit the finish line.

Stick to one thing at a time or maximally three things. I wouldn’t try to pursue anything more than three things at once. Set up your plan to achieve these goals and execute.

I hope each of you had a great week.

Happy Friday!!

Until next time…

Dave