“The world is full of people who are waiting for someone to come along and motivate them to be the kind of people they wish they could be. The problem is that no one is coming to the rescue. These people are waiting for a bus on a street where no buses pass.” – Brian Tracy
One of my goals for this year is to become more efficient with everyday activities. As my business is picking up and my teaching career taking off along with my 11 month old son growing, I quickly realized there were more things I had less control of and needed to learn how to become more efficient. Hence, like the quote above instead of waiting for things to happen, I started ordering some books and observed highly organized individuals. This is when I picked up the book “Eat that frog” by Brian Tracy. As skeptical I was with reading this book, there were some nice key points that has helped me in the past few months. There were many techniques I already know but here are some pointers:
- “The first rule of frog eating: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first.”
- Discipline yourself to first work with the largest or most difficult task which usually are the ones you don’t want to do first. We can all do the easy ones even when we are tired but you are more likely to not do the hardest one when you are fatigued. Just like the 80/20 rule, 80% of your work probably comes from 20% (usually the big stuff) of the things you do. (I.E. – Since I don’t consider myself a great writer, I tend to do this blog post first thing in the morning).
- Decide exactly what you want to achieve in each area of your life.
- Gaining CLARITY is probably the most important concept in personal productivity. If you are not clear in what you do, you are more likely not to perform the big tasks. Write down the goals, long-term and short term goals and organize the list. This is something I preach all the time but its always nice to repeat.
- Ask the right questions
- This comes more from the book “To Sell is Human” by Daniel Pink. I will likely do a review on this book as well since I like to review and learn. Instead of trying to positive talk your way to performing a problem, studies have shown (according to the book) when you ask yourselves whether you can solve a problem instead of tell yourselves you can solve the problem, the self questioning group solved nearly 50 percent more puzzles. The positive self talk may give you a short-term emotional boost however asking the right questions may inspire thoughts about autonomous or intrinsically motivated reasons to pursue a goal. I’ve seen this in Tony Robbins book and its a helpful tool.
- Use the ABCDE method prioritization
- Sometimes your to-do-list is wicked long. Unfortunately, you won’t have the time to do everything. This is when prioritizing your lists can be helpful. For example, to each to-do list, you add a A, B or C on it. A is the most important that it needs to be done today. B is something you ‘should’ do but only has mild consequences and C…you get the point. Then you can prioritize the A by adding numbers after. A-1, A-2, etc. Interesting enough, this has been the most helpful for me since it was more of a novel idea for me.
- Prepare before you begin
- Sometimes its the environment that you are in or created that is making it more difficult to start. Have everything you need before hand and that might help you do it. This is the example of already having your work out clothes out the night before so when you wake up you are more incline to go for a run.
The above is great in life but I’ve also realized how important this is when it comes to treating. Be prepared, set your environment, gain clarity with the patient, ask the right questions and prioritize. Sometimes we are problem solvers but also sometimes organizers to create more efficiency with their rehab.
– Kento Kamiyama PT, DPT
“Breathe to unleash”
“Let your breathe move you”