By Charles Alvarez, Contributor, the Price of Business Show. * Sponsored
You are always free to choose. It is in this hour-by-hour and minute-by-minute choosing of what you will do, and simultaneously, what you will not do, that your entire life is made. The Law of the Excluded Alternative says that, “Doing one thing means not doing something else.”
Whenever you begin on a task of any kind, you are consciously or unconsciously deciding not to do any other task that you could do at that moment. Your ability to choose wisely in terms of what you do first, what you do second and what you do not at all determines your entire life.
Choose the Most Valuable Task
Successful, highly paid people are usually no more intelligent or skilled than unsuccessful, lowly paid people. The major difference between them is that successful people are always working on tasks of high value. Unsuccessful people are always killing time on tasks of low value. And you are always free to choose. You are always free to choose what you do more of and what you do less of. Your choices ultimately determine everything that happens to you.
Practice Single-Handling On Each Task
Single handling is one of the most powerful time and personal management techniques of all. What this means is that, once you have selected your most impactful tasks task, you start on that task and work on it with single-minded concentration until it is 100% complete. You discipline yourself to concentrate without diversion or distraction.
If you find yourself getting distracted, or you feel tempted to take a break or procrastinate, you motivate yourself by continually repeating, “Back to work! Back to work! Back to work!” You then renew your efforts to push the task through to completion.
Thomas Edison once wrote, “My success is due more to my ability to work continuously on one thing without stopping than to any other single quality.” You should practice this principle as well.
Create Chunks of Time
Plan your day in advance and create 30, 60 and 90-minute chunks of uninterrupted work time. These are time blocks when you can work without interruption or pause on your most important tasks. These chunks are essential for the accomplishment of any large, important task.
One way to create long periods of work time is to arise early and work non-stop, without interruption, on a major task, project or proposal. Sometimes you can create chunks of time in the evenings or on the weekends. But the fact is, all-important jobs, those with serious potential consequences, require large chunks of single-minded, concentrated time and energy.
Earl Nightingale once said, “Every great accomplishment of mankind has been preceded by an extended period, often over many years, of concentrated effort.
Sponsored by the Price of Business, on Bloomberg’s home in Houston, TX
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