Continual Forward Momentum

Batch Processing and a Distraction Eliminated

I’m on my way home from Fitness Business Summit. As usual I am completely energized and ready to conquer the world…again.

It’s easy to feel completely revved up only to be left completely burnt out before the end of the week.

That’s why it’s critical to understand how-to manage your time.

There are three rules to time management, the more I learn the less negotiable I think these are (let’s face it there are a lot of different opinions on time management.)

1. Create the “to-do” list the night before.

There’s a big difference between planning your list the night before and first thing in the morning so make sure you understand.

If you haven’t already read Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz you should (or get the audiobook). Dr. Maltz talks a lot about the “theatre of the mind” and that is exactly why you must set your list the night before.

By creating your to-do list the night before your subconscious mind works all night without you rapidly looking for solutions the next morning. You’ll begin the day immediately productive and avoid early emotional burnout. You likely have never considered but it takes a massive amount of emotional resources to create your to-do list in the morning. You’re forcing your brain to be creative, problem solve and organize a series of tasks all in rapid succession; this is a difficult and demanding series of tasks.

1. Complete the hardest thing first.

Doing anything else only fosters a behavior of avoidance. When you set a habit that says it’s ok to avoid certain things you will avoid more things until only the difficult tasks remain. When this happens you’re at a roadblock, you’ll be wasting hours on facebook, Harlem Shake videos and other things that are sapping your ability to succeed quickly.

What’s more if you’ve created your list the night before your subconscious mind will have worked all night to ensure that the “hard” task is not as hard as it otherwise would have been.

1. Batch process.

It takes time to focus on any task. A good example is creative work, if you’re like me it doesn’t come naturally. It would be a terrible waste to move on to something completely different after writing this blog post, I’ve stimulated the creative centres in my brain in an effort to have words flow to a page. I’ll write several more blog posts or articles of content before moving on to something else. Don’t believe me? Measure. Write a 500 word article and move on to a different task. Later today or tomorrow write another article and record the time. After doing this several times pick a day, block off a few hours and write the same number of articles, you’ll find by writing them all at once it will take far less time.

Last but not least there’s what I call a conditional 4^th rule, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t make it through your list.

Now you have to be a little honest with yourself. If you’re not engaged in productivity at least a few hours a day then you may have to consider how serious you are about your goals. However if you are managing a few dedicated hours each day (and this can be different every day) and the list doesn’t get completed, don’t worry about it, make tomorrows list and rinse and repeat.

The point is the only thing that makes really successful people really successful is their ability to continue with forward momentum. If you only managed to complete one substantial task in a week you’d be far ahead of the majority of the world.