It's All About The Throwing

Seth Godin is one of our favorite authors and bloggers. His ability to make you think is incredible. Last week he posted a blog about juggling. His first line deserves repeating here: Throwing is more important than catching.

We won't spoil the blog for you. But reflect on that one line in relation to planning the use of your time and energy. If we create a thorough plan of how to best use our time, we will get more done than if we weakly plan and then spend much of our time reacting to crises and other tasks that are simply convenient and "close at hand." Plato said, "The beginning is the most important part of any work."

How could you improve your throwing (planning) so that you are better at catching and ultimately keep accomplishing your purpose (successful juggling)?

Happy...New...Year

Happy - What are you going to do that will make 2011 a "happy" year? What will it take? Is it a change of attitude? A change of environment or situation? What are you going to do to make 2011 happy? Because if you are not happy...what's the point? Life is meant to be happy.

New-What are you going to do "new" this year? Have you set your goals for the year yet? Maybe you have thought about some ideas. Write them down! Get serious about them. Do something new and exciting this year.

Year -January can be a year where we feel a lot of pressure to get things done. Sometimes that pressure might cause you to want to just curl up and be mediocre. Break the year down into it's parts. What will you accomplish each month, each week and then execute today? Don't get overwhelmed. Get organized and then get to it.

Happy New Year. May 2011 exceed your positive expectations and be full of standing ovations.

The Pareto Principle Appears Again

Most all of us have heard of the Pareto Principle or the "Law of the Vital Few." According to Wikipedia it is the principle that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. The principle is touted in business as "80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers." Research again and again shows the truth of this principle-and I saw another one last week that confirmed it once again.

According to the authors of the book, Empowered, research shows that in online social media (blogs, review sites, discussions, networking, etc.) 16% of users generate 80% of the content. The small impact the many.

Bring this proven principle to your day. What if you frequently reviewed your schedule and tasks and identified the 20% of tasks that accomplish 80% or so of your purpose? You would probably work harder to protect those items and insure their completion. They would take the highest priority in your day or week and you would build the rest of your schedule around them-instead of hoping you got time to work on them. You would also work to be more efficient with the other 80% of what you do so you could be more effective with the 20% that makes the largest impact.

Try the Pareto Principle today. You might just find that the few tasks you really focus on can make the biggest difference.

Boundaries

This past weekend I attended a celebration event for a friend who is 57, has multiple sclerosis and just completed her degree in counseling. What an achievement!!! In talking with her she talked about all the things she had to limit during the journey. Housecleaning, volunteer work, participation in social events (so she could maintain her limited energy level for study) and working in her flower garden. With her accomplishment she can now return to more of those things she has missed in the past 4 years.

At that same event I reconnected with a couple I had not seen in years. As they told me about their six children, we discussed all the demands placed on a family with so many children. When the subject of sports came up, the wife said, “We told the children that they would not be able to participate in organized sports until they could do so in a public school setting (i.e. middle school).” She went on to say that they encouraged them to play in the yard and get involved with pick up games in the neighborhood, but that they knew it would be a nightmare to have all six involved in almost daily practices and then a weekend full of sporting events with one parent going one way and another parent taking children to another event.

Each of these individuals knew that they needed to set boundaries to accomplish what was most important to them-and not have the juggling elephants routine as an individual or a family. What about you? Are you wanting to undertake some new venture but not sure how you can with ALL you have currently going on? Maybe you are trying to recover some relationship time with a child, spouse or friend. In either case, maybe you need to set some boundaries. Remember… there are no shortage of acts for the circus. Only you can limit what goes into your lineup.

Just 15 Minutes and the Right Stuff

When was the last time you sat down and formally planned your day? Hopefully it was today. Taking the time at the beginning or end of your day to formally write down a plan of what you are going to do and when you are going to do it, is a key element in accomplishing what is most important to you.

It is so easy to overlook planning and just jump into the day being reactive and putting out fires. When that occurs, at the end of the day, you might find that you have got a lot of "stuff" done but was it the "right stuff?"