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The hardest 100% Pass Mark you’ll ever achieve.*

22 Wednesday Jan 2020

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In his book ‘The Success Principles’, coach Jack Canfield wrote about a principle he called ‘99% is a Bitch, 100% is a Breeze’. The idea was that once you make a self-growth (denial or discipline) decision you act on it 100% of the time. This is because acting in accordance with your decision 100% is easier than doing so for 99% of the time for a simple reason that is both philosophical, and surprisingly logical.

With 100% there is no need to apply any further mental or emotional effort to the decision and its subsequent consequence. There is no reconsideration, doubt, angst or time wasted. With 99% you have to reconsider that decision every time you have to decide whether or not you should apply your standards/discipline/denial/values/principles ‘this time’.

For example, if I decide I will write 500 words a day (like Ernest Hemingway, apparently), then if I am taking the 100% route, that’s it– I will write 500 words a day, come what may. I’ll make sure I have my laptop with me, or I will write longhand on paper and transcribe it tomorrow, along with the 500 words for that day, too. If I go ‘99%’, then I have to decide, each day, if I am going to bother. That’s when the easy excuse will be ‘I have to go shopping, instead’. Or ‘I don’t have a pen’. Or ‘my laptop’s battery is a bit low and I’ll never make it’. Or ‘just one packet of crisps/pie/cigarette won’t hurt’.

(As I it here considering if/when/how/where to ride my bike I feel that pain.)

The same applies to not doing something (self-denial). If I decide that I will no longer eat chocolate eclairs, then application of the 100% principle means just that – never.

You can set your own rules for applying this principle. You can, if you wish, go ‘never’ – or you can include justified exceptions to ‘never’. You can decide not to eat chocolate eclairs ever again, or you can add an exception – but it must be a specific exception, and it must be observed. In the case of the eclairs you may elect to eat one on a new moon, your birthday, the 1st of the month, or whatever exclusionary rule suits you provided that it does not excuse you. That’s the material distinction. If you have a rule it must be specific and it must not undermine the original intention, nor can it allow for or provide excuses for non-compliance. 99% or less doesn’t cut it.

99% doesn’t work because it allows for mistakes, errors and, most of all, excuses. 100% not only disallows excuse or failure but it also demands creativity, imagination and discipline. If you ‘cannot’ execute on your disciplined objective for some external reason, the 100% rule demands of you that you find a way to overcome that temporary barrier/obstruction. Wayne Dyer, famed writer on metaphysics and life philosophies, overcame a ‘cannot go for a daily run’ when flying by running up and down an aircraft’s aisles. (BTW – not recommended!)

This concept, when fully applied 100% (see what I did there?), covers the appropriate application of both self-discipline AND self-denial. The only caveat I have to add here is this – don’t commit to 100% compliance until you are absolutely certain that you want to. This is because without that commitment you will make excuses the first time you are required to make decision whether to comply or not. And as soon as you make the decision not to comply that ‘one time’, you are already on the path to failure and guilt. It’s already 99%, or even less. And the next time that decision arises it will be even harder to make the right choice and the downward spiral speeds up. Momentum works both ways.

My final piece of advice? If you want to try the 100% Rule – only commit when you are truly ready. If necessary, prepare your environment (fridge and kitchen cupboards?) before you commit.

Then go for it.

 

(*An excerpt from The Three Resolutions book.)

 

Read this post twice….you’ll see why.

21 Tuesday Jan 2020

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Stephen Covey wrote, “Most of our mental development and study discipline comes through formal education. But as soon as we leave the external discipline of school, many of us let our minds atrophy. We don’t do any more serious thinking, we don’t explore new subjects in any real depth outside our action fields, we don’t think analytically, we don’t write – at least not critically or in a way that tests our ability to express ourselves in distilled, clear and concise language.”

Just to allow for context, those words were published in 1989, and were probably an extension of his thinking from earlier years. And I add that because I think he is slightly mistaken.

(WHAT!!! A disciple questioning the Master! Next he’ll be chopping off his master’s arm and running the Jedi himself!)

Worry ye not. I think he is mistaken now because more and more people are subject to constant training at work, whereas in 1989 in-house, on-the-job developmental training was less de rigueur than it is now. No diversity, first-aid, health and safety input back in those days, and CPD hadn’t been invented yet.

But the essential premise remains sound. Few of us actively seek out additional training, while even being reluctant to attend that which is provided at work.

Which is self-defeating.

Every professional update improves your ability to execute on your responsibilities, and every voluntary educational experience broadens your mind and improves personal creativity. And quite often, what you learn away from your professional life impacts on that professional life. I did a law course in 1999 and the stuff I learned there certainly impacted positively on what I did at work. It changed my level of thinking and vastly improved my understanding of Sith (defence lawyers) practices, which I promptly turned back upon them, mwahahahahahahaha!

But it doesn’t have to be formal training, although that is best.

Every article you read on a subject of interest to you is an example of well-spent time. That’s why I write these articles, yet keep them short. It’s a minute, maybe two, away from your work focus but it might just broaden your thinking and/or provide new tools for increased quality of productivity without an increase in quantity (although you do get to do more of what you like, of course). And other writers on other subjects can add to your toolbox, either in work or just for qualified conversation at a posh dinner.

The message today is to take two minutes to read more articles – on LinkedIn or elsewhere – and identify areas of interest that will make you smarter.

One caveat. At the end of the opening, quoted paragraph Covey added, “Instead, we spend our time watching TV.” There is a lot of good stuff on TV, and I like an escapist cop-show as much as anyone. But the drivel that peppers the airwaves (The Masked Singer? FGS!) serves no-one’s interests but the financiers. Watching them takes more than two minutes and only provides the vapid with dinner conversation.

Go back to reading if you need 30-60 minutes that will make you better as an intellectual. Or just take two and use them wisely, Padawan. Better still, read this twice so it sits comfortably in your pre-frontal lobe and causes you to see your next valuable, voluntary training opportunity.

 

Speaking of which……. Me book. (Blatant plug.)

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Save money through Time Management. But not how you think……

20 Monday Jan 2020

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Anyone who has ever read about time management will be familiar with the Time Matrix. You know, the one which is segmented to identify Urgent v Important, and looks like this.

TM Matrix

Have you ever thought how applying this same Matrix to your financial habits might just make you more wealthy?

Think about it. You have a spending pattern. There are things you like to buy, things you have to buy, things that you want to buy but can’t – a whole range of purchasing options based on the same two criteria you use when spending ‘time’.

There are Quadrant 3 things – you ‘want’ it now and so you buy it ‘now’, even though a sober reflection may have said it wasn’t important enough to spend hard-earned cash on, but you (or someone you love/like/respect) suggested it was NOW or never.

There are Quadrant 1 things – things you genuinely have to buy now because they are vital to something in which you are presently involved. For example, I recently had to buy longer screws to fit a light switch that stuck out just too far for the provided screws to reach the fitment. (I know it’s an off example but read on.)

There are Quadrant 4 things – things that aren’t urgent or important but your heart overrules your head and you buy it because it’s pretty or funny or quirky or you’re just so fed up you need to demonstrate your personal power by possessing this bauble.

And there are Quadrant 2 things – things which aren’t necessarily urgent but which are, or may be, urgent now or in the future. Back to my screws. I needed 50mm screws, but could only get 75mm screws, which, it turned out, were far too long. I therefore had a Q1 need for a pair of pliers strong enough to cut the screws to length. Looking around, I realised that I anticipated a need to cut even bigger metal rods, so I bought bolt-cutters, instead. And that made me realise that notwithstanding the urgency of the screws, now would be a good time to make an anticipatory spend on a toolkit and, being Christmas, there were many good kits available at a discount price. The bolt-cutters were Q1, but the extra purchase was Q2.

What else can we allocate to these Quadrants?

Q1 – unexpected fines/bills, repairs to broken electronics, fuel for an empty tank, fast food when we’re hungry.

Q3 – tips for surly waiters, money for chuggers (charity muggers).

Q4 – extra SkyTV channels, that emergency pasty fat people buy at 9AM, our expensive Starbucks coffee to carry to work – the one that we worked 20 minutes to afford, a copy of OK magazine.

Q2 – fuel for the car before we run short, household bills, a 30th anniversary copy of The Seven Habits (I am genuinely excited), good food, investments and savings, tithing if that’s what you do, etc.

Where do you spend most of your money?

Don’t worry about it to stress-point. As with time, occasionally what looks like a Q4 spend is, in fact, a Q2 spend if we genuinely need something to de-stress ourselves, for example. A Q3 spend on a friend may hurt but may pay dividends in terms of that friend’s realisation that they are loved, making it Q2, or even Q1 spend.

Have a think – do you have foreign holidays because other people do, when you could spend the same on personal development? Do you have a plan to buy a new car on a monthly rental when buying an old one outright could leave you with money you could invest, and an asset to sell if you wanted to?

The Time Matrix – a way to save money. Who’d have thought it?

Lean towards lists – and keep your equipment safe.

10 Friday Jan 2020

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This morning, I had a plan. I had a doctor’s appointment first, followed by several numerically-ordered ‘As’, as per the advice given by so many time management writers to whom I have been loyal for some time.

Unfortunately, the doctor directed me to the local X-Ray department after his inspection, which meant that all the other things got demoted and had to wait their turn. Still in numerical order, but now subordinate to the additional task.

Some people, some intelligent people, don’t cope with such a situation as well as perhaps they could.

Some may have resolutely declined and delayed the radiologist’s company in favour of their plan, thus (arguably) risking their physical health in avoidance of a mental breakdown caused because their plan was at risk.

Other people would have gone to the local hospital’s radiology department, bitching the whole time that they ‘have better things to do’ and would have to reorganise their day to cope with this health-focused deviation from their intended schedule.

Did I go nuts? Of course not. And the reason I did not go nuts is because I had an organised list of things to do, written down and ready for review when the interruption was over.

David Allen, author of ‘Getting Things Done’, says, “You can only feel good about what you’re not doing when you know everything you’re not doing.” In other words, part of the mental challenge of personal organisation and productivity is having the capacity to know – or be able to quickly and easily find out – what is important, what is less important and what is not important, so that constant re-planning of tasks is not a routine part of life.

If you have no written list of things to do, ideally prioritised in some way, then you are relying on your memory to hold an abstract list for you. Unfortunately, the brain does not have an indexing system as reliable as a ‘list’ – it bundles every thought in one giant retrieval system, yes, but you have to think about retrieval at a time when your mind is struggling with multiple thoughts and inputs just when you need it to concentrate on just on problem. You are creating the bullet points as you remember the ‘thing’, but the bullet point disappears as soon as your brain moves on. And the bundle contains not only the things you must do, but also a bucket-load of the ‘not now’ and the irrelevant, both of which get in the way of cogent thought on the Now. (Oooh, very Mindful.)

I recall a training session where a colleague said he didn’t have a list because he liked to be spontaneous. I suggested that his supervisor (present) might like him to know what was expected of him and for him to organise his priorities accordingly, after which he could be spontaneous.

Having an organised list or plan allows you to free up your memory for thinking creatively, proactively and in a less-stressed fashion. Not having a list/plan means making it up again and again as you go along, always playing catch-up with yourself while ‘yourself’ keeps running off at tangents. Like playing tag with a chicken – as Rocky Balboa.

But above all, having a plan/list means that interruptions – an inevitable reality of working life – can be dealt with consciously, competently, effectively and without the urge to punch a fax machine. (Yes, I did. Once. A long time ago.)

Keep your technology safe -make lists.