Refueling the jets… Learning to Value Time Off By the time you read this I am off on my 10-year wedding anniversary vacation trip through the South of France and Italy. In that honor I am republishing an article I wrote on high-performance productivity a few years back. Enjoy! How does America regain its supremacy in the productive world? How do YOU improve your personal productivity? ANSWER: Go on vacation. 438 million. That is the number of vacation days Americans failed to take in 2007, according to Harris Interactive research group—more than any other industrialized nation. Here is the result: America ranks No. 1 in depression and mental health problems. Americans are experiencing burnout, reduced productivity, diminished creativity, failed relationships, stress or stress-related ailments such as depression, heart disease or stomach ulcers in record levels. Our entrenched puritanical conditioning, being valued on how “hard” we work, fear of being replaced or left behind, and our addiction to always being “busy” are actually not only destroying our mental and physical health, but also destroying our creative productivity. This is especially true in our new global economy, where our advantage and future is... CLICK HERE TO READ REST OF POST

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Just joining us? Be sure to read Installment #1 and #2 and #3 WARNING: There is kryptonite all around you! There are great traps you will have to overcome to execute and stick to your five-point plan each day. These are three great warnings to look out for. WARNING No. 1—“Yes” You will have to become a master at saying “no.”  This is one of the greatest distinguishing features of superachievers—not what they do, but more important what they don’t do. Their ability to keep the main thing, in fact, the main thing and not get mired in weeds of minor tasks is their genius. They major in the major issues and don’t major in minors, as many of the rest of us tend to do. As Brian Tracy said, you need to develop “Won’t Power.” The power to declare and stick to all the things you won’t do, in order for you to stay focused on the things that matter the most to the accomplishment of your BIG hairy audacious goals. WARNING No. 2—Being reactive instead of creative Monitor and calculate your time between being reactive (reacting to communications, inquiries, requests and needs of others) and being proactive or creative—the time you are spending being productive and on target with your key priorities, not the priorities of others. Think about it: email, texts, the phone… you are mostly reacting when you are on these devices. Don’t let them yank you around all day as if you were on the end of a string where someone else is your puppet master. Instead, be sure the lion’s share of your time is spent being creative and focused on YOUR few and high-value priorities. WARNING No. 3... CLICK HERE TO READ REST OF POST

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Just joining us? Be sure to read Installment #1 and #2 Here is a simple (but don’t let the simplicity fool you!) but PROFOUND plan to immediately multiply your productive output many times over your current rate. I’m not talking about activity (more work, more time). I said productivity (results, money, accomplishment, goal attainment)… all the while, living much more stress free and carefree existence (more time for family, fun and hobbies!). Let me outline a 5-point Superachiever Productivity Plan for you… this is what I do. No. 1—Plan tomorrow today. Jim Rohn taught me, “Don’t start your day until it is finished on paper.” And the best time to do this is the day before. This is an important and many times not so easy-to-keep discipline. The last thing I do before I shut down for the day, by routine, is to review and complete the plan for the following day. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes. What you don’t want to do is wake up and then figure out what you should be doing—it’s way too late by then. Chances are the rest of the world will have decided what it wants you to do and it will control your day, instead of you. You will be reacting instead of creating. Let me take you through that simple planning process, since the key to brilliant execution is always brilliant planning.... CLICK HERE TO READ REST OF POST

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If you want to know what we’re up to, be sure to read Installment #1. After interviewing hundreds of superachievers, many of whom you have seen grace the cover of SUCCESS magazine, I have found about a half-dozen key distinctions of superachievers. In this series I will outline one of the BIG strategies and a 5-point plan to dramatically increase your productive output, while significantly lowering your stress and schedule burdens. Superachiever Distinction No. 1: It’s NOT what the superachievers DO that separates them from everyone else… I am constantly asked, “What do Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet and the like DO that makes them so successful, productive and wealthy?” What’s supremely interesting is that what they DO has little to do with their extraordinary success. It has more to do with what they DON’T DO. Steve Jobs: When asked what is the thing he is most proud of what he and Apple has created, this was his answer: “I'm as proud of what we DON’T do as I am of what we do.” Warren Buffet: When asked for the No. 1 key to his success, this is his consistent answer, “For every 100 great opportunities that are brought to me, I say ‘NO’ 99 times.” Isn’t that interesting?! You see, saying “yes” is easy. Yes I have a minute Yes I’ll take the call Yes I’ll take on that project Yes I’ll come out for happy hour Yes I’ll have another drink Yes I’ll have dessert too Saying “no” is much harder. And I have learned it is the master skill of the superachievers and... CLICK HERE TO READ REST OF POST

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On the CD inside our May issue of SUCCESS you will find two fantastic interviews. One is with our 1-on-1 expert Peter Guber, who I have written about before (read here). The other is with social media maven Mari Smith. During our interview I asked her to follow up our interview with her 10 most favorite social media marketing resources, and she generously followed through. Below is her list. Additional articles on social media you might be interested in: 8 Shocking (and Hilarious) Social Media Gaffes No. 1 Skill for the 21st Century (Part 3 of 3) No. 1 Skill for the 21st Century (Part 2 of 3) Networking With New Media To Tweet or Not to Tweet: Expert Tips about Using Social Media Small Business and Social Media Mari Smith's Top 10 Favorite Social Media Marketing Resources There are many online tools I use every day to manage my social media marketing effectiveness. In my recent interview with Darren Hardy for the May 2011 issue of SUCCESS magazine, I talked about many of these tools. Darren asked me if I would put together my top 10 list for readers of SUCCESS. Here they are! HootSuite.com—a fantastic free online tool for managing multiple social media profiles, pre-scheduling updates for specific days and times, monitoring keywords and analyzing statistics. Plus, check and reply to saved searches, Twitter lists, trending topics, @ mentions, Direct Mentions and more. Also available as a mobile app, which provides an excellent way to pre-schedule your social updates on the fly. Paid version also available with additional features. (See also TweetDeck.com—an alternative tool to try that is equally popular.) Bit.ly—the top link shortening service, ideal for Twitter but equally useful for Facebook and even email marketing to track clicks. Copy your long link and paste into your bit.ly account. Easily make custom links and track how many clicks you get. For...

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The most disruptive, derailing and productivity-killing force in our lives (continued from Success is Not What You DO) is information overload and your attention is under siege. In our modern society we all are suffering from information overload… there are more than 2 billion emails sent every day. More than 75 million blog posts are published every day, and 500,000 new books and 400,000 scholarly journals are published each year. There are 18,000 magazines (ahem, although only one that counts) and in 2005 Google stopped counting Web pages when it reached 8 billion. This has happened along with the explosion of highly competitive commercial media and marketing constantly vying for our attention. In 1992 we were hit with 2,000 marketing messages a week. Today it’s over 30,000—a 15X increase in less than 20 years… and growing. And, if that is not enough, we have become an instant-access portal open to the world—not to just the occasional office visitor, or the ringing phone, but the constant deluge of rapid-fire email, text messages, RSS feeds, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook and now mobile alerts. I think technology has advanced faster than our human ability to manage it. The tail is definitely wagging the dog. We end up living our lives like a pinball, bouncing from one thing to the next. Tell me if this sounds familiar… The first thing you see on your desk in the morning is the computer screen staring at you with all the email messages that came in overnight. You start answering them and then the phone starts ringing, people start streaming into your office with questions and requests. You’re paying half attention to them because you’ve got two other screens in front of you telling you what’s going on in the markets and in the world as well as a deluge of new email stacking up. This goes on all day, one demand after another, split up only by meetings in which everyone spends half their time answering emails on their BlackBerry. You walk out of...

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When it comes to comparing superachievers and everyone else, it has less to do with what they do and more to do with what they don’t do. Saying “yes” is easy; saying “no” is much harder, but it is the master skill of success. In a world where we are constantly being tugged on from a thousand different directions, your ability to be productive and ultimately achieve your big hairy audacious goals has more to do with all the things you DON’T do versus the things you do. Put it this way: For everything you say “yes” to you are saying “no” to something else… and you only have so much time. For most people, the ability to do MORE is impossible; you are already overwhelmed and working yourself to exhaustion 24/7. Doing MORE is not the answer. Doing less is. Saying “no” to more things so you can say “yes” to the right things is the key to taking you more efficiently and expeditiously toward your goals. And that is the other part of the equation for superachiever high-performance. What they decide to do, say “yes” to, they do with unrelenting laser-like focus, tolerating no distractions of anything that would get in the way of their persisting on their goals. A while back, after our SUCCESS cover feature with the knighted Sir Richard Branson, we had a client contact us to inquire about hiring Richard Branson to speak at their conference. So, we had someone inquire and Sir Richard... CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

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by Amy Anderson Managing Editor Okay, so the fact that I scribbled the letter “B” on the back of my hand to remind myself to write this blog entry today should tell you just how much I need productivity strategies. I have a friend who jokes that my mind is like a steel sieve. That’s not a [...] Post from: SUCCESS magazine Blog People who read this also read...Priority 1: Stop the Chaos. Priority 2: Live with Purpose. I’m a serious student of time management. I was hooked the first time I...Behind the Scenes: Entrepreneur, Designer, Philanthropist Kenneth Cole During my interview with Kenneth Cole in his Manhattan offices for our July cover...

Dan Pink’s Expert Answers Every month SCORE interviews an expert on topics related to business and entreprenuership. This month’s featured guest is Dan Pink. He discusses what really motivates you and your employees. An excerpt of his interview is below. To read the complete interview, sign-up for SCORE ExpertANSWERS and get it delivered direct to your inbox. What are three important [...]

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March 15, 2010 marked the 25th anniversary of the first “dot-com” registration on the Internet.  With over 100 million domain registrations and counting, we’ve witnessed an explosion of communication, commerce, idea-sharing, and human connectivity unlike anything else in human history. This truly marks a revolutionary and transformational shift in the way we live, gather information, do commerce, and [...]

Get Balanced, Get Organized It’s still January. Take four hours today for these four action items. You’ll feel more relaxed, more focused and ready to conquer the day. 1. Update Your Active Files: We are not a paperless society, just yet. Create color-coded files and label them. These are the active files you want quick access to on [...]

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