Foreword

Welcome

Whether you are a business professional, a student, a parent, work full-time, part-time, retired, or anything in between, your life is full of getting stuff done. It always seems that there is more to do than is possible to get done. You need more time. You need to be more productive. Or, you are getting it all done, but you are exhausted in the effort, with no time left to do the things you want, the things that are important to having a wonderful life. And on top of it all, is worry about did I do enough? What did I forget to do? What is next?

This book is about giving you freedom in these four areas.

First, how to get more done: what is the source of producing results and how do you use this to get more done?

Next, you will almost certainly need a time management system to produce the results you want, but time management systems are flawed because they ignore one of the fundamental rules of being efficient.

Next, what is the nature of having fun and how can you bring it to your productivity?

And finally, worry is both a distraction and debilitating; it keeps you from taking effective action and robs you of your satisfaction. We will look at the nature of worry and how to eliminate it from your life.

This is not a book of tips that you fit into way you currently work and play. Rather it looks at the where results come from, what is missing from almost all time-management systems, what is in the way of having fun, and the secret about worry.

The aim of this book is not to have you get just a little bit better, but rather to completely alter the way you look at results, time, fun and worry so that you naturally find yourself more productive.

Throughout this book, you will have a chance to look at your results, your time management style and system, your sense of having fun, and worry with a few questions. The recommendation is that you take a few moments at each opportunity and consider and answer each question. It will enhance your experience and value of reading.

Our hope is that by the end of the book, you will have direct, daily access to producing the results you want, in less time, with more fun and less worry.

Get More Done

You are reading this book because you strive to be more productive. And to be more productive, you must get more done. In this chapter, we look at what produces results and how to change the actions we can take so you produce more.

The results we produce in our jobs, our families, our recreation often determine our sense of success and satisfaction. We know people who label themselves as “a success” or “a failure” based only on the results they produce. Trying doesn’t matter. You have tried in the past and didn’t get the results you wanted. Intention doesn’t matter. You’ve had the best of intentions and didn’t get the results you wanted. Commitment doesn’t matter. You’ve had the greatest commitment and didn’t get the results you wanted. What matters is did you produce the results, are your children happy, did you win the game, did you make the sale, did you get the job? With so much at stake, we should be interested in the whole dynamic of getting stuff done.

So, what produces results? Obviously, it’s the actions you take and the actions you don’t take. If you take no action, you get the results from taking no action. If you take ineffective action, you get lower results than if you take powerful, productive, effective action.

The definition of insanity, variously attributed to Albert Einstein, Rita Mae Brown, Mark Twain and others, is “doing the same thing and expecting different results.”

And that’s what we do; when we are unsatisfied with our results, we try to take different actions. But we sometimes fail. Either can’t think of anything else to do (“I’m doing my best” or “I have done everything possible”), we fall back into doing what we’ve always done (it’s hard to break a habit, isn’t it?), or the new actions we take are no more effective than the old ones. Or we take new actions for a while but then fall back to the old way of doing things. Why don’t new kinds of actions “stick”?

Another thing to notice is that the actions we take are a very personal thing. People in the same situation often take different actions. For example, two people, sitting next to each other in a movie, one is laughing, the other crying. Why? It’s the same movie. A baseball is hit into the stands and some will duck and others will try to catch it. Two people achieve the same results but take different actions.

We take different actions even when we are exposed to the same teaching. Think of a tennis class of 10 teenagers. Some become good. A few become great. The rest are average or worse. Why? They are exposed to the same teaching, told to do the same things, practise the same things, for the same amount of time, but have different results.

There must be something that governs our actions, something. But what?

The ready answer is “my actions are determined by what I know.” If I know how to play tennis, I get different results than if I don’t. If I have a master’s degree in engineering, I get different results than if I have an associate’s degree. If I have taken a course in this or that, I am better at it than before I took the course. Right?

No. Or rather, not entirely. Have you ever wanted to lose weight and failed? You know how to do this: eat less and exercise more. Have you ever been about to say something knowing full well that if you said it things would go badly immediately, and said it anyway? In the Olympics, it’s not the one who knows the most who wins; we don’t send our athletes to the library to learn more to be the best. The one who catches the baseball is not the one who knows the most about the game or baseball flight dynamics.

Or “my actions are determined by my experience.” The more experience I have, the better actions I take and the better results I get. Right? Maybe. But if it were always true, wouldn’t the Olympian who has trained the most would always win?

In the most important areas of life there are schools, online courses, lots of books, but they for the most part these are ineffective. Being happily married. Getting along with your children and parents. Being happy and fulfilled. Having lots of dear friends. Making a difference. If knowledge or experience is the key, why do so many of us fail at these treasured areas of life?

Some of the most successful people in history never completed school. You may know some people who have degrees and certifications but are not successful. Some of the best results have been achieved by a relative beginner. If knowledge or experience were the source of success, how is this possible?

The world is full of things that can distract us from accomplishing what we are committed to. It seems life is getting fuller and fuller, but the days stay at 24 hours. The only way to “get it all done” is to have some sort of time management system. Your memory is not a good place to store your commitments, what you are going to do. You need someplace outside yourself, a computer application, a notebook, a wall calendar, something, where you can plan and organise what you are going to do, where you can refer to your plan.

But almost all time management systems are flawed. The problem is they are designed to get everything done. It has lists and priorities and categories and time slots and interruption buffers and carry forward rules and often software to support all this so you can drag an email to your calendar and make an appointment or email a calendar event to someone as a meeting. There systems that use a book, some that use cards, some that use sticky notes. And many time management systems start by having you write down everything that needs to be done, and then sort them into categories and priorities, and then slot them into your calendar with allocations of the time they will take, and then all you must do is keep to your schedule.

But all these are flawed. They try to get it all done.