Jun 16, 2015
If you're anything like me, you do your best work when you're facing a very real deadline with serious consequences or when you're part of group who you need to keep up with cause the entire group to fall behind.
In this episode, we look at ways we can capitalize on this for
increasing our daily productivity. Give these a try in your
day and let me know what worked best for you.
Surround Yourself With More
Productive People
Hire an employee who runs faster than you. Someone you have to work at to keep up with.
Someone who is nipping at your heels and ready to do your job.
This will make you feel like you’re falling behind every step of the way. Talk about last minute… talk about forcing you to do more.
Join a Group Who Are Doing More Than You.
I experienced this lesson myself this past year, with this podcast.
I went with a friend of mine, Jeff Brown, the host of the Read to Lead Podcast, which I highly recommend you listen to regularly, to New Media Expo in Las Vegas. Jeff, my friend, was a superstar at this event.
People were walking up to Jeff, excited to meet him and talk to him about how he does his show.
Even people who were incredibly successful with their business were thrilled to say high to Jeff.
AND THEY SHOULD BE.. he’s an incredible talent and does a great job.
But, Jeff and I have very similar backgrounds in broadcasting. We have been coached by the same people and even done national radio shows on the same exact network. He ran one station on our network while I ran another one… a bigger one… with a bigger audience. Not because I’m better, it’s just because there’s a larger potential audience.
This was my peer and he had jumped WAY ahead of me… I had fallen behind.
What was his secret? What was the magic ingredient that put him further ahead?
Jeff consistently, without fanfare put out a very high quality show every week. Nearly without fail.
This motivated me to make that a priority for me. Consistently put out a great show, for me, every day. That was going to be my one singular focus. That is what comes first for me each day in my business. Do that show and then when that’s done, do whatever else fits in.
SO… Surround Yourself With People Ahead of You.
Create Deadlines with CONSEQUENCES
Another way to do give yourself the sense that you’re falling behind is to actually have deadlines which you risk missing.
Have you created deadlines for your tasks or just dates when you hope they’ll be done?
This is especially important when you’re self-employed. You set the deadlines.
Of course, clients can do that for you too, but what about when your clients quietly disappear when you miss a deadline? IF you’re a blogger or podcaster, or maybe you have a YouTube channel? What about when you can say “Well, that’s ok, I’ll just skip this week…. “ ?
You have to create deadlines with consequences.
A great way to do this is with an accountability partner or group. A mastermind...
This is one of the huge benefits of a mastermind group. When you say to your peers “I’ll have X done by next weeks meeting.” You then have to put your character on the line. You have to put your ego on the line.
If you’re mastermind group or accountability partners aren’t challenging you to keep your bond, you have to find another group. You need people who aren’t afraid to call you out in a very serious way when you repeatedly fail.
You have to create a false boss who you fear failing as much as you would a real boss.
This is why a personal trainer will help people get into shape -
If you work out five days a week and meet with a trainer one day, you will put more into those other 4 days because you don’t want to have to face them and say “I didn’t do what I told you I would do.”
Apps Available
There are some apps available that will help with this as well. They create very real consequences for failing to hit your goals.
I’m going to save these for this Friday’s episode. Each Friday I like to share a tool or resource which you can try out over the weekend. This last week, I shared the Hours and Jiffy apps for tracking your time during the day so you can find out what’s causing so much of it to seemingly disappear.
I’m still using Hours even as I write these notes. It’s helped tremendously.
This Friday I’ll share a few apps for keeping yourself accountable for what you promise you’re going to do.
Call to Action
Force yourself to fall behind today. Not by doing nothing… fall behind by surrounding yourself with people who are just ahead.
Create or join a mastermind or accountability group. Do something to help you feel like you have very read deadlines.
Create task deadlines and tell someone about them so you have to fess up if you don’t achieve them.