Salami and Swiss Cheese

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A major reason for procrastinating on big, important tasks is that they appear so large and scary when you first approach them. 

One technique that I have read about and can be use to cut a big task down to size is the “Salami slice” method. Mmmmmm salami….I look at my task and lay out the task in detail….then I begin to resolve just one slice at a time. Often, once I have started and completed a single part of the job or task, I feel like doing just one more “slice.” Soon, I find myself working through the job one part at a time, and before I know it, the job is complete. Has this ever happened to you? I know it has happened to me many times just didn’t know it had such a cool name like “Salami Slice Method”…

It is important to remember that we all have this deep down inside us…this urge to complete a job or task…it makes us feel happier and more powerful when we start and complete a task of any kind. Ever finish something and feel lighter afterwards, like that heavy monkey on your back left and went home?? This is because we are satisfying a deep subconscious need to bring finality to a job or project. This act of eating your frog triggers a release of endorphins in your brain and the bigger the task you start and complete or frog you eat, the better and more happy you feel. Feeling on cloud 9. 

Another technique you can use is called the “Swiss cheese” method. All this talk about food is making me hungry this morning!!  

You punch a hole into the task, like a hole in a block of Swiss Cheese. Punching a hole into something sure makes it less scary…. You Swiss cheese a task when you resolve to work for a specific time period on a task. This may be as little as five or ten minutes, after which you will stop and do something else. Once you start swiss cheesing your tasks you begin to develop a momentum and a feeling of accomplishment (begin to feel happy). You become energized and excited.

Eat Your Frog! Take a large, complex, multi-task job that you’ve been putting off and either samari the “salami slice” or punch the “Swiss cheese”…just get started..

Love Vanessa 💖

Single Handle Every Task

“And herein lies the secret of true power. Learn, by constant practice, how to husband your resources, and concentrate them, at any given moment, upon a given point.” – James Allen

Eat Your frog! Every bit of planning, prioritizing and organizing comes down to this simple concept. 

Your ability to select your most important task, to begin it and then to concentrate on it single mindedly until it is complete, is the key to high levels of performance and personal productivity. Every great achievement of mankind has been preceded by a long period of hard, concentrated work until the job was done.

Single handling requires that once you begin, you keep working at the task, without diversion or distraction, until the job is 100% complete. You keep urging yourself onward by repeating the words “Back to work!, Back to work!” over and over whenever you are tempted to stop or do something else. By concentrating single mindedly on your most important task, you can reduce the time required to complete it by 50% or more. Love these odds!!! 50%, that gives me allot of fun time!!

“The ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.” – Elbert Hubbard

Each time you return to the task, you have to familiarize yourself with where you were when you stopped and what you still have to do. You have to overcome inertia and get yourself going again. You have to develop momentum and get into a productive work rhythm. But when you prepare thoroughly and then begin, refusing to stop or turn aside until the job is done, you develop energy, enthusiasm and motivation. You get better and better and more productive. You work faster and more effectively. 

The truth is that once you have decided on your number one task, anything else that you do other than that is a relative waste of time. You heard it, “Waste of Time!” Any other activity is just not as valuable or as important as this job, based on your own priorities. The more you discipline yourself to working non-stop on a single task, the more you move down the “Efficiency Curve.” You get more and more high quality work done in less and less time.

Eat Your Frog!

Take action! 

Resolve today to select the most important task or project that you could complete and then launch into it immediately. 

Once you start your most important task, discipline yourself to persevere without diversion or distraction until it is 100% complete. See it as a “test” to determine whether you are the kind of person who can make a decision to complete something and then carry it out. Once you begin, refuse to stop until the job is finished.

Love Vanessa 💖

Develop A Sense of Urgency

Highly productive people take the time to think, plan and set priorities. They then launch quickly and strongly toward their goals and objectives. This is why they are successful.  They work steadily, smoothly and continuously and seem to go through enormous amounts of work in the same time period that the average person spends socializing, wasting time and working on low value activities. This is why the term I am busy means different things to different people. The person working on the low value activities looks and feels they are busy but are spinning their wheels. While the person working on high value tasks at a high and continuous level of activity actually enters into an amazing mental state called “flow.” Almost everyone has experienced this at some time. Really successful people are those who get themselves into this state far more often than the average. I am in the flow!! This happens to me offen, I am in the flow and look up and the day is done and I have accomplished everything I wanted that day and more.

In the state of “flow,” you feel elated and clear and everything you do seems effortless and accurate. You feel happy and energized. You experience a tremendous sense of calm and personal effectiveness. In the state of “flow,” you actually function on a higher plane of clarity, creativity and competence. You are more sensitive and aware. Your insight and intuition functions with incredible precision. You see the interconnectedness of people and circumstances around you. You often come up with brilliant ideas and insights that enable you to move ahead even more rapidly. See, you says we aren’t all superheros!!

One of the ways you can trigger this state of flow is by developing a “sense of urgency.” A sense of urgency you say, this is an inner drive and desire to get on with the job quickly and get it done fast. This inner drive is an impatience that motivates you to get going and to keep going. On your mark, get set…..go….With this ingrained sense of urgency, you develop a “bias for action.” You take action rather than talking continually about what you are going to do. You focus on specific steps you can take immediately. You concentrate on the things you can do right now to get the results you want and achieve the goals you desire.

When you become an action-oriented person or superhero whatever you like to call it, you activate the “Momentum Principle” of success. 

Momentum Principle: says that although it may take tremendous amounts of energy to overcome inertia and get going initially, it then takes far less energy to keep going. 

The good news is that the faster you move, the more energy you have. The faster you move, the more you get done and the more effective you feel. The faster you move, the more experience you get and the more you learn. The faster you move, the more competent and capable you become at your work. So become the flash!!

A sense of urgency shifts you automatically onto the fast track in your career. One of the simplest and yet most powerful ways to get yourself started is to repeat the words, “Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!” over and over to yourself. If you feel yourself slowing or becoming distracted by conversations or low value activities, repeat to yourself the words, “Back to work! Back to work! Back to work!” over and over. Sing the words to yourself or make a mantra, whatever works for you.

Eat Your Frog! 

Resolve today to develop a sense of urgency in everything you do. 

Select one area where you have a tendency to procrastinate and make a decision to develop the habit of fast action in that area.

Happy Friday Everyone!!

Love Vanesss 💖

Create Time

This strategy requires a commitment from you to work at scheduled times on large tasks. Only you can commit to these times. Most of the really important work you do requires large chunks of unbroken time to complete. Your ability to create and carve out these blocks of high value, highly productive time, is central to your ability to make a significant contribution to your work and to your life. Successful salespeople set aside a specific time period each day to phone prospects. Rather than procrastinating or delaying on a task that they don’t particularly like, they resolve that they will phone for one solid hour between 10 and 11 AM and they then discipline themselves to follow through on their resolutions.

The key to the success of this method of working in specific time segments is for you to plan your day in advance and specifically schedule a fixed time period for a particular activity or task. You make work appointments with yourself and then discipline yourself to keep them. You set aside thirty, sixty and ninety minute time segments that you use to work on and complete important tasks.

A time planner, broken down by day, hour and minute, organized in advance, can be one of the most powerful, personal productivity tools of all. It enables you to see where you can consolidate and create blocks of time for concentrated work.

During this working time, you turn off the telephone, eliminate all distractions and work non-stop. One of the best work habits of all is for you to get up early and work at home in the morning for several hours. You can get three times as much work done at home without interruptions as you ever could in a busy office where you are surrounded by people and bombarded by phone calls. 5 o’clock club!!

One of the keys to high levels of performance and productivity is for you to make every minute count. 

Remember, the pyramids were built one block at a time. A great life and a great career is built one task, and often, one part of a task, at a time. Your job in time management is to deliberately and creatively organize the concentrated time periods you need to get your key jobs done well, and on schedule.

Eat Your Frog! 

Think continually of different ways that you can save, schedule and consolidate large chunks of time. 

Use this time to work on important tasks with the most significant long-term consequences. Make every minute count!!! Work steadily and continuously without diversion or distraction by planning and preparing your work in advance. Most of all, keep focused on the most important results for which you are responsible. 

Love Vanessa 💖

 

Get Out of the Technological Time Sinks

 “There is more to life than just increasing its speed.” – GANDHI

Resolve today to create “zones of silence” during your day-to-day activities. Turn off all communications devices and technology for one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. You will be amazed at what happens: nothing!
Resolve to take one full day off each week during which you do not touch your computer, check your Blackberry or make any attempt to keep in touch with the world of technology. At the end of a day without continuous contact, except by voice, your mind will go calm and clear, like water. By giving your mental batteries time to recharge, free from the incessant interruptions of communication, you will be more relaxed, aware and alert.

“Be present. It is the only thing that matters.” ~Peaceful Warrior
Technology pervades our world. From cell phones and laptops to iPods and digital cameras, the average person owns an arsenal of gadgets that, in many ways, simplify life. Isn’t that the truth, plus allot of broken sitting around too.

You can increase your productivity, connect with people quickly, and access information instantaneously—while documenting your every move via tweets and photos to upload to Twit pic or Facebook.

Which begs the question: At what point does technology stop enhancing life and start detracting from it?
When you feel tied to your phone and enslaved by your email, can you pull away, center, and take a tech-vacay outside the shadow of your laptop? 

Does it stress you out to disconnect in an always-on world where everything moves at the speed of light?

And lastly, do the people in your life suspend their sense of urgency long enough to allow you a break?

This makes it very hard to be mindful of your day to day life and to be happy and enjoy life. You really never have a break and meditate.

The technology itself is not to blame; just like guns don’t cause violence, gadgets don’t obliterate our mindfulness. We’re in control of the tools we use. Still, it isn’t easy to stay present and focused in a world that’s always plugged in—and to every available outlet.

Put your gadgets away when you’re not using them. I try leaving my phone in my purse when I first get home. I make supper or eat left overs without a phone in my hand. My way of a little quiet time.

Minimize electronics in your bedroom. I believe the reason I have probelms sleeping at night is the amount of technology I use during the day. My mind goes through a withdrawal and at 3:30 it wakes me up as I have been at least 5 or 6 hours without technology. I have  created a space that makes me feel calm and focused, with no TV or technology with the exception of my phone. Need to find a better alarm clock and remove my phone too. 

Commit yourself to single-tasking at least three daily activities. It would be easy to say “stop multitasking” while I have seven tabs open in my browser, but who am I kidding. You’ll likely continue to multi-task certain things, just as I will, to handle your various responsibilities. Instead of attempting a complete behavioral shift, I recommend making some small, sustainable changes to connect with the present throughout your day. Choose a few tasks you will not multitask, like eating dinner or talking on the phone. Don’t watch TV. Don’t answers emails. Only do those things. 

Challenge yourself not to respond to texts and emails immediately when possible. At work, you may not have the luxury of taking your sweet time responding but I can slow down a little and finish what I am doing before answering the next one.  People often expect immediate attention, but remember that you control their expectations. If you increase your response time, people won’t find it unusual; eventually, they’ll come to realize that you answer your messages when it’s convenient for you and you’re ready—not sooner, unless it’s urgent.

Write hand-written letters. Love this one. For me it is like reading a book. I love having a book in my hand and have never been able to read on the phone, computer, laptop, kindle etc…There are certain things you may always email: lunch invitations, movie times, follow-up messages after interviews. But not everything needs immediate delivery. Writing with a pen on paper connects you with your feelings and grounds you in the present moment. Who doesn’t love receiving a hand written letter or card in the mail, I know I do!

Use a journal, write a letter, turn off your phone, TV and be in the now…enjoy life..

Love Vanessa 💜

“I am now a optimistic!”

To perform at your best, you must become your own personal cheerleader. “Go Vanessa Go, You are amazing, Go Vanessa Go!”

You must develop a routine of coaching yourself and encouraging yourself to play at the top of your game. “I am a master booker. I am a booking magnet. I am a master recruiter. I love what I do. I am helping women achieve their goals and dreams!” 

95% of your emotions, positive or negative, are determined by how you talk to yourself on a minute to minute basis. “I love Vanessa, love my toes, my fingers, my whole body inside and out!”

It is not what happens to you but the way that you interpret the things that are happening to you that determines how you feel. It is your version of events that largely determines whether they motivate or demotivate you, whether they energize or de-energize you. It is your life story, your thoughts and actions..so learn, enjoy and be happy!!

To keep yourself motivated, you must resolve to become a complete optimist. You must determine to respond positively to the words, actions and reactions of the people and situations around you. You must refuse to let the unavoidable difficulties and setbacks of daily life affect your mood or emotions. Always think something better is coming your way this is only a bump in the road and keep smiling.

To keep yourself motivated, and to overcome feelings of doubt or fear, continually tell yourself, “I can do it! I can do it!”

When people ask you how you are, always tell them, “I feel terrific!” No matter how you really feel at the moment, or what is happening in your life, resolve to remain cheerful and upbeat. It’s been said that you should never share your problems with others because 80% of people don’t care about your problems anyway, and the other 20% are kind of glad that you’ve got them in the first place. Sometimes we can be complainers, myself included…poor me…I have to work, while some people would love to be working and have no job.

Optimists look for the good in every situation. No matter what goes wrong, they always look for something good or beneficial. And not surprisingly, they always seem to find it. Optimists always seek the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty. They believe that, ”difficulties come not to obstruct, but to instruct.” They believe that each setback or obstacle contains a valuable lesson they can learn and grow from, and they are determined to find it. Optimists always look for the solution to every problem. Instead of blaming or complaining when things go wrong, they become action oriented. They ask questions like, “What’s the solution? What can we do now? What’s the next step?” In addition, people who are habitually optimistic, positive and upbeat think and talk continually about their goals. They think and talk about the future and where they are going rather than the past and where they came from. They are always looking forward rather than backward.

“I am now a optimistic!”

When you continually visualize your goals and ideals and talk to yourself in a positive way, you feel more focused and energized. You feel more confident and creative. You experience a greater sense of control and personal power. And the more positive and motivated you feel, the more eager you are to get started and the more determined you are to keep going.
Goals:

1. 5 new booking contacts a day; 2. $1,000 a week in Mary Kay; 3. Perfect Start/Power Start every month; 4. Gold Medal every month; 5. Help a women achieve her goals/dreams each month; and 6. Get great at booking.

So I am eat my frogs! 

I am controling my thoughts. Remember, you become what you think about most of the time. Be sure that you are thinking and talking about the things you want rather than the things you don’t want. “I am amazing!”

Keep your mind positive by accepting complete responsibility for yourself and for everything that happens to you. Refuse to criticize or blame others for anything. Resolve to make progress rather than excuses. Keep your thoughts and your energy focused forward, on the things you can do to improve your life, and let the rest go. And remember life in fun and don’t be so serious all the time and smell the roses…

Love Vanessa 💜

 

 

Your Personal Powers

One of the most important requirements for you to be happy and productive is for you to guard and nurture your energy levels at all times.

Avoid Being Constantly Tired. The fact is, your productivity begins to decline after eight or nine hours of work. For this reason, working long hours into the night, although it is sometimes necessary, means that you’re usually producing less and less in more and more time. The more sleep deprived you become, the worse the quality of your work will be and the more mistakes you will make. At a certain point, you can reach “the wall” and simply be unable to continue, like a battery that is run down. I have reached the wall and it is not where you want to be.

Work at Your Own Pace. There are specific times during the day when you are at your best. You can learn how to stop procrastinating by identifying these times and discipline yourself to use them on your most important and challenging tasks. Most people are at their best in the morning, after a good night’s sleep. Some people are better in the afternoon. A few people are most creative and productive in the evening or late at night. Whenever you feel sleep deprived and overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time, stop yourself and just say, “All I can do is all I can do.” Sometimes the very best use of your time is to go home early and go to bed and sleep for ten hours straight. This can completely recharge you and enable you to get two or three times as much done the following day, and of a far higher quality, than if you had continued working long into the night.

Go to sleep. One of the smartest things you can do is to turn off the television and go to sleep by ten o’clock each night during the week. Sometimes, one extra hour of sleep per night can change your entire life. Here is a rule for you. Take at least one full day off every week. During this day, either Saturday or Sunday, you must absolutely refuse to read, clear correspondence, catch up on things from the office or do anything else that taxes your brain. Instead, you go to a movie, exercise, spend time with your family, go for a walk or any activity that allows your brain to completely recharge itself. It is true that “a change is as good as a rest.” Take regular vacations each year, both long weekends and one and two-week breaks to rest and rejuvenate. You are always the most productive after a restful weekend or a vacation. When you go to sleep early five nights a week, sleep in on the weekends and taking one full day off each week you will have far more energy. This added energy will help you learn how to stop procrastinating and get started on your major tasks faster and with greater resolve than you ever could if you were tired out.

Be Happy By Guarding Your Physical Health. In addition to lots of rest, and to keep your energy levels at their highest, be careful about what you eat. Start the day with a high protein, fat and low carbohydrate breakfast. Eat salads with fish or chicken at lunch. Avoid sugar,  white flour products or deserts. Avoid soft drinks and candy bars or pastries. Feed yourself as you would feed a world-class athlete before a competition because in many respects, that’s what you are before starting work each day. Aim to exercise about 200 minutes each week, the agreed-upon standard for excellent levels of fitness. This is equal to 30 minutes per day and can be achieved by going for a walk before or after work, or walking short stretches during the day. You can swim, use exercise equipment or play different sports, but build exercise into your daily routine, just as if it was a business appointment. By eating healthy, exercising regularly and getting lots of rest, you’ll get more and better work done, easier and with greater satisfaction than ever before.

The better and less sleep deprived you feel when you start work, the less you procrastinate and the more eager you are to get the job done and get on with other tasks. High energy levels are indispensable to higher levels of productivity, more happiness and greater success in everything you do.

Love Vanessa 💖

Put the Pressure on You

The world is full of people who are waiting for someone to come along and motivate them to be the kind of people they wish they could be. The problem is that, “No one is coming to the rescue.” As a result, if they don’t take charge of their lives and put the pressure on themselves, they can end up waiting forever. And that is what most people do. This is sad to me..that most people in the world wait for someone to rescue them…

Only about 2% of people can work entirely without supervision. We call these people “leaders.” This is the kind of person you are meant to be. People we need to change this percentage, 2%..there is 98% out there following! 

I am in the 2%, I am a leader!

Your job is to form the habit of putting the pressure on yourself, and not waiting for someone else to come along and do it for you. You must choose your own frogs and then make yourself eat them in their order of importance. 

The standards you set for your own work and behavior should be higher than anyone else could set for you. Make it a game with yourself to start a little earlier, work a little harder and stay a little later. Always look for ways to go the extra mile, to do more than you are paid for.  

Imagine that you just received all-expenses paid vacation as a prize, but you will have to leave tomorrow morning on the vacation or it will be given to someone else. What would you be determined to get finished before you left so that you could take that vacation? What would you absolutely make sure got done before you left? Whatever it is, go to work on that task right now.

You build up or pull down your self-esteem with everything you do, or fail to do. The good news is that you feel terrific about yourself whenever you push yourself to do your best,  whenever you go beyond where the average person would normally quit. Successful people continue to pressure themselves to perform at high levels. Unsuccessful people have to be instructed and supervised and pressured by others. 

I am successful!!

One of the great ways for you to overcome procrastination is by working as though you only had one day to get all your most important jobs done before you left for a month vacation. 

By putting the pressure on yourself, you accomplish more and better tasks, faster than ever before. You become a high performance, high-achieving personality. You feel terrific about yourself, and bit by bit, you build up the habit of rapid task completion that then goes on to serve you all the days of your life. 

Eat That Frog! 

Set deadlines and sub-deadlines on every task and activity. 

Create your own “forcing system.” 

Raise the bar on yourself and don’t let yourself off the hook. 

Once you’ve set yourself a deadline, stick to it and even try to beat it!

Pull out your journal, write out every step of a major job or project before you begin. Then determine how many minutes and hours you will require to complete each phase. Organize your daily and weekly calendars to create time segments when you work exclusively on these tasks. Be in the 2% and walk out of the 98%!

Love Vanesssa 💜

What are “Your” Key Constraints

Between where I am today and any goal or objective that I want to accomplish, there is one major constraint that must be overcome before I can achieve that goal. 

My job is to identify that contraint!

What is holding me back? What stops me or holds me back from eating the frogs that can really make a difference? Why aren’t I at my goal already?

I need to identify goals that I set for myself in the past which I have not been able to achieve, or those “frog” tasks which I have either put off or not completed.  What’s the limiting factor or constraint which is preventing I? So what is my limiting factor or constraint?

Questions I need to ask myself:

Is there someone’s help I need?  Or someone’s decision I need to get first before completing a task? 

Is this a task which I don’t want to do or that I don’t feel I can do because I am not sure how to do it? I may need to read a book or watch a YouTube, or get advice from someone who does know how to do it?

Is this a task which I gave myself an hour to do, and now I realize when I get into it that it will take at least 4 hours, or even 4 days to do?   Can I invite others to help by delegating parts of it to others?

It may be that I realize that the materials I need for my task are not at hand and I have to go and purchase them. Or I go to purchase them and I realize that they are going to be more expensive than I had anticipated.

Don’t underestimate this as a constraint on your achieving your ambitions!   This is the most common contraint of all… fear! 

The Pareto Principle  or 80/20 rule applied to constraints means that only 20% of the limiting factors are external to you or to your organization, which means that 80% of them are internal to you or your organization.  This is actually good news because these 80% are factors which, being internal, are under your control. You can do something about them! Make a list of every step in a process and examine every activity to determine exactly what is holding you back. I am a very imagine/picture person, so if you are like me make a list or a picture, whatever works for you. This is why I always have a journal with me or happy as I like to see things on paper.

Successful people always begin the analysis of contraits by asking the question, “What is it in me that is holding me back.” They accept complete responsibility for their lives and look at themselves for both the cause and cure. 
The best way to get the most mileage out of the idea of constraint is to ask yourself the following key question:

What one goal, if I achieved it in the coming year, would have the greatest positive effect on my life?

Determine the one key constraint, internal or external, that prevents you from accomplishing this goal or slows your pace down towards accomplishing it. Then take one step, any step, towards eliminating that constraint! You then will be able to each your goals!!

Love Vanessa 💜

Talents

I am remarkable! I have special talents and abilities that make me different from every other person who has ever lived. 

You are remarkable! You have special talents and abilities that make you different from every other person who has ever lived. 

We are all remarkable and have special talents and abilities that make us different from every other person who has ever lived.

There are frogs you can eat, or learn to eat, that can make you one of the most important people in your business or organization. I have my fork ready and waiting to eat!! 

There are certain things that you can do, or learn to do, that can make you extraordinarily valuable to yourself and to others. Your job is to identify your special areas of uniqueness and then to commit yourself to becoming very, very good in those areas.

What is it that you do especially well? What are you good at? What do you do easily and well that is difficult for other people? 

Looking back at your career / job / business, what has been most responsible for your success in life and work to date? What have been the most significant frogs you have eaten in the past? For me it is my ability to learn new things and to empathize with people. 

But, my most valuable asset is my ability to earn. I always use to say I was a crockroach(not sure I want to use that term…ewwww). I was a survivor, cause no matter what I can get a job and earn. I can lose everything I own, my house, my money, my stuff…but as long as I still have the earning ability, I can make it all back and more. This is my unicorn.

What is it that you enjoy the most about your work? What kind of frogs do you most enjoy eating? 

The very fact that you enjoy something means you probably have within yourself the capability to be excellent in that area. I love to help people! 

It is your responsibilty in life to decide what you really love to do and then do it!! Successfuk people have taken the time to identify what they do well and most enjoy.

Focus your abilities on starting and completing those key tasks that your unique talents and abilities enable you to do well and that make a significant contribution. You can not do everything, but you can do those few things in which you excel, the few things that can really make a difference!

What is it that you do especially well?
Love Vanessa 💜