Spent some time this weekend reading an old Dan Kennedy book I own.
Sometimes I forget how amazing his content is — especially when it comes to time management and entrepreneurship in general.
Some highlights I thought I’d share:
1) CLEAR THE CALCULATOR
When using a calculator, you can’t move to a new equation until you hit the clear button. Otherwise, the calculator gets confused and won’t spit out the right answer.
Same thing in your day to day business. You cannot try working on 10 things at once or even two things at once. Before you start working on something, CLEAR YOUR CALCULATOR from anything else.
(This is NOT easy to do and takes extreme discipline.)
2) THE MILITANT ATTITUDE
If you don’t respect your time and personal space, no one else will.
Dan says if you’re working and your mother-in-law drops by, she’ll need to entertain herself while you finish up.
If a friend drops by, you let them know it’s a bad time and you’ll call them later.
If your roof leaks, you don’t stop everything to deal with it. You put a bucket under it and deal with it on YOUR time.
Adopting these principles (and many others) may lead people to view you as a “prick.” You don’t need to be a prick, but you do need to understand that to get EXTRAORDINARY results, you’re going to have to act different than other people.
Most people spend so much time trying to be “likeable.” You will never please everyone, and must raise above these “ordinary” concerns.
3) GETTING SH*T DONE
“No one who is good at making excuses is also good at making money. The skills are mutually exclusive.”
Dan talks about a guy who owned some retail stores and wanted to grow, but didn’t have a ton of money for advertising. So Dan gave him a FREE idea to skyrocket his business.
A few months passed, and Dan asked the guy how the strategy was working. The guy said he was too busy and hadn’t tried it yet.
“TOO BUSY DOING WHAT?!?”
The guy didn’t have an answer…
How to avoid this:
Write down the three most important and valuable things you NEED to do today to move towards your top goal.
Then, under each of those three things, write three ACTIONS you can take today to work towards those.
Do this each day and you’ll never start a new year in the same position you were last year.
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Someone once told me that reading a good book is one of the WORST returns on investment in the short term, but one of the GREATEST investments in the long term.
In other words, as you sit and read, there are other important things you could be doing.
But a good book can pay off with insights, strategies, and overall knowledge you can use forever.
Kind of like exercising…
Taking an hour to workout TODAY is not really a great use of your time, as far as ROI is concerned.
But long term, when compounded, it likely will bring the highest ROI of almost any activity you could do.