This article comes from an idea by Edward Shapard at EdwardShapard.com about how to work smarter, not harder which you can read here. It had a profound affect on me, and I'm sure it will on you.
The moral of the story is that it's all very well developing systems to help you get more done, but are you factoring in the time (read: down-time) it takes to perfect your system? It takes time to get things off the ground so ensure the project you intend to spend your valuable time on warrants it. This applies to many scenarios, and I'm sure you can of a few of your own.
Take the plethora of "successful" internet marketers these days who brag about their huge incomes from zero to $zillions in a matter of days, even hours. But again, like the character in Mr Shapard's story, they fail to inform us that it took four or five, even ten years to perfect their "system" before it made a cent. Get the picture? And what were they doing before that? Developing, tweaking, designing, troubleshooting etc. (again think Mr McDuck!)
Any kind of personal development is a case in point.
Let me explain. I can recall (with some discomfort when I look back at it) the reams of notes and exercises I performed diligently as part of my personal development "education" process prescribed in some of the books I read. Although many of the exercises were useful, my point is, don't get bogged down with the 'how to's.' I discovered the 'system' could be, and is in fact, never ending!
Sounds silly. It's not.
Think more in terms of Herbert Spencer's famous quote "The great aim of education is not knowledge but ACTION."
Look at your own life and identify if the time you spend on attempting to work "smarter" is, in fact dumber. I wasted hours (and numerous notebooks!) looking for answers I didn't really need. I got caught up in the system instead of the action part. The system was the action and it had zero tangible results. Less is more is certainly true for me, what's true for you?
No comments:
Post a Comment