Done by One

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 Summary

Change is not easy, and you must be deeply committed to doing the work to get the results you desire. You must be consistently working to achieve your goals.  That is because this is the key to any success or change in habits.  They must be done consistently for an extended period.  If the consistency chain is broken the results are never realized at the level that we hope.  The good news is that we can always try again, and we must.  But the difference is we must do it with conviction. Do not allow yourself to be defeated by one setback. Use your wins to help move yourself forward.

Done by 1.  The HPX coaching group introduced the catchy name.  Practice the concept for a while and when you achieve success scream out “done by 1” and walk out the door. You nailed it!  Work as hard as you can to be awesome, you can do it.  Just decide that you will do it and move on.  

You will love this discipline and will wish you had focused on this for several years.  The emphasis is as the name implies; you get everything that is a priority in moving you towards your goals done by 1:00.  All those things to get you moving in the direction you need to achieve your goals. Protect your mornings so that you can feel that every day was a success in moving you towards bigger things every day by 1:00.

Full Transcript

Hello amazing people I just want to say, great job for being here.  I know that change is not easy and being here shows me that you are deeply committed to doing the work.  I am Leigh Wilson, your High Performance Coach and this is Focus Forward Business Design where we help you find clarity in your life, the energy to sustain the mission, and the courage to step up and venture off the path to discover new things. 

If you have watched or listened to the previous 2 weeks you should have already seen a huge change in the way you are conducting your weeks and your month.  It just gets better so GO FOR IT!  Give yourself permission to grow.

If you have previously listened to me, you will probably notice that I use the word consistency a lot…. consistently actually.  That is because this is the key to any success or change in habits.  They must be done consistently for an extended period.  How many people do you know, it may even be you, as I do not know you and am not judging because we have all done it?  You start a new workout routine or a new type of food program and you are all excited. You went out and bought the cool new tights or shorts…you know the ones, or the new smoothie blender with 5 speeds and 6 multicolored cups… and you were right on point.  Monday came and you started out great. Tuesday and Wednesday, you were rocking it, and then, Thursday came, and you got busy at work running on overwhelm and maybe the workout got pushed aside, and you told yourself you were justified because you would do twice as much tomorrow.  Then tomorrow comes and something else pushes the workout aside and you just grabbed a muffin on the way out the door.   The consistency chain is broken and therefore the results are never realized at the level that we hope.  The good news is that we can always try again, and we must.  But the difference is we must do it with conviction.  It may not be food or exercise…it can be anything that is a critical piece in your success.

Alright I have gotten off track a bit, but I felt it was important to follow up and see how things were going and have you do a self-check of where you were at.

This section is called Done by 1.  I love this title and I must confess that I cannot take credit for it.  Again, I refer to my coach and the HPX coaching group as they introduced me to the name.  I had been practicing the concept for a while but when I heard the “done by 1” that nailed it.  As hard as I tried to come up with something that was just as awesome, I just could not do it.  So, I just decided that I would give credit where credit was do and move on.  

I love this discipline and as I said, I have really focused on this for several years.  The emphasis is as the name implies; you get everything that is a priority in moving you towards your goals done by 1:00.  Now it can be noon or 2, whatever works for you, but the name wasn’t as sing songy.  

I am going to emphasize 3 things to get you moving in the direction that protects your mornings allowing you to feel everyday was a success in moving you towards bigger things.

Number one - The point is to set the boundary of time.  For many of us the afternoons can be where things tend to get a bit out of sync and so having everything that really matters done by 1 allows the afternoon to fall where it will.  By blocking out time in your calendar you can control what gets done in that morning time.  I know that if I have worked on or completed my critical projects for the day by early afternoon, I can feel great about the day regardless of what gets thrown at me in the afternoon, which honestly is typically someone else’s issues or agendas that they did not plan well for and so they now consider it a crisis and hope to God that I will rescue them.  

If I do not have my big rocks out of the way, then it is easy for me to feel resentment for being taken away from those things and ultimately feeling that I have not accomplished what I needed to by the end of the day which can lead to frustration, disappointment and a feeling of having to start tomorrow already underwater.

I know I get it and I hear you…Leigh, there are so many things that interrupt me or get in the way of a nice block of time that I can work on something.  I just get started and the phone rings or someone knocks on my door with an emergency.  Remember unless the building is on fire, likely it is their emergency and not yours.  If we get people in the habit of understanding our schedules and respecting it, what you will find is that by the time you are available to help, they have very often already solved their own problem…score!  In this way we are teaching people to think and be problem solvers rather than run to someone for the answer.  After all, this is what we want for our children when we try to educate them to be forward thinking and look at the options when presented with a challenge.  Why would we expect any less from our team?

Number 2 – Be purposeful in your actions. When deciding what must be in those morning blocks of time remember to go back and review what the main priorities of the day were.  Pick three…that will be enough if they are large enough.  These priorities may be large projects that require days or weeks of work, so pick pieces of each project that you can accomplish each day.  Remember that these should only be the difference makers.  Some examples might be your follow up with potential or current business.  Maybe you are working on a new marketing program to bring in new business, or new product development.  All of these would-be things that in many businesses would take you a step closer to the next goal.   

Number 3 - this is the most important and the toughest one for most people as it requires an extreme amount of discipline.  You must eliminate distractions from your world.  This is non-negotiable.  We live in a world filled with so many shiny things that it is virtually impossible to not have something vying for your attention every minute of every day.  When we looked at things that we could lose, leverage or automate we likely were able to get rid of some distractions, so that is a start.  Let’s look at some others.

Screen time – Our culture has fallen into a horrible place of electronic dependency.  Whether it be cell phones, or laptops or tablets there is always something between our hands and our faces.  When was the last time that you went to a restaurant and did not see a table where the parties at the table were engaging with their phone’s way more than their companions?   This crafty little gadget has us all trained to jump when it dings, beeps, rings or lights up.  You know it is in inanimate object, right?  It will still be there and so will whatever is on the other end when the time is right to reply.  I know…you are important, and people need you.  If you are that damn important, they will wait.  I am serious about this, unless you are a doctor or a first responder on call, most of the time it can wait.  If you are ever going to succeed at a high level with your agenda, it needs to wait.

Social Media – This is another one that I really believe you must set some parameters, so if it is important for you to know what your friends had for dinner then you have to decide what piece and how much or your day you are going to allow it to eat up.  Now, I don’t mean to come off as flippant.  Social media has been a great way for all of us to reconnect with people from our pasts or stay in touch with those that are far away.  This is something that past generations never got to do, and it can be extremely special, but like anything it needs to have limits.  You must decide for yourself what that time looks like, but I can tell you it is a major distraction and pulls productivity WAY down

Email- This is one that I get a lot of push back on as people feel that oftentimes they must be always glued to their email, and that simply is not true.  You owe it to yourself to leave it closed while you are working on your priority items.  Again, block out time to get through email.  That is not to say it shouldn’t be on your calendar every day or a couple of times during the day, but again it is blocked.  The key is to look through your emails quickly for the items that contribute to your high priority items.  You may be waiting for a response from someone in order to move to the next step.  These are the emails to be very aware of and that are given the time they are warranted.  The rest is likely junk, or once again some else’s agenda that can wait, or be handed off.

The last piece that is a major distraction that only you can determine what it is made up of, is the 80% stuff that hopefully you were able to eliminate the majority of in last week’s episode. If you still have a pile that are not tasks that get you excited or that jump the business forward, then likely they can be elsewhere.  Although, I do know that there are some things that will always seem to reappear on your plate no matter how many times you hand them off.  If this is the case, you may have to accept you are the best one for the job and delegate time for it or find the person or system that is a better fit.

By reducing or eliminating these distractions you will find that done by one is not just a hope and prayer, it is a reality every day.  

I hope that this has given you a clear picture of what you can do to control your day, your actions and your time so that you are done by one each day and can use that extra time to experience new adventures, build new dreams or just hang out on the beach.

Please hit like below and share this with 3 forward thinking people in your circle.  They will thank you as they grow both professionally and personally.

See you soon and remember it is always your choice to Focus Forward.