3 Underrated Tips To Achieve Work-Life Balance

Is finding a work-life balance something that you struggle with?

The first thing to understand about work-life balance is that most people have the wrong idea of what that actually means. They think that their whole life should be balanced. That they should have a little bit of work and a little bit of play and a little bit of time on the weekends, in order to improve their quality of life.

When thinking about your quality of life, you have to ask yourself:

What do you really want to do with your life?

If the answer is that you want to be really successful in your career, you have to start a little earlier, you have to work a little harder, and you have to work a little later.
How Do You Manage Your Time?

Here’s an interesting discovery:

Almost all successful people work 6 days a week. Average people work 40, maybe even 30 hours a week. Now aside from actual time spent at work, the real problem comes down to what you accomplish while you’re at work.

Most people spend 50% of their time doing non-work related activities while they’re in the office.

Browsing social media, checking email, taking long lunch breaks, and chatting with co-workers are all examples of time-wasting behaviors. When these activities turn into habits, it becomes harder to get all of your work done in order to focus on other aspects of your life.

Here’s the key to achieving work-life balance: Choose to manage your time.

Choosing to manage your time effectively is the starting point of overcoming previous programming and eliminating mental blocks to time management. You must decide, right here and now, to become an expert in time-management in order to improve your quality of life.
Work-Life Balance Tips

Your aim should be to manage your time so well, that people admire you and look to you as a role model for their own work habits.

Here are three tips for time management that will help you achieve a work-life balance and improve your quality of life:

1) Use The Power Of Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations, or positive self-talk, are commands that you pass from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind, that you either say out loud or to yourself, with emotion and enthusiasm to drive the words into your subconscious mind.

Sort of like instructing yourself to follow new operating instructions.

Begin by repeating positive affirmations over and over to yourself, “I am excellent at time management! I am excellent at time management!” Or “I have a work-life balance!”

My favorite time management affirmation is, “I use my time well. I use my time well. I use my time well.”

When you repeat positive affirmations over and over, they are eventually accepted by your subconscious mind and you will find that your external behaviors will start to reflect your internal programming.

2) Visualize Your Time Management Skills

Mental pictures almost immediately influence your subconscious mind. Begin to see yourself as well organized, efficient, and effective in time management.

Recall and recreate memories and pictures of yourself when you were performing at your best and getting through enormous amounts of work.

Through positive affirmations, you can create a picture of the coming event and see it unfolding perfectly in every respect. See yourself as calm, positive, happy and in complete control. See the other people doing and saying exactly what you would want them to do if the situation was perfect.

Play this picture of yourself over and over again on the screen of your mind.

3) Take Action Based On Your Visualizations
Now that you have visualized and concentrated on what your day and your future will look like with proper time management, it’s time to put it into action.

Do this by working the entire time you’re at work. When you walk into the office, you should work the entire time you’re there. Be pleasant and friendly to your co-workers, but get to work right away and work until you are finished.

By doing this, you’ll get on top of your work and will walk away feeling accomplished at the end of your day. When you don’t have lingering tasks to worry about, since you’ll have worked as hard as you could have during your time in the office, you’ll be left with plenty of quality time to spend with your friends and family after work.

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Apply The 80/20 Rule To Everything In Time And Life Management

Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?

The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It is also called the Pareto Principle after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to divide naturally into what he called the “vital few,” the top 20% in terms of money and influence, and the “trivial many,” the bottom 80%.

The Great Discovery
He later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this Pareto Principle as well.

For example, this rule says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results. 20% of your customers will account for 80% of your sales. 20% of your products or services will account for 80% of your profits. 20% of your tasks will account for 80% of the value of what you do, and so on.

This means that if you have a list of ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth as much or more than the other eight items put together.

The Greatest Payoff
Here is an interesting discovery. Each of these tasks may take the same amount of time to accomplish. But one or two of those tasks will contribute five or ten times the value as any of the others.

Often, one item on a list of ten things that you have to do can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the one that you should do first.

The Most Valuable Tasks
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom 80% while you still have tasks in the top 20% left to be done.

Before you begin work, always ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?”

Getting Started
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you seem to be naturally motivated to continue. There is a part of your mind that loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.

Managing Your Life
Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking control over the sequence of events. Time management is control over what you do next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your success in life and work.

Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog, whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.

Action Exercises
Make a list of all the key goals, activities, projects and responsibilities in your life today. Which of them are, or could be, in the top 10% or 20% of tasks that represent, or could represent, 80% or 90% of your results?

Resolve today that you are going to spend more and more of your time working in those few areas that can really make a difference in your life and career, and less and less time on lower value activities.

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How to Revive A Dying Company & Breathe New Life Into It

Most businesses that are currently experiencing poor sales, low income and high operating costs can be transformed into profitable ventures.

If, the owners focus on their most profitable niches and apply simple cost cutting and income generating methods.


How to Revive A Dying Company

With the help of a well designed accounting framework and effective re-branding, it is possible to restore the fortunes of a dying business. The following ideas can be used to revive your business and make it productive and profitable.

1. Improve Accounting and Record Keeping

To transform any business, it is important to have a good grip on the fundamentals with respect to accounting and financial management.

With the help of a chartered accountant, you can put a suitable financial accounting framework in place. This’ll improve the way you monitor all your expenses and sources of revenue.

This will also reveal the critical areas where you can cut costs. And give you a clear picture of your weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual cash flows.

Basically, you’ll be able to make improvements in cost-to-income ratios, and gradually move the business from bankruptcy into profit.


2. Refocus and Re-brand the Business

Many businesses struggle because their initial projections and assumptions about consumer demand were not very accurate.

They thought that their target consumers would embrace their product and sales would be rapid. But after some time, the results end up showing that the actual demand cannot bring in enough cash to sustain the business.

If you have a similar experience, you need to re-validate your business model. Focus on providing products and services that your consumers are willing to buy now.

3. Eliminate Unnecessary Expenses

Renegotiate with your suppliers and service providers so you can get the best deals that will reduce operating expenses.

Every 6 to 12 months, you should analyse your service plans and tariffs for regular expenses like utilities, internet access, telephone, and credit cards. This will help your company to remain competitive and enjoy new offers and discounts.


In addition, you can save money by cutting off unnecessary expenses. Such as fines for late payment on loans and high processing fees for credit cards. Ensure that your accountants use the latest technology to monitor the time for payments.

Pay promptly, improve the credit rating and financial health of the company to gain access to lower interest rates on new loans.


4. Improve Cash Flow

The best way to ensure rapid transformation of any business is to focus on increasing sales and revenue in the short term.

To do this, you must focus on the most productive product lines and drop those that are not generating much income. Look at the niches that are more likely to give you a quick increase in sales. Avoid stretching out your resources on unprofitable projects.

Just like Steve Jobs cut down the product lines of Apple in 1996 from 350 to 10. By 1998, the company posted a profit of over $300 million. It’s possible to make your business more successful by focusing on the most profitable niches.


5. Monitor ROI for All Marketing Activities

During the turnaround period, you need to develop new marketing strategies that will help you to reach out to more customers and increase sales and revenue. However, you must monitor the effectiveness of all marketing campaigns with a direct response mechanism.

For instance, adding response codes to your printed marketing materials. This will help you to get data on the number of people from a particular location or region that are responding to your message.

You can also use customised landing pages on your website in combination with analytics to track the ROI on your advertising campaign.

Once you discover the most profitable segment of the market, you will be able to develop more targeted products that will bring more sales and profit.


6. Let Employees Take Ownership

Beginning with the company’s board, let all directors and company executives take responsibility for the transformation agenda. Make sure all employees are involved in setting and pursuing the company’s turnaround plan.

Plan a retreat for all workers, and let everyone see the reason why the company needs to be revived. Project a renewed vision of the company with new targets and goals. Then let them begin to provide new ways of achieving the new targets.

Once all workers are truly motivated to transform the company, the task will be completed faster.


Summary

Here’s a quick recap on how to revive a dying company:
Improve accounting and record keeping
Re-focus and re-brand the business
Eliminate unnecessary expenses
Improve cash flow
Monitor ROI for all marketing activities
Let employees take ownership

Applying the ideas provided here can help you to turn your struggling business around and make it an outstanding success.

If you focus on your most profitable niches, reduce your cost of doing business, and you get all your employees involved, you are more likely to experience a quicker turnaround.

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How to Discover Leadership Qualities Within Yourself

You’re an introvert.

You don’t have a boisterous personality. You’ve never seen an actual popularity contest, but you are certain if you were in one, that you wouldn’t win. Clearly, you aren’t cut out to be a leader.

Are you?

That depends. If one were to believe the depiction of leaders that exists in movies, television, books, and the classroom, the answer to that question might be yes.

After all, based on the typical portrayal of a leader, aren’t the brash, outgoing, forceful, outspoken, and charismatic? How can a person without these characteristics be an effective leader?
How to Discover Leadership Qualities Within Yourself

Here’s the truth. You can be a great leader without possessing the nature or personality traits of the stereotypical leader that has been presented to you. You have innate leadership qualities.

You just have to figure out what they are, and how you can use them.

Try to answer the following questions, and you might discover these qualities within yourself.

1. Are you willing to come in early and stay late?

You may have received messaging that tells you that good leaders get people to perform by having a commanding presence.

This isn’t true.

Successful leaders earn the respect of their teams when they lead by example. This means demonstrating the willingness to put in the same work that your team puts in.

If you are willing to put in the same long hours that your team must work, you’ve already established some leadership abilities.


2. Will you step in when a team member needs help?

Shouldn’t true leaders model adherence to firm expectations?


Shouldn’t they demand that team members overcome their own struggles and contribute effectively?

Doesn’t that help equal enabling?

You might think that your desire to help people around you is a weakness. It is not. When you help somebody, you aren’t modelling being taken advantage of.

You aren’t modelling permitting irresponsibility.

“AS A LEADER, YOUR ABILITY TO RECOGNISE AND STEP IN TO HELP SOMEBODY IS PRICELESS.”

By doing so, you are communicating the message that each member of the team that is important, and that it is okay to model teamwork and cooperation.


3. Is it important for you that every member of a team is valued?

Good leaders are task oriented.

Great leaders are also task oriented but they balance that with true concern for the development and well being over everybody on their team.

If you have a natural tendency to try and help your team find their talents and discover how and where they can contribute, that is a great sign that that you have the ability to lead your team and boost morale.


4. Will you stand up for an idea you believe in or advocate for a coworker?

Sometimes, the best thing that a leader can offer is quiet yet sincere advocacy both for the ideas that they believe in, or for the people on their teams.

If you have the ability and the willingness to do this, you are already well on your way to becoming a leader.

If people know that you are willing to stand up for them and protect their interests, they will be more willing to follow your lead and believe in your leadership abilities.


5. Would you rather seek consensus than victory?

It is a common misconception that a great leader is always seeking victory when it comes to disagreements and confrontations.

This is untrue.

“GOOD LEADERS RECOGNISE THAT WINNING BATTLES OFTEN RESULTS IN HURT FEELINGS AND RESENTMENTS.”

These things can have a negative impact on morale and future interactions with the parties who ended up on the losing side of the confrontation.

If your natural instinct is to find common ground and work towards solutions that benefit everybody, and that make everybody feel good about the resolution, you have one of the most important leadership qualities that there is.






6. Do you recognise the value of picking your battles?
Not only do good leaders seek compromise and consense wherever there is controversy, they also know that it is often wise to avoid controversy altogether.

Many people believe that conflict avoidance is something that others will take as a sign of weakness.

In reality, this couldn’t be further than the truth. Think about it. Everybody knows at least one person who continually is at battle with somebody over something.

They seemingly cannot let anything go, and so they move from one confrontation to another. It is very rare to see these types of people in leadership positions, and when they are in leadership positions, they are often seen as bullies.

Somebody who has innate leadership skills wisely chooses their battles. The result is that when they do decide to take a firm stance on something, that stance is usually respected.


7. Are you willing to give credit to others for their contributions?

A great leader is primarily focused on the development of others.

This means overseeing their growth and training as employees, ensuring that they are happy and fulfilled with the work that they are doing, and ensuring that they are recognised for their accomplishments.

“ALL TOO OFTEN, WHEN A TEAM IS SUCCESSFUL, ALL OF THE PRAISE AND CREDIT GOES TO THE PERSON AT THE TOP.”

A great leader doesn’t let that happen. They ensure that everybody involved receives specific and meaningful credit for their contributions.

If you have a tendency to pass compliments on to others, it can be a sign that you recognise the importance of giving credit where credit is due.
Summary

As you can see, there is every bit as much value in quiet, competent leadership as there is in a loud and brash leadership style.

In fact, in many cases, quiet leaders who truly care about their teams, work as hard as they demand others to work, and are willing to take principled stands, are more respected than their often demanding and confrontational counterparts.

So, if you are an introvert, contemplative in nature, and have a quiet demeanour, don’t assume that leadership is not in the cards for you. The truth is, these characteristics may be signs that your innate leadership skills are much stronger than you realise.
Let us quickly recap on the questions featured in this article:
Are you willing to come in early and stay late?
Will you step in when a team member needs help?
Is it important for you that every member of a team is valued?
Will you stand up for an idea you believe in or advocate for a coworker?
Would you rather seek consensus than victory?
Do you recognise the value of picking your battles?
Are you willing to give credit to others for their contributions?



If you would like to develop your leadership skills, you can make the effort to find ways to act as a leader where you are right now.

You don’t need a promotion or a title to be a leader. You can mentor co-workers, be a source of practical and emotional support, and simply be willing to work just a bit harder than is expected of you.

You can also find your voice by learning to express your ideas and to advocate for yourself and the people working with you.
Is there anything to like to comment on about this article? Leave a comment below.

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Getting Things Done Through Motivation

This article is about getting things done by riding on the back of your initial motivation.

There is a window within which we need to do things/get tasks done. Particularly when it comes to working with other people. If you have a meeting for instance, try to follow up the actions you establish at the meeting (make them clear, simple and specific) within three days. If you don't work on the weekends be mindful of the fact that that's two days lost.

If you can't follow up within three days contact the person with/for whom you have agreed to carry out the actions and give them as accurate an estimation as you can as to how long it is going to take you to follow through. This contact is to aid continuity.

In the 21st Century and particularly this age of speed, ideas, concepts and actions go stale very quickly and easily. People are becoming more and more impatient and want fast results. To keep up it's vital that you become really clear (and good) at estimating what you can take on and how long things will take you.

So in terms of follow-up actions try these tips for yourself:

1. During the meeting, when taking notes put an A in a circle next to anything you need to action

2. Back at the office/at home action anything that can be done immediately (that will take you ten minutes or less). Transfer those actions that will take you longer to a master list. Make them as clear as possible.

3. Estimate how long each action will take and therefore your overall timeframe (bearing in mind everything else you need to do.) Keep it real. Give yourself an absolute cut-off date by which all the actions will be completed.

4. Contact the other person/people involved within three days informing them of the approximate timeframe of the longer actions but add on an extra 10-20% to allow for slippage.

5. Incorporate each action into your days/weeks/months, keeping others informed of progress.

6. Keep focused, ticking off actions as you go, and ensuring you're not distracted from other tasks that come along.

7. Try not to go beyond your cut-off date but if you need to (because of unexpected emergencies) inform all involved and set a second cut-off date as close to the first as possible.

8. Celebrate when you complete each action (even if it is just taking satisfaction in ticking/crossing it off a list)

Using this system will ensure your tasks don't become stale.

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How To Feel Motivated All The Time?

Action leads to motivation, this is one of the tricks I've always advised clients to use.

If you're willing to do just 5 minutes of the work, regardless of how you feel at any moment, you can ignite the hidden power of commitment and consistency which gives you more fuel to continue the task for another 30 minutes.

Instead of "trying to get motivated", taking action and just doing the first small action step will bring you motivation.

However, I've recently heard about this interesting integrative motivational theory called Temporal Motivation Theory.

Basically, it's a theoretical equation that purports to explain everything about motivation.

The formula is that motivation equals to (Expectancy times Value), divided by (Impulsiveness times Delay).

Put it simply, there are 4 factors that we can use to increase our motivation.

#1 Expectancy

Expectancy, or self-efficacy, is how likely you think you will succeed in a particular goal.

The easier you think you can handle something, the more you expect to succeed, the more confidence you are, the higher the motivation you have.

#2 Value

Value is the reward associated with the outcome, it's how much the result means to you.

The more valuable we perceive the result to be (maybe because of the pleasure or meaning you're going to get out of it), the higher the motivation we do the thing.

#3 Impulsiveness

Impulsiveness is how good we are at withstanding distractions, disruptions or interruptions which get us off track.

The better we can "say no" to these temptations using our willpower and habits, the higher the motivation we have to follow through the action.

#4 Delay

Delay is the amount of time until the outcome realizes (i.e. the deadline). It means how far into the future will the reward or outcome lies.

For example, at the beginning of a school term, students' motivations are not high because there's a long delay before the deadline (aka. exam) comes, therefore the reward of studying is not immediate and it has low value.

But when students have only a few days to prepare the exams, because of the short delay and the higher perceived value, the motivation will shoot up to the roof.

Assuming this equation is correct, how can we apply it in our lives?

To put it in a simple sentence, you'll want to set easy achievable short-term goals with a deadline to it, cut off all distractions possible, dominate it and then nicely reward yourself when completed.

The key is to have an imminent deadline so that you have that "last-minute rush" feeling like the students so that you are compelled to focus intensely during that short period.

With that said, do you feel an urge to stop reading so much about motivation and start doing just 5 minutes of the work you've been procrastinating on? (Yes, I do mind read.)

Anyhow, go crush that thing and I'll see you in a bit!

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3 Simple Strategies For Massive Goal-Setting Success That Works Like Magic

The ability to set goals the correct way constitutes an essential skill that can make or break your personal and professional success in life. The manner in which you do so will determine the speed in which you can achieve your goals, or whether or not you can achieve them in the first place.

So if you often find yourself setting goals, but not achieving them at all, this article is for you. Here are 3 strategies that I use to massively improve my goal-setting success, to quadruple the rate of achievement of my desires in half the time.

Strategy #1: Write down your goals

Yes, you got it right! The first step to any goal-setting endeavour is to first write down your goals. It seems like a common sense and obvious thing to do. Unfortunately, many of us have the intention to achieve something (e.g. lose weight, get a promotion, earn more money) but did not crystallize it by writing it down. Your goal will thus merely exist as a thought, an intention, or a dream, and that is why they never become a reality!

Therefore, the first step in any goal-setting endeavour is to always first write down your goals. By doing so, you create the first action toward your desires, and transform your thought into a commitment that becomes more real to you.

Strategy #2: Revisit your goals every day

After writing your goals, it is useless if you only revisit your goal at the end of the year, and realized you have not achieved anything at all! Therefore, it is vital that you revisit your goals every single day. Write your goals on a piece of paper, look at it at least once every morning, and ask yourself what would you do today to bring you one step closer to your goals.

By revisiting your goals consistently, you can re-align your day towards the key objectives you will very much want to achieve.

Strategy #3: Announce your goals

The third strategy you can adopt is to simply announce your goals. Tell your family, friends, and colleagues about the goals you will want to achieve. Studies have shown that if you announce your goals, the probability of backing out on these goals decreases tremendously.

In addition, trusted friends and colleagues who are supportive of your endeavours can point you to valuable resources, advice and people who can help you achieve your goals in record time! They can also hold you accountable to your goals, further ensuring that you achieve your goals despite the excuses you might use to give up on your goals.

Unfortunately, many people are uncomfortable in announcing their goals to the supportive people around them. So get over the discomfort and start announcing them.

Conclusion

The three simple strategies presented in this article are relevant and applicable. You can use it immediately during your next goal-setting exercise. Apply these strategies the next time you set goals, and watch the magic unfold.

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Change Is Scary, But You Don’t Have to Be Afraid

Change can be scary for everyone, but it is often even more frightening when it happens in the workplace. So many of us get used to our “daily grind” that when something happens to change it we find our fear levels amped up and rising, even if we are not under direct threat of losing our position. Whether it’s a company buyout, new management, or just a minor change in staffing, the uncertainty that comes with change can make us feel threatened. Yet fear will not help us do our jobs better. We are more likely to undermine our good intentions and efforts when working under the burden of fear, leading us to feel powerless.

In Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, Susan Jeffers offers a number of exercises that can help us feel noticeably more powerful when confronted with changes to our work environment. Adapted from those exercises are five that can help us deal positively, rather than fearfully, with workplace change.

1. When facing a change at work we are often holding on to a “picture” of what we think it should be. What image are you holding onto? Be as honest with yourself as you possibly can. When you are aware that you are seeing things as you wish them, you can stop yourself to take another look to how things really are.
2. Be mindful of all the options you have during the course of a given day. When uncertainty begins to overwhelm you, think instead of all the possible ways you can act and feel about the situation. Be conscious of the alternatives available to you. Make it a game. In no way should you put yourself down for being upset. Those worries are a great clue as to where you need to begin changing your thinking.
3. Take a pen and paper, or open a new document on your computer, and make a list of all the choices available to you. In every situation there are at least thirty ways to change your point of view. Writing them down helps you to clearly see all angles, giving you the opportunity to choose the most auspicious mindset.
4. Notice how you talk with coworkers. If your conversation includes a lot of complaining and blaming, think about ways you can communicate your opinions without being negative. If you find that some colleagues are continually negative and unsupportive, try to avoid them, if possible.
5. Look for any gifts you are receiving from the change you’re experiencing. It may not seem like there are any, but if you look at things differently you may be surprised. Think about it: you may be garnering further career experience, maybe you could come up for promotion earlier than expected, or maybe you’re just being given the opportunity to really evaluate what you want out of your career. Any happening can be a gift if you look for it.

Change is scary, but it doesn’t have to be. Recognize your fears and then turn your mind to more constructive thinking. It may be hard to put your worries to the side, but far more constructive to find the optimistic aspects of any situation.

The important thing to remember is that change is not the end of the world—it never has been. Change is really about new beginnings. New starts may be a little scary, but they are also exciting, giving us the chance to stretch outside our old limits. 

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