3 Tips for Time Management, Work Engagement and Peak Performance

Below are the video and article.

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This Success Tips video (and article) will give you 3 key ways for you to help you significantly improve your time management and increase your focus, productivity, positivity and success.

How to Be a Daily Time Management, Peak Performance – and Peak Experience – Master

Before I cut to the chase, these three success tips techniques aren’t just my suggestions. They are based on scientific studies and interviews of highly successful people.

They aren’t ranked in any particular order of importance.

1. Time Management, Peak Performance and Work Engagement Tip: Have a Meditation and Mindfulness Morning Ritual. Make it non-negotiable.

Many successful and actualized people begin their days with a morning meditation practice. And they use mindfulness to maintain focus and a positive attitude and state throughout the day.

Yes, this is also equally a time management tip and not just one for peak performance and work engagement. Studies show our focus, energy and clarity of thought and behavior are improved when we meditate and when we have a mindfulness practice.

“Non-negotiable” and “ritual” are, well, non-negotiable aspects of this practice.

It’s easy, and common, for people to excuse the neglect of new habits they know are in their best interest.

In fact, it’s not only common, it’s downright typical.

We are Our Habits, Nothing More

But this meditation and mindfulness practice must become a ritualistic, consistent part of your day if its power is to be realized.

This means we do it every day. No ifs ands or buts. No excuses. No exceptions.

(CLICK HERE for a popular video on the science of creating new habits.)

By creating a mindfulness and meditation ritual, you integrate a proven way to optimize your energy, focus and productivity into your daily life.

Highly successful people habitually focus and act upon their priorities, whereas most people often get caught up in fire-drills, distractions or procrastination. Meditation and mindfulness calm, center and energize us. They focus us in the present on our personal power and our priorities.

Meditation and mindfulness also improve and optimize health, both psychologically and physiologically. And is it fair to guess that you want to be as healthy as possible? My gut tells me yes.

Mindfulness and meditation also put us in an optimal state for optimism and peak performance, as well as for peak experiences, throughout each day.

The Peak Performance Life Experience

You do like peak experiences and the peak results that come from habitual peak performance, right?

So, you see, mindfulness and meditation are huge facilitating forces for self- and life-optimization.

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Without mindfulness and meditation, we are far more likely to begin and continue our day with scattered focus, energy and productivity. At least relative to the levels of focus, energy and productivity we have when mindful.

Many Highly Successful People Practice Mindfulness and Meditation

Tim Ferris, famed author of such books as the 4 Hour Work Week, interviewed over 200 highly successful people to find out what their secrets were.

Ferris found that 80% of these people have a morning mindfulness practice. These people get centered, energized and focused on their top priorities early each day. They don’t leave their focus, motivation, energy and productivity levels up to fate, chance or the gods.

Okay…

The second new habit to establish is…

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2. Time Management and Peak Performance Tip: Each night, pick one mindset or self-improvement thing to focus on the next day.

Have you ever read a book, gone to a seminar, had a conversation or simply had an “ahaaa” moment? You know, where a light-bulb flashed on and you told yourself “hell yeah. I’m going to do that” or I’m going to use that?”

And did you do that or use that?

More importantly, did you habitually use it? And at a mastery level?

I don’t know you, but I do know that odds are that you’re like 99% of other people….

…odds are, you either didn’t do it or use it… or you kinda-sorta did once or twice. Then, because you never actually retrained your subconscious mind to adopt it as a new habit, you never really used it again. This because our skills and our habits come from our subconscious and not from our conscious mind. Simple knowledge and motivation for change is not sufficient to affect change. To affect significant, personal change, we must literally rewire our subconscious to automatically believe, feel and act in new ways.

(Click here for an interesting Harvard Business Review article on Mindfulness & Time Management)

List, Schedule and Execute All Important Goals

If it’s something you want, list it, schedule it and DO IT. Otherwise, it’s wishful thinking. Wishful thinking that won’t get done and will lead to more of the “same ol’ same ol’.” As in, the same ol’ you. And the same ol’ results… frustrations… disappointments… and, quite possible, the same ol’ failures.

So list it, schedule it and DO IT! (Did I say that already?)

Success Tips List of Daily Focus Items

So, keep a list of things you want to do, such as:

  • Your #1 life goal
  • The milestone goals that will lead to your #1 goal
  • The new mindsets you want to establish that will help you
  • New habits and rituals that will help you succeed
  • New beliefs and perceptions you want to establish for success
  • Keep this list active on your smartphone and your computer desktop.

Set alarms to remind you to remain mindful of them, along with alarms for actual practice or implementation of them.

Schedule It Daily. Don’t Rely on Your Intention to Change

I’m going to repeat myself here, because it’s a very important point; one that prevents most people from rarely, if ever, affecting significant personal change: Possessing the knowledge and motivation for personal change is almost always not enough to actualize true, significant and lasting change. Such change typically takes considerable and constant self-awareness, intention, emotion and ritual to create these new beliefs, mind-sets and habits; it takes literally re-wiring our brain — and at the subconscious level. By the time we become conscious we haven’t behaved, acted or re-acted in a manner we’d like to, it’s too late. The damage is usually done.

Now yes, there are times when we have an intense, emotional experience, that immediately impacts our subconscious beliefs and habits, chasing significant change in a moment… But such instances are almost due to intensely painful circumstances. The kind of situations we all want to avoid. Do you really want to wait until you have a catastrophically painful circumstance to affect the change that is in your best interest?

Most often, significant personal change requires planned, repetitive, and intensely emotional practice on our part.

So keep a simple, abbreviated list of the changes you want to make.

Keep this list on your smart phone or computer and review it every day.

And every evening pick one thing to focus on for tomorrow.

How often?

Yes, EVERY evening.

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This is Really, Really Important, So I Repeat…

Personal growth, human optimization and success are missions that must be meticulously planned and executed each and every day of our lives.

Then schedule reminders with alarms to go off in your phone and on your computer.

Place physical post-it notes all over your home, car and office to remind you throughout the day.

And keep it simple and focused. Focus on only one change, one new habit for at least a few days. And probably, preferably for at least a week. Sometimes for several weeks. Because, again, significant and lasting change almost always takes great, compelling emotion and repetition, among other things.

More Success Tips: Switch It Up Daily. Variety is the Spice of Life

Also… re-post your word and change items each day. Delete the language you used the day before and create a new way to state your intention.

This serves two purposes:
• It constantly reminds our conscious mind to retrain the subconscious
• It forces daily re-thinking and, effectively, re-experiencing the change we want

More Success Tips: Novelty is Important

The danger of leaving the same notes and post-its on our phone, computer, mirrors and walls is two-fold. When we have the same notes in the same places in the same language:
• It’s easy for them to just become part of our environment and we stop focusing on them. In fact, we become unaware of them, as they just blend into our habitual environment and
• Even if we actually see them, the same words often have the same effect: it becomes just the same, expected, non-impactful part of our environment that is always there

Changing where they are or what time they pop up in our alarms and also forcing yourself to use different wording, phrasing and aspects of the change we want to make forces our mind to actively and creatively re-create and imagine the actualization of the changes we desire.

This increases our brain’s neural connections that are associated with the new habit, mindset or behavior we want to change. And, as they say in neurology: “neurons that fire together, wire together.” As such, we are establishing the neural, chemical and electromagnetic phenomenon within our physiology that are, in fact, the experience of the change we desire. The brain cannot tell a vividly imagined experience from a real one. To the brain, they are the same.

Doing this also creates new, engaging and inspiring ways for us to perceive the desired change.

Changing Your Environment Helps Change Your Mind

If we rely on the same and post-its, in the same places, and the same wording, and the same e-alarms at the same times each day, we tend to quickly stop being affected by them, because they become just part of our regular environment. Like that spot on the wall that you don’t consciously recognize.

And, while it’s our subconscious we are seeking to change, we reach the subconscious through conscious techniques.

We want you to get your brain and emotions habitually and actively prompted and primed for personal growth, development and change each day, throughout the day.

Personal Development Means Personal Change

Among other things, personal change requires us to articulate and associate great personal meaning and emotion to the change we desire. It also requires repetitive practice or implementation of the change. Adding some consistent level of novelty into the change is also useful.

Famous Quotes and Clichés

Don’t ignore clichés in your inspiration, motivation and change plans. Including the “ahaaa moments” you’ve had and other things that have become clichés to you and, possibly, to other people.

Often we ignore these clichés because, like I suggested with the post-its and electronic reminders above, we often see and hear clichés over and over and over again and they soon seem obvious, simplistic, and ancient news. Because we’ve seen them so many times for so many years, there’s no novelty, newness or significant impact in them. They’ve become part of our environment to some degree.

But clichés become clichés because of the simple truths in them. So don’t dismiss them consciously or unconsciously. That is, even if you don’t think that you’ve consciously dismissed them, make sure their impact remains fresh, relevant and urgent in your conscious mind, as a way to train and habituate your unconscious mind.

Make sense? Each day, every day, throughout the day, constantly use your conscious mind, emotions and feelings as a strategic and tactical tool so that you habitually experience – that is, you vividly see, hear and feel – the things you want to develop, experience and habituate in your life.

Okay…

My third ritual I’m going to suggest that will have a great, positive impact on your attitude, mindset, motivation, focus, personal power, productivity and ability for peak performance each day….

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3. Time Management & Work Engagement Tip
Prepare for EVERY DAY the Evening or Night Before…

…then let it go.

Things you want to prepare each night include:
• The single word or phrase that signifies your personal development goal for the day.
• Your daily activities and deliverables that are directly associated with your life passion and purpose.
• The personal and professional relationships you are going to develop and how.
• Anything else that’s of significant importance to you.

When you plan your days the evening before, you benefit in a number of ways:
• Direct your subconscious to create an optimal experience and results tomorrow.
• You’re far less likely to be distracted the next day.
• You’ll be more present, focused, productive and successful the next day.
• You will sleep better, because your subconscious has a clear direction for tomorrow. (This assumes you do “release them” and don’t go to sleep stressing over them).

Success Tips: Peak Performance Sleep

Peak performance sleep? Interesting. Not sure why my mind just grabbed that phrase, but, speaking as a person who has dealt with a significant sleep disorder, I kind of like the phrase peak performance sleep.

Do not let planning tomorrow tonight interfere with tonight’s sleep. THAT is NOT productive, constructive or useful. Quite the opposite.

Once you’ve planned out tomorrow, consciously let everything go (meditation being the ideal way) just before you go to sleep.

Don’t go to sleep in a worried state, agitated state or over-active mental state! Your nightly planning routine is designed to focus and limit stress and distractions, while optimizing you and your life. It is not meant to be a source of still more negativity in your life.

Going to sleep actively worrying about tomorrow’s stuff might very well disrupt your sleep. It also might prevent your subconscious and conscious brain from coming up with good solutions.

The Life of Abundance, Fulfillment and Prosperity

Those are my top three tips for peace, personal power, peak performance, productivity, positive attitude, positive mindset and success.

Cheers friends.

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