The most disruptive, derailing and productivity-killing force in our lives (continued from Success is Not What You DO) is information overload and your attention is under siege.

In our modern society we all are suffering from information overload… there are more than 2 billion emails sent every day. More than 75 million blog posts are published every day, and 500,000 new books and 400,000 scholarly journals are published each year. There are 18,000 magazines (ahem, although only one that counts) and in 2005 Google stopped counting Web pages when it reached 8 billion.

This has happened along with the explosion of highly competitive commercial media and marketing constantly vying for our attention. In 1992 we were hit with 2,000 marketing messages a week. Today it’s over 30,000—a 15X increase in less than 20 years… and growing.

And, if that is not enough, we have become an instant-access portal open to the world—not to just the occasional office visitor, or the ringing phone, but the constant deluge of rapid-fire email, text messages, RSS feeds, instant messaging, Twitter, Facebook and now mobile alerts.

I think technology has advanced faster than our human ability to manage it. The tail is definitely wagging the dog.

We end up living our lives like a pinball, bouncing from one thing to the next.

Tell me if this sounds familiar… The first thing you see on your desk in the morning is the computer screen staring at you with all the email messages that came in overnight. You start answering them and then the phone starts ringing, people start streaming into your office with questions and requests. You’re paying half attention to them because you’ve got two other screens in front of you telling you what’s going on in the markets and in the world as well as a deluge of new email stacking up. This goes on all day, one demand after another, split up only by meetings in which everyone spends half their time answering emails on their BlackBerry. You walk out of the office at 7 or 8 after 12 hours of so-called work and you literally cannot remember what you did all day… certainly nothing that really mattered to your big idea goals. Oh, and if you work from home multiply this times pi… the spouse, pets, the postman, the gardener, your kids, the neighbor, the laundry and dirty dishes, etc.

This most disruptive and destructive force is called DISTRACTION and it is constantly and unrelentingly killing our read more »

I wrote an article for Jeffrey Gitomer’s ezine recently in promotion of his SUCCESS Challenge on the SUCCESS Blog. It’s an article I think you will benefit from too.

I got into real estate when I was only 20 years old. I remember entering an office of 44 veteran agents who all had experienced track records and thick Rolodexes of past clients. One of them even called me a “naive snot-nosed kid” at one meeting.

That did it. I got pissed, and then I got even.

In 90 days I was outselling the entire office combined—with more listings and more escrow closings!

How did I do it?   read more »

[Index: INTRO, Step 1, 1b, 2, 3, 3b, 4, 5, 6, 6b, 7, 8, 9, 9b, 10, 10b, 11, 12]

Refueling the jets… Learning to Value Time Off

How does America regain its supremacy in the productive world? How do you improve your personal productivity?

ANSWER: Go on vacation.

438 million. That is the number of vacation days American’s failed to take in 2007 according to Harris Interactive research group. More than any other industrialized nation.

Here is the result: America ranks #1 in depression and mental health problems. Americans are experiencing burnout, reduced productivity, diminished creativity, failed relationships, stress or stress-related ailments such as depression, heart disease or stomach ulcers in record levels.

Our entrenched puritanical conditioning, being valued on how “hard” we work, fear of being replaced or left behind, and our addiction to always being “busy” are actually not only destroying our mental and physical health, but also destroying our creative productivity.

This is especially true in our new global economy where our advantage and future is as knowledge workers, not laborers. Our future, your future lies between your ears – your mind and your ability to think: creatively, innovatively and productively.

When you are working 80 hours a week, your mind gets cluttered and stale. Like a pressure cooker, if you don’t give your mind some time to clear some steam out, it will boil over causing the ailments above and loss of effectiveness and real productivity.

I am not suggesting you need to take a vacation to better “enjoy life,” “find your bliss” or have “life balance.”

I am telling you time off is an important component of hardcore achievement and productivity.

Benefits of taking time off:   read more »

[Index: INTRO, Step 1, 1b, 2, 3, 3b, 4, 5, 6, 6b, 7, 8, 9, 9b, 10, 10b, 11, 12]

The Secret of Success Compression

In a bygone era, which actually isn’t too long ago, you could only be reached by phone, mail or an in-person visit. If you had a task to complete, you could shut your door and have your calls held.

Today, we have dozens of communication access points and devices that are constantly interrupting our attention from our productive tasks—e-mail, faxes, texts, IMs, RSS feeds, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Flickr, YouTube, etc., etc., etc.

Have we just learned to diagnose attention deficit disorder (ADD), or has our modern culture produced it? My guess is the latter.

Even I struggle with keeping the blinders on.

Tell me if this doesn’t sound familiar…
I start working on a project, like writing my Publisher’s Letter. I come up with a George Washington reference that I need to verify, so I go to Google. It leads me to Wikipedia, and I find four other interesting Web links on the page. One of those leads me to a video on YouTube. Five clips later, I find a really inspirational one about Amelia Earhart, which I am now Twittering and adding a link to on Facebook. I answer some questions on Facebook, and then I see some other interesting Tweets, so I start down those rabbit holes. I tag a few things to read later on del.icio.us and send two e-mails to colleagues about something I found. Then I notice 20 new e-mails in my inbox that I begin replying to. One person calls me after getting my e-mail. Forty-five minutes later, I look up and can’t even remember what I was working on!

This can happen all daylong, even all weeklong. You are incredibly busy, you’re working long hours and you’re exhausted, but, ultimately, you really aren’t making any progress on your high-priority goals.

You have to take control and stay in control of your attention and focus.

I learned three techniques that help me stay focused and produce more in less time.

read more »

[Index: INTRO, Step 1, 1b, 2, 3, 3b, 4, 5, 6, 6b, 7, 8, 9, 9b, 10, 10b, 11, 12]

The Sharpening of Your Ax

Winning is determined by what happens before the game.

Discovering methods to achieve substantially more in your life—in the same or less time—is the purpose of this 12-step program. Each step offers solutions to do more with less effort and stress. In our current work culture, we create so many tasks that we end up in a constant state of doing without enough contemplation of what we are doing and how to do it more effectively.

I know some people who are constantly working, continually executing (and stressed and frazzled because of it), but at the end of a week, month or year, their results don’t end up being much, and they don’t seem to get better at what they do along the way.

Don’t let that person be you. In order to advance your life further, faster and with less time and effort, learn to plan and prepare.

Planning and preparation will give you a 10-times greater chance to achieve your goals. It will reduce wasted time and effort, while improving and maximizing results.

“Before everything else, getting ready is the secret to success.” —Henry Ford

Planning

The book Learning to Think Strategically explains how read more »