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The mark of the superior thinker is his or her ability to accurately predict the consequences of doing or not doing or not doing something. The potential consequences of any task or activity are the key determinants of how important a task really is to you and to your company.
Long time prospect is the most accurate single predictor of upward social and economic mobility in America. A long rime perspective turns out to be more important than family background, education, race, intelligence, connections or virtually any other single factor in determining your success in life and at work.
Your attitude toward time, your time horizon has an enormous impact on your behavior and your choices. People who take a long term view of their lives and careers always seem to make much better decisions about their time and activities than people how give very little thought to the future.
Successful people have a clear future orientation. They think five, ten and twenty years out into the future. They analysis their choices and behaviors in the present to make sure that what they are doing today is consistent with the long term future that they desire.
Make Better Decisions About Time
In your work, having a clear idea of what is really important to you in the long term males it much easier for you to make better decisions about your priorities in the short term.
By definition, something that is important has long-term potential consequences. Something that is unimportant has few or no long term potential consequences. Before starting on anything, you should always ask yourself. What are the potential consequences of doing or not doing this task.
The clearer you are about your future intentions, the greater influence that clarity will have on what you do in the moment. With a clear long term vision, you are much more capable of evaluating an activity in the present to ensure that it is consistent with where you truly want to end up.
Thank about the Long Term
Successful people are those who are willing to delay gratification and make sacrifices to the short term so that they can enjoy far greater rewards in the long terms. Unsuccessful people, on the other hand think more about short term pleasure and immediate gratification while giving little thought to the long term future.
Losers try to escape from their fears and drudgery with activities that are tension relieving. Winners are motivated by their desires toward activities that are goal achieving.
For example, coming into work earlier, reading regularly in your field, taking course to improve your skills and focusing on high value tasks in your work will all combine to have an enormous positive impact on your future. On the other hand, coming into work at the last moment, reading the newspaper, drinking coffee and socializing with your coworkers may seem fun and enjoyable in the short term but inevitably leads to lack of promotion, underachievement and frustration in long term.
If a task or activity has large potential positive consequence, make it a top priority and get started on it immediacy. If something can have large potential negative consequences if it is not done quickly and well that becomes a top priority as well.
Motivation requires motive. The grater the potential positive impact that an action or behavior of yours can have on your life, once you define it clearly, the more motivated you will be to overcome procrastination and get it done quickly.
Keep yourself focused and forward moving by continually starting and completing those takes that can make a major difference to you company and to your future.
The time is going to pass anyway. The only question is how you use it and where you are going to end up at the end of the weeks and months that pass. And where you end up is largely a matter of the amount of consideration you give the likely consequences of your actions in the short term.
Thinking continually about the potential consequences of your choices, decision and behaviors is one of the very best ways to determine your true priorities in your work and personal life.
Obey the Law of Forced Efficiency
There is never enough time to do everything but there is always enough time to do the most important thing. When you are running out of time and know that the consequences of not completing a key task or project can be really serous, you always seem to find the time to get it done, often at the very last minute. You start early, you stay late and you drive yourself to complete the job rather than face the unpleasantness that would follow if you did not complete it within the time limit.
The average person in business today, especially a manger in the age of cutback, is working at 110 to 130 percent of capacity. And the jobs and possibilities just keep piling up. We all have stack of reading material we still have to go through. Many people have hundreds of hours of reading and project backlogged at home and at the office.
What this means is that you will never be caught up. Get that wishful idea out of your mind. All you can hope for is to be on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.
Deadlines Are an Excuse
Many people say that they work better under the pressure of deadlines. Unfortunately, years of research indicate that this is seldom true.
Under the pressure of deadlines, often self-created through procrastination, people suffer greater stress, make more mistakes and have to redo more tasks than under any other conditions. Often the mistakes that people makes when working under tight deadlines lea to defects and cost overruns that cause substantial financial loses in the long tem. Sometimes a job actually takes much longer to complete when people rush to get it done at the last minute and then have to redo it.
It is much better to plan your time carefully in advance and the build a sizable buffer to compensate for unexpected delays and diversions. However much time you think a task will take add on another 20 percent or more an assurance. Or make a game of getting the job done well in advance of the deadline. You will be amazed at how much more relaxed you are and how much better a job you do when you are on top of your most important tasks.
