HOW SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE FOCUS: Just Know Why do you do what you do?
DEVELOP A SUSTAINABLE SYSTEM; BEAT PROCRASTINATION; ENJOY WHAT YOU DO
As an entrepreneur, It is not always easy to live a productive life and therefore, you must develop a sustainable system to build your life, career and business on. If you want to climb the corporate ladder, you therefore have to form alliances, be strategic, outperform your targets and be great at what you do.
Many people will tell you that there is something called “Secret to succeeding in work!” Behold, there are only two strategies that need to be well formulated:
- Don’t escape work!
- Don’t procrastinate!
If you do away with these two, then, you will live a productive, happy and purposeful life.
As humans, we much tend to rely on willpower to complete a particular task especially when we are under pressure and bound by timelines. Dianne Tice and Roy Baumeister after a study, quoted: “The present evidence suggests that procrastinators enjoy themselves rather than working at assigned tasks, until the rising pressure of imminent deadlines forces them to get to work. In this view, procrastination may derive from a lack of self-regulation and hence a dependency on externally imposed forces to motivate work.”
They drew their conclusion after a study of how students enjoy their early semester in campus and end up stressing towards the end of the semester as they prepared for their final tests. They therefore concluded that “Will Power Doesn’t Work. Systems Do”
We can therefore conclude that freedom is an enemy and we can out-do it by coming up with routine frameworks and systems. The checks for a productive system must go hand in hand with productivity tactics as summarized in the table below.
| PRODUCTIVITY TACTICS | PRODUCTIVITY SYSTEM | |
| 1. | Self-imposed deadlines | Creates urgency |
| 2. | Accountability systems- a friend or a coach | Creates responsibility |
| 3. | Working/ studying in intervals | Improves your focus |
| 4. | Exercising 30 minutes a day | Gives you more energy |
| 5. | A healthy diet | Gives you more energy |
| 6. | Eliminating distractions | Takes away temptations |
| 7. | MOST IMPORTANTLY: Internal motivation |
It is important to note that there is no system that can help you if you don’t have an inner drive. People more often than not overcomplicate this system, but it’s this simple: “Why do you do what you do?”
If you don’t know what you do and why you do something, then, make up something! Those who know why they do what they do, they have a room to bear even the most annoying tasks.
In a jiffy, DON’T DIVE INTO WORK; think about why you do what you do; then rely on a system that supports that. This is no rocket science!
