I ' m currently reading Small Is the New Big
By Seth Godin
I ' ve been a fan of Seth Godin for many years . If you don ' t know who he is , just Google " Seth " and he ' ll come up . That is how influential he has been in the world . Once I got past the weird cover ...( seriously this has got to be one of the worst covers ever )… I found myself really enjoying this book because much of the great advice is shared in small , bite-sized sections . Which is nice because I don ’ t always budget enough time to read and when I do I just manage to carve out 15-20 minutes .
Here are some of my notes so far :
ü Remarkable doesn ' t mean weird , cheap , expensive , big , or small . It ' s just something worth talking about . ü
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Figure out how to get every employee to understand that they are the marketing department .
Do what Southwest Airlines does : don ' t hire people with experience at another airline unless you ' re sure they can unlearn what they learned there .
As soon as a company gets successful , why does it cease to innovate ? How do the founders forget it was innovation that got them there ? They didn ' t succeed by worrying about doing the same old thing out of fear of criticism , but by being willing to take a risk and break the rules . Market leaders are afraid .
Successful innovators are more subject to harsh criticism .
Big Hairy Audacious goals restore your view of the future . Without a big hairy audacious goal , it ' s too easy to be distracted by momentary setbacks .
I ' ll keep sharing more of my highlights from some of the books I ’ m reading in future newsletters .
Forget the To-Do List
Time is the ultimate equalizer . We all have the same amount of physical time each day . Doesn ’ t matter who you are , we are all bound by the 24-hour clock .
Managing my daily productivity level is one of my greatest struggles as a business owner , but it is also one of my biggest strengths . I ’ m not naturally an organized person . My mind tends to want to jump around from one task to another and my day is full of interruptions , which doesn ’ t help .
I ’ ve been able to overcome a lot of these challenges by making a consistent effort to work on improving my productivity . I often re-read books on the subject every year and listen to podcasts and audio books in my car around this topic because I can instantly see my daily productivity go up when I take time to learn or remind myself about strategies to get the most out of my day .
If you have seen any kind of training regarding being more productive , I ’ m confident the advice you received included something about using To-Do Lists .
If you are not currently making lists of what you want to accomplish during the day , week , month , or year , then I agree with this advice . You need to have some sort of plan .
One lesson I ’ ve learned is that To-Do Lists are really depressing …
There is so much going on in business and life that I almost never complete the to-do list for the day or week , which kind of sucks . It often makes me feel like I can ’ t enjoy personal time with my family and guilty about taking time to exercise because I have important stuff on my list that isn ’ t finished yet .
This of course , leads to unhealthy habits of not spending enough quality time with loved ones and ultimately poor health .
THE SOLUTION : To-Do lists by themselves are just not the answer . The missing ingredient is pairing your list with your schedule . If it ’ s scheduled , it has a way better chance of getting done . It also helps you see when your To-Do lists are too big , which in turn will help you set more realistic expectations for your day and plan better for the week and month .
Designing a schedule that you can stick to is a topic for another day , but I would highly recommend you begin assigning specific times on your calendar for everything on your to-do list . By doing so I ’ m confident you ’ ll see an instant uptick in what you can accomplish with your limited time .
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