Tag: delegate

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Cultivate The Daily Habit of Asking for Help

Emulating what rich folks do isn’t always best for people who want to live a principled and moral life. However, you can learn how to give yourself an advantage by studying what rich people do differently from what poor people do. When morality and reality collide, it’s a sign that the habit is one that you need to incorporate into your daily life.

 

One super clear thing is that rich people are not afraid to ask for help. Of course, many rich people do not even realize how much support they get, but let’s think about this and then let’s find ways to cultivate the habit of asking for help in your life that is both moral and enriching.

 

Do Not Trade Hours for Dollars

 

While most people you hire will often provide an hourly rate, when you get paid for something, don’t charge by the hour. Instead, figure out what the value of the service is to the recipient and charge what the market will allow. A lot goes into being able to offer the service such as education, experience, connections, and so forth that differentiates you from the next person.

 

Perception, time, education, experience (and so forth) is the reason someone like Bill Gates can command a year’s average salary for a short speech, or a surgeon can charge six figures for an 8-hour procedure – it’s not just about the time. Never has been, but it’s something often taught to the average person to justify low wages.

 

Delegate To Willing Family Members

 

I don’t mean to be stereotypical so if I’m wrong, let me know in the comments, but this advice will probably resonate most with the women. Men are really good at delegating tasks to family members despite their net worth. Women are not as good at doing that, although the habit, according to research, is more prevalent in higher-income earners.

 

We can argue about it, but the best course of action is to think about and narrow it down to only considering what you can control and what you cannot control. You can only control your actions and reactions to things. You can’t control someone else at all. So, if you are feeling resentful in any way against your family because you feel like you are taking on too much work at home, speak up and start delegating just like other confident people do.

 

Outsource To Experts

 

When money is not a concern, the things you spend your money on are different than when you are struggling. Those who are struggling tend to spend more on housing, healthcare, and food, while those in higher tax brackets spend more on experiences and downtime than the necessities of life. However, even so, they are more productive, and this is because they aren’t afraid to outsource to experts to let them do what they do, giving them more free time to have amazing mind-opening experiences. Of course, having time to experience more fun and joy increases their perception of happiness. Set income benchmarks that signal time to outsource all the things you don’t need to be doing to meet those goals and beyond.

 

If you don’t like doing something, stop doing it. Don’t be ashamed of not wanting to clean your own toilet. There is someone out there who values their toilet cleaning skill and who wants nothing more than to be paid good money to clean your bathroom. The same can be said about literally anything in life. If you like doing it, keep doing it. If you don’t like doing it, stop doing it and find someone willing to trade something with you to do it, either money or something else of value.

 

How to Outsource to Save You More Time

 

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Schedule Your Daily Activities Based on Your Goals

Developing daily habits that drive success sounds complicated, but the truth is, when you break down your actions based on what you want to achieve and then distribute that action realistically into your daily to-do list, success will start to feel almost automatic.

 

Turn Daily Planning into a Habit

 

Every morning first thing, it’s important to take a look at the to-do list that has been created based on the goals you’ve set at other times. Putting the actions, you need to do in order of importance and based on today’s reality is important to help avoid any roadblocks to achieving the goals you’ve set.

 

This type of planning should only take about five minutes and consist of simply opening your scheduling method, whether it’s paper or digital, and double-checking the schedule for any bottlenecks or issues. You can then rearrange things on the fly to ensure ease of success.

 

All To-Do Lists Need to Be Goal-Based

 

If something made it to your to-do list, it needs to be based on the goals you’ve set for yourself. For instance, if you have the goal of losing 50 pounds by a certain date today in your calendar, you might include your daily calorie limit, your daily moving goals, and your hydration goals.

 

If it’s related to a deliverable for work such as getting 10,000 edited words to your book editor by a certain date, then you know simply by looking at the schedule because you’ve set aside the time to devote to the future goal. It’s all on the to-do list.

 

Break It All Down into Small Micro Tasks

 

When you have the deliverable or result that you want described in great detail as part of your SMART goal-setting process, and it is easier to break down each goal into smaller micro-tasks resulting in your to-do list for today.

 

Consider Your Week, Months, and Years as a Whole

 

When you do your daily planning, you’ll also want to schedule weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly planning to help you get a big picture look at all the balls you have in the air. These longer times for planning should be scheduled to ensure that you don’t have bottlenecks and are taking control of the things you have control over.

 

Schedule Everything

 

Remember, you want to automatically schedule the work and actions you need to develop your goals and objectives. But don’t just focus on one aspect of your life.

 

Instead, you want to schedule everything in regarding everything to do with your life, whether it’s time with friends, which will be part of your long-term goals of building strong relationships, or 45 minutes of fast walking because that’s part of your long-term goal to stay healthy – taking the time to schedule every action you will take will assist in building daily habits that lead to success.

 

Have No More Than 3 Daily Priorities

 

While you will schedule everything, even if it’s a nap break, you want to only put up to three things as your daily priority. Setting daily priorities should only happen the week that you’re looking at the schedule and perfecting it. The main reason is you cannot know what a priority will be for next Monday if you don’t know that your spouse will be sick.

 

Try Different Productivity Methods

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Part of creating a schedule and making it work is learning how to be more productive and get things done. Everyone has a sworn-by method. The best thing is to experiment with other methods. Try a new one each 30 days until something sticks with you.

 

Some methods to try include the Pomodoro Technique, Block Scheduling, and the Eisenhower Matrix.

 

Use The Right Planning Tools

 

It doesn’t matter if your chosen planning tools are paper or digital as long as you use the tool and work for you. Try different tools. Some people swear by Google Calendar, and others hate it.

 

Finally, eliminate distractions so that you stick to the schedule you have ended up with each day. Technically if your daily activities are organized first based on your long-term and short-term goals, then each day, the actions you take will be impactful, trackable, and 100 percent within your own control to do or not do.

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Developing The Habit of Doing

Whenever you set up your schedule, there may be things you put on your schedule that you don’t want to do, or try to avoid doing, which can lead to procrastination and other problems. If you want to stop allowing this to happen, there are some strategies you can put in place that help you develop the habit of doing.

 

Schedule Everything

 

How you arrange your calendar makes all the difference. Most people only put work and appointments in their calendars. Put everything you want to do in your calendar, from lunch with your spouse to ladies’ night out with friends to a picnic with your daughter. If you’re going to get it done, it has to be in the schedule, or it won’t happen.

 

Schedule Properly

 

When you do create your schedule, it’s not going to help to list the things you want to do without knowing how long you’ll take, where you’ll do it, how you’ll do it, and more. This requires research. Scheduling properly includes considering the real amount of time you will take and where and how you’ll do it.

 

Understand That Perfection Does Not Exist

 

Sometimes putting something off is done to save face. You think that you’re not good at doing it, so you put it off. The thing is, no one is perfect. As long as you do things according to directions, the best you can do is better than not done but done never means perfect.

 

Results Matter More Than Intention

 

You mean to do the thing. Truly really mean to. Then fail anyway. But if you didn’t do it when you said you would, whether you told yourself or someone else, you’re going to feel guilty. Why put yourself in a position of guilt to start with? If something is that bad, and you can do it, outsource it. Until then, just do it.

 

Do It for Two Minutes

 

Sometimes all you really need is to get started. If you’ve done a good job with your schedule, it’s not going to be that hard for you to use rote memorization to get going and get started. You don’t even need to assign a feeling to it. Just start doing it for two minutes, and if you still don’t want to do it after that, you can stop.

 

Plan For Breaks

Scheduling to Avoid Burnout: Learn to Take More Breaks

When you are doing anything that you dislike doing, don’t torture yourself. Yes, get it done as soon as possible according to your needs but don’t make yourself do the thing you hate for 8 hours when it’s not necessary. Plan for breaks and try to give yourself incentives along the way.

 

The fact is, whenever you need to get something done, simply doing it will take less time and cause less stress than all the gymnastics most people do when they try to avoid something. If you just get it done, you’ll be able to move on. Make this a habit by creating better schedules and then just getting it done. After all, if it’s running through your mind, it’s taking up space that can be used in a much more creative way if you just finish it.

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Learning to Say Yes or No: Always Ask If What You Are Doing Is Really Worth It or Not

One bit of advice that most life coaches will give you regarding living a more balanced life is that you need to say no more often. But sometimes, they aren’t that clear on how you decide if something is a no or a yes. One way to do better than saying no is to learn how to say yes, the right way. Once you learn how to say yes, the right way, it’ll become a habit, and saying no will never be difficult again.

Why Your To-Do Lists Are Failing You

  • Tell Them You’ll Answer by a Certain Time – When anyone asks you to do something unless it’s an enthusiastic “hell yeah,” don’t say yes or no immediately. Tell the person you’ll get back to them by a certain deadline to give them an answer. This gives you time to ensure you really want to do it or not.

 

  • Check Your Schedule – Think about what it will take to do what you are being asked to do. Will you even have enough time? Even if you want to do it and don’t have the time, it might be best to say no.

 

  • Will It Be Worth It? – When you think of the results of doing what is being asked of you, what will be the positive results from it? Is it worth everything else that has to be done to lead up to that moment?

 

  • Does It Fit in With Your Overall Mission in Life or Work? – Sometimes, people ask things of us that no longer fit our life mission. If you know your own principles, morals, values, and what you’re striving to achieve, it will be a lot easier for you to figure out if the ask fits in with your life mission or work before you say yes.

 

  • Will You Have to Give Up Something to Do It? – There is always an opportunity cost for everything you do or don’t do. Try to figure out what it will cost you if you do it versus the cost if you don’t do it.

 

  • What Are the Negatives to Saying No? – Make a list of what will happen when you say no. Then, beside each action that may happen, record what response you will offer? Sometimes asking about what the “worst” thing that can happen given this decision can help.

 

  • What Are the Negatives to saying Yes? – Just like you may miss something when you say no, you may also miss something else when you say yes. Consider the effects of saying yes and how that might look, and what problems might result.

 

When you take the time to hash out each ask, you’ll end up saying yes or no with purpose.

Saying no just to say no isn’t going to be helpful to you in your life but saying yes with purpose – which sometimes will lead to a no instead of a yes – no matter how much you think you want to say yes – can really pay off.

Being purposeful with your answers, even when it’s yes, will make you feel more motivated to do things when you say yes.

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Spend Two Minutes Each Day Unconnected and With Only Yourself and Your Thoughts

Even if you work hard at disconnecting from your notifications and only checking the news twice a day, it’s still important to intentionally disconnect with the world and focus on yourself and your own thoughts each day.

 

How do you really feel about the project you just completed?

 

How do you really feel about what’s going on with your daughter?

 

The way you feel about something may not be clear when clouded by other people’s thoughts and emotions or distractions from the world.

 

Your thoughts build your reality, and your mind – both conscious and subconscious – is what creates your thoughts. You are in charge of what you allow into your mind based on what you read, consume, and whom you surround yourself with, and the sources you choose in which to educate yourself. It’s all up to you.

 

Most thoughts are subconscious and not something you are aware of at all times. This is mostly because you cannot actually think of more than one thing at a time, so thoughts will pop in and out of your mind depending on what you are doing but mostly just go on without your realizing it.

 

For this reason, you must create the habit of tuning out of the world and into your mind at least once a day. You only have to do this for about two minutes a day. It helps if you choose one thing to focus on at a time.

 

To accomplish this, it’ll be best to tie this mindfulness with something else that you need to do, like make the bed. Making the bed will only take you a couple of minutes, and you can combine it with mindful thought. For example, after you’ve made the bed, you can sit on top of it and meditate and think for two minutes before going on with your day as part of your morning ritual.

 

But, since it’s only two minutes, you can literally do this any time you can be alone during the day or night. Turn off any notifications and eliminate any way that you’re likely to be interrupted. Finally, allow your mind to wander and think about all the things you ignore the rest of the time.

 

The good news is that more self-aware people are generally also more empathetic. They know how to notice their own emotional or knowledge blind spots, aren’t afraid to ask for and receive constructive feedback, and are very curious to delve into their own minds and get to know how they are more just as much as they are interested in knowing those who are around them by demonstrating that through their heightened ability to listen more than they talk.

Disconnect Yourself from Distractions and Notifications

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Daily Organizational Habit: Make Your Bed Each Morning

Developing daily habits that take care of your environment keeping it uncluttered is useful for multiple reasons. One, because your home and office will generally be cleaner if you’re committed to daily organization, but secondly because the action creates a transition for your day that can trigger more good behavior all day long, thus increasing your happiness and satisfaction level.

 

  • The Action Creates Transition in Your Mind – When you take the time to clean your room in the morning and make your bed, the action will serve to give you a little more of a wake-up than just leaving the bed messy.

 

  • You’ll Feel Accomplished – The ten minutes it takes to make your bed well will also make you feel more accomplished, and when you start your day feeling like you’re succeeding, it sets you up for even more success.

 

  • Productivity Will Increase for The Day – When you do something productive right away, the feel-good hormones will take over a bit, thus helping motivate you to do even more useful stuff the rest of the day.

 

  • Less Clutter and Mess Means Less Stress – Science has already proven that no one thrives in a cluttered environment. While we can debate what constitutes clutter and disorganization, if it feels organized to you and less messy, it’ll serve the same effect of making you feel less stressed.

 

  • Everything Will Become Cleaner – When you start cleaning things for five or ten minutes at a time, like with bed making, it’s just natural that you’re going to clean other things around the bed. You’re going to put your night clothing away, put anything dirty in the hamper, and probably even notice the dust building on your headboard sooner than if you did not make your bed daily.

 

  • Bedmaking Gives a Reason to Perform Useful Body Movements – Many people are worried about exercising, but some of your workouts can be completed by doing housework. It’s good for your body to stretch to make your bed and bend and pull to get the sheets on. It’s a great two-minute morning workout to wake you up and get the blood pumping that serves dual purposes.

 

  • The Habit Starts a Pattern of More Good Habits – Human nature is such that when you make good choices, more good choices seem to come easy, but when you make one choice, your brain deems ‘bad’ it’s harder to get back on the horse. Start your day positively, and you set yourself up for more positivity.

 

  • Your Home Should Be Your Retreat – So often, especially if you have to work a full-time job under someone else’s hours and rules, we forget that our home is supposed to be our safe place to fall and let it get disorganized and even dirty. But if you want to feel better about yourself and your life, no matter what type of home you live in now, organize it and keep it clean, and you’re going to feel better about everything.

 

To make it more fun to make your bed each morning, make your bedroom a retreat from the world. Invest in the best bedding and mattress you can afford to buy and make it beautiful and comfortable according to your desires and needs. You shouldn’t need to go to a hotel to have an amazing sleeping experience, and making your bed is just part of that effort that will improve your life in amazing ways.

Organization Is A Daily Requirement

 

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Daily Mood-Boosting Habit: Watch the News and All Media Less

Due to cable news and political personality shows both on cable and off cable, it’s possible to be hyper-aware of what’s happening all over the planet at any given moment, and what’s worse, you can get notified about it as it happens.

 

The problem with this isn’t that you’re informed but that the information is repeated so often that it starts feeling overwhelming. We either start tuning it out, or we start feeling anxious about all the horrible stuff going on.

news

The truth is, you really only need to watch the actual news twice a day, once in the morning to inform you about what happened while you slept and once in the evening to inform you of what happened while you worked. That’s it. As far as the rest of the media goes, spending less time in front of screens improves all aspects of your life.

 

  • Sitting is Bad for Your Health – Watching TV or screens all the time contributes to obesity, and not just from sitting, but the constant bombardment of information you receive causes you to eat more unhealthy food and drink less water. That, combined with not moving, is a recipe for disaster.

 

  • Television and Screens Distract from Real Life – You have real people in your life that want and need to do real stuff. Watching everyone else do fun stuff is no way to live. Sure, movies are great for bad weather days, sick days, and broke days – but spending your life watching this media should not be your way of life. Ending the habit now and doing more real-life and less observing fake people living life will make all the difference to your success.

 

  • TV is Expensive – Some people are spending 100’s of dollars every month on cable TV and other streaming options just to watch other people do pretend things or even watch reality TV. There is a place for this in society, of course, not everyone can travel so it’s cathartic to watch Travel TV sometimes, but it can be very expensive to pay for all that TV and the equipment to watch it.

 

  • Screens Ruin Intimacy – Numerous studies show that having a TV or screens in the bedroom can ruin your sex life, with couples who have a TV in their room reporting having sex less than half the time of their non-television and screen in the bedroom counterparts.

Finally, watching too much television and talking heads can affect your worldview in a bad way. Remember, the media, as are most movies and TV shows, whether streaming or not, are sensationalized to attract attention and get more views. You may start seeing the world in a way that isn’t realistic or even close to reality simply by feeding your mind with too much of this type of shocking information designed to persuade you and not merely inform you.

 

Write Down 3 Things You’re Grateful for Each Day

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Learn and Practice the Philosophy of Stoicism

There is no way for you to learn everything you need to know about this life philosophy from one blog post or article. However, if you’ve never even heard of the idea, just being exposed to this idea and what it really means can help you live a better and more successful life.

 

Live a Good Life of Virtue and Good Character

 

Firstly, a stoic believes that living a life of virtue and good character is the answer to living a happy and fulfilled life. To live this type of lifestyle, it takes introspection and an understanding of your own personal values, principles, morals, and willingness to live them.

 

You Are Responsible for Yourself

Are You Really Being Accountable?

 

Secondly, a stoic believes it’s within your power to be who you are and who you want to be and that you are fully 100 percent responsible for your own life and how you feel about it, but you cannot control what you cannot control. Therefore, a stoic will focus on controlling what is controllable.

 

Want Less Experience More

 

Thirdly, a stoic puts more stock in having experiences and learning new things over having more stuff or buying the most popular thing. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a minimalist, but they don’t just buy things for no reason or status purposes and actively focus on wanting less.

 

Accepting of Reality

 

Finally, stoics understand that they will not live forever. They are accepting that they’ll die at some point and live their life with that in mind. For example, if statistics show that walking fast 45 minutes a day extends life, and the stoic can make that happen because they have legs and the time to walk, they’re going to do it without struggling about the why or what-ifs surrounding the stats.

 

If you’re not sure who you are yet, or how you want people to think of you after you’re gone, take the time to discover who you are and how to become the person you want to be. If you are often considering the legacy you’re going to leave behind, it’s a lot easier to make the right choices when you have an options. Suppose you are fully accepting that you control your own reactions to the things that happen to you and not the other way around. In that case, it becomes a lot easier to make good choices minding your own personal ideals over what other people might think about it right now.

 

You can learn more about stoicism by reading books about philosophy like:

 

 

 

But you can also join groups about stoicism on Reddit, Facebook, and other social media sites that offer communities. There are also many useful YouTube videos about the philosophy of stoicism that you can get a lot out of.

 

 

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Daily Habit to End Clutter: Throw Stuff Away

The daily habit of getting rid of things you’re not going to use will help you cut down on clutter, ensure you think twice before buying something new, and make you feel light and free. Holding on to old stuff just because you hate to get rid of it is just clogging up your home with dust magnets, making your office look cluttered, and it might even be causing brain fog which cuts down on your productivity.

communication

It really doesn’t matter what any guru or so-called expert says, if your 1000 book collection brings you joy, even though you have to dust it, and you rarely read the books again – it’s not wrong to keep them. However, don’t let an illogical attachment to stuff keep you trapped in an environment that is not conducive to reaching the goals you’ve set for yourself.

 

So, if you read this title and thought, “Not another lecture on minimalism,” don’t worry, it’s not. In many ways, the ability to even call oneself a minimalist is pretty privileged to start with, and minimize is really in the eye of the beholder. This is more about keeping your spaces less cluttered and doing it by simply making it a habit to clean up right away. Practice throwing away, giving away, and ending clutter on a schedule to help turn it into a habit.

 

  • Set Up a System – Everyone has paperwork and mail coming in. The best way to handle this is to set up a system. Try only to touch the paperwork once. Get the mail, open it by the trash and organize each piece. Every year when you do taxes, toss out the tax year that no longer needs to be saved per your accountant’s advice.

 

  • Trash, Process, or File – If you got a medical bill you need to pay, process it, and file it. If you got a letter from your congress person, you could throw it away; if you got a letter from the IRS and there is no need to do something, file it. The idea is when you do what needs to be done immediately, you have less clutter around.

 

  • Get Rid of Those Clothes – If you have clothing you’ve not worn for a season, socks with holes, and other things you never use, don’t save them. All they are doing is attracting dust and taking up space. Make this easy by keeping a donate bag in your closet that you fill over time and donate when full.

 

  • Throw Away Old Electronics – You may need to find a safe way to dispose of these through your city offices, but there is no reason to keep old electronics forever collecting dust and taking up space. Instead, find a place to donate them and make it a habit to do so yearly.

 

Keeping these things causes dust and clutter in your home or office, but studies show that physical clutter in your space causes anxiety and even depression. People who keep their environment less cluttered tend to get more done and report feeling more successful. You don’t have to be perfect but make it a habit to toss things you’re not using every single day.

 

Stay More Focused with These Five Simple Steps

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Write Down 3 Things You’re Grateful for Each Day

One of the very first habits it’s important to incorporate into your daily life if you want to be happy and feel successful is the habit of gratitude. Being grateful is more than looking on the bright side. It’s actually about being realistic about what is good in your life.

I am Grateful

To record your gratitude, use whatever method works best for you, whether it’s to email yourself, using a paper diary, or some other method. The important thing is that you acknowledge in a way that can be tracked at least three things you’re grateful for so that you can look back on it and measure how far you’ve come.

Tips to Help You Practice Positive Thinking

Plus, there are many benefits to appreciation outside of a good mindset.

 

  • You’ll Feel Happier – The saying about what you focus on grows is very true, especially when your focus is on something positive about your life. When you can see the good in your life as it’s happening, you’ll be much more likely to be able to do it again.

 

  • You’ll Be More Satisfied with Your Life – It’s so easy to focus on things when they go wrong. You missed your alarm clock, you got caught in the rain, you spilled food on your new shirt – all seem like bad things until you realize oversleeping enabled you to cuddle with your spouse longer, the rain cooled you down after lunch, and you only spilled the food because you were laughing with your best friend.

 

  • You’ll Become Less Materialistic – When you focus on the positive, it becomes clear that it’s not things that make you happy or successful – it’s experiences. As you realize that your life becomes so much richer and then, of course, you feel more comfortable and experience your life as successful.

 

  • You’ll Be Less Likely to Suffer from Burnout – If you’re aware of yourself and stay mindful, you can avoid experiencing burnout in the first place. Taking the time to record your gratitude lets you concentrate on the good parts, which can calm you down and let you place your focus where it belongs.

 

  • You’ll Experience Better Physical Health – People who can turn their focus to what’s good in their life are more likely to exercise, eat right, and stay mindful about their health.

 

  • You’ll Sleep Better Every Night – Getting everything out on paper before bed is a great time to focus on gratitude. You’ll fall asleep faster as your good mood will result in reduced anxiety.

 

  • You’ll Feel Less Fatigue – When you sleep better at night due to less anxiety, you’re naturally going to feel more well-rested and sharp during the day.

 

  • You’ll Feel Healthier Due to Suffering from Less Inflammation – Sleeping better and being less anxious has great effects in a positive direction on body-wide information thought to be one of the driving factors in disease.

 

  • You’ll Be More Mentally Resilient – Not having your mind clouded with all the negativity of the day is going to help you bounce back when things do go wrong. When you can turn your brain toward what’s good about something, you can usually get back on the path faster.

 

  • You’ll Be More Patient – Not being on edge due to anxiety and bad thoughts will also increase your patients with others and yourself too. After all, there is often something good you can take from almost everything, eventually.

 

  • You’ll Have Better and More Solid Relationships – People like being around those who are more positive than they do people who are always on edge and anxious. If you really want to build strong relationships, focus on the positive more.

 

As you can see, being grateful carries many benefits that will make your entire life better. No one is asking you to be thankful for a bad situation, especially something beyond your control, but you need to look at what is working in your life, analyze why that is working, and then do more of that. The best way to do that is to look for things to be grateful for each and every day.