A Magical Question
Elizabeth Gardner has a great take on how we can focus on the 20% of our activities that produce 80% of our results. We're all busy, usually with easy stuff, generally with the urgent rather than the important, and Ms. Gardner provides us with a compass that takes one to Treasure Island if followed. This is a question that is really a BS Detector. It shows clearly which activities get results.
Make a list of the activities that you're involved in every day, and ask the following question about each of these activities to label it either 20% or 80%. Naturally, you want as many 20% activities as you can get, and that is where you should concentrate your efforts and resources. Here is the question: "If I only did THIS over and over, would my bank account grow?" Simple, yet profound.
Many of our activities are safely in our comfort zone: cleaning the old computer, shooting the breeze with some loser who will never produce anything, and calling it a "business meeting", doing things you could outsource or delegate or ignore, avoiding confrontation, and making excuses that nobody believes anyway. When you have identified the 20% money-making activities (dare I call them DollarMakers?) you should discipline yourself to do them every day. The best way to do this is to make a daily schedule / measurable Goals List that incorporates the 20% activities.
In sales, I say, "Belly to belly - anything else is smelly" Asking someone to buy your product or service is a 20% activity. It will get results. Asking this question makes you think, makes it easy to make the right decisions, and makes you rich. Discipline yourself to do the right thing, and if you do what others don't, you'll have what others won't. "If I only did THIS over and over, would my bank account grow?"
Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com
Make a list of the activities that you're involved in every day, and ask the following question about each of these activities to label it either 20% or 80%. Naturally, you want as many 20% activities as you can get, and that is where you should concentrate your efforts and resources. Here is the question: "If I only did THIS over and over, would my bank account grow?" Simple, yet profound.
Many of our activities are safely in our comfort zone: cleaning the old computer, shooting the breeze with some loser who will never produce anything, and calling it a "business meeting", doing things you could outsource or delegate or ignore, avoiding confrontation, and making excuses that nobody believes anyway. When you have identified the 20% money-making activities (dare I call them DollarMakers?) you should discipline yourself to do them every day. The best way to do this is to make a daily schedule / measurable Goals List that incorporates the 20% activities.
In sales, I say, "Belly to belly - anything else is smelly" Asking someone to buy your product or service is a 20% activity. It will get results. Asking this question makes you think, makes it easy to make the right decisions, and makes you rich. Discipline yourself to do the right thing, and if you do what others don't, you'll have what others won't. "If I only did THIS over and over, would my bank account grow?"
Robin J. Elliott www.DollarMakers.com
posted by Robin J. Elliott at
8:55 AM
