The Deadline Motivator

 

Have you ever noticed how you tend to get very organized and efficient, getting tons of stuff done, when you are preparing to go on a trip? It doesn’t matter if it’s a vacation or a business trip—just any kind of travel with a set time to leave will get you moving. Why does this happen? Because if we are going to catch a plane or train or we have an appointment that absolutely must be kept, then that deadline will drive us and focus us. This teaches us that deadlines can be a very good thing. They push us to be more organized and efficient and get so much more done than we probably even thought we could.

That thought hit me pretty hard the other day as I was hurrying around getting so much done since we were flying out of Kauai on our way back to our Salt Lake City home. Good ole Delta Airlines set a 10 p.m. deadline for me the next day and I had to get a whole list of things done so we could get out on time and not miss our flight. I feel the pressure of this deadline even though I do have a special deal with Delta which is if I am not there on time they can leave without me! Oh, I know you probably have the same deal, ho ho! So, wow, was I ever getting a ton of things done and, for all the pressure that it caused, it also made me feel very good about myself and my life because I was really pushing myself.

I have always thought that setting deadlines is a very good thing since they push us humans to be more productive. Deadlines can and should be used in many parts of our lives. I sure have found that my setting deadlines for certain financial goals was a huge key to my wealth building.

I have found that setting deadlines for health also has been very helpful. If we decide to do a fast or start a workout program and do not set a day and time deadline to accomplish them, there is a very good chance that we will not get very far with those goals.

I guess if you and I lived forever, or even for 500 years, deadlines would not be important or at least not very important. But I did hear a rumor that everyone of us is going to die, so hey, if you want to be more productive, more successful, and live a full life, you better get started now. Set some goals and attach good solid deadlines to get them done. Maybe pretend that you are going to Europe and just cannot miss your flight! And yes, of course, you must write those goals and deadlines down and review and revisit the promises that you made to yourself and stay on target! Because you don’t want to miss your deadline!

 

 

Big Buried Secrets

Ok … so do you want some sure-fire ways to help you set big goals (and/or small goals) and be able to stick with them until you succeed? Well, they are out there just waiting for you. I’m going call these methods ‘secrets’ although as you read some of these you may say ‘Hey, I already know that one!’ so for you it’s really not a secret.  Right?  Well, you may be right and it may not be something new to you but if you are not doing it, then maybe it really should be labelled a ‘secret’. A secret you are keeping from yourself.

For example, you probably have heard the first two secrets I have for you. But do you do them?

No. 1: You must write your goal down! There is a kind of magic that happens in our brains when we make a printed record of specifically what we want to accomplish. It makes it more real to us and we feel obliged to follow through. Just because they’re written down.

No. 2: Be sure to put a deadline or time limit on your goal and write that down too.  Without a deadline, you can put off forever the tasks that will move you forward and then you’ll never get close to that goal. Knowing you have a deadline gives you a kind of mini-goal and something to aim for.

Does that sound familiar? Sound like great advice? Yes? Well … do you always employ them?

How about ‘secrets’ that some people might be aware of but don’t spend enough time doing?

No. 3: Take time to carefully visualize your goal with as much detail as you can imagine.  That visualization should also include an image in your mind of actually accomplishing your goal. Think about how you are going to feel when you arrive at your journey’s end. Run it though your brain numerous times until it feels real.

No. 4: Tell other people about what you have set out to do.  Ideally tell people who care about you and understand and appreciate what you’re aiming for. Ask these people to remind you, encourage you and cheer you on as you make progress towards your goals.

This fourth step can be a huge help.  Even if they don’t ask how you are doing or give words of encouragement every time they see you, your seeing them will often remind you that they know what you are shooting for and you certainly don’t want to disappoint them, not to mention failing yourself, of course.

So I am guessing that, for a lot of you, these tips aren’t new ideas but if you aren’t doing them, they might as well be deeply buried secrets. They are all simple to do, take very little effort, and can increase your ability to persevere and reach those goals, both big and small! So dig these back up and use them! It’s your own little gold mine you can use to pave your way to all kinds of success.

There is even more good news … those are not the only ‘secrets’ out there. Next week, I will talk about more tried and true secrets to making your goals a reality. Get yourself a head start by writing down, setting a deadline for, visualizing and telling others about your goal. Because the biggest secret is that you can’t get what you want without going for it!

 

 

The Power of Unchangeable Deadlines

Here I am sitting in the Los Angeles on the way to Kauai. I know poor us, right? But what a day! Got up early to bury a rattle snake, fix a broken sprinkler pipe, negotiate the multi-million dollar sale of a property that I’ve been wanting to sell off, pick up the paperwork, write emails to the office and others, do a last check on the swimming pool motor, double check to make sure we have enough gas to make it to the airport, get packed for our trip, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  It was quite a morning but so much better than the day before with all the stress and worry about the tight schedule we had today.  But why had I been so stressed?

Well, it’s simple. Before we have a big day planned, whether it’s a trip, a big event or a similar massive change from what we usually do, most of us are filled with stress over the great unknown outcome of all we have to do. When we get going on all the tasks that need to be done, then the stress starts to go away because we are so involved with the ‘doing’.  What’s so amazing to me is that most of us humans can and do get so focused and determined to get these time sensitive and necessary jobs done that we can and do manage to get tons more done than on a normal day. We can amaze ourselves at the efficiency and effectiveness with which we get things done.

I am pretty sure you have, in the past, experienced the same thing as I did these last two days.  I’m so impressed how efficient I can become if I have absolute deadlines that I have to meet. You know, like an airline departure time that won’t wait for me.

I guess we can say that one of the great powers of goal setting is in its time limits. In this case, it’s time limits that are set by others, time frames that can’t and won’t be changed for us.  And that’s probably a good thing.  The problem we have when we set goals for ourselves, whether they are physical, family, health or wealth goals, is that we can cop out and change those goals along the way.  If we can somehow set those goals in real, immovable ways, kind of like an airline flight

Think about that and see if you can come up with a plan or a method that might create for you a deadline that you won’t think about changing or that really is absolutely unchangeable so you can’t even begin to think about not hitting your goal! What would do that for you?

 

The One ‘Dead’ Thing That Makes You LIVE More LIFE!

Most of us when we hear the word “dead” we automatically think it’s something real bad, and many if not most of the time it is just that. But there is one use of the word “dead” when applied to your life that can and does add much more ‘life to living’; that is when it’s linked with the word ‘line’, as in the word ‘deadline’.

The origin of the word deadline is very interesting. It came about during the civil war when prisoners were surrounded by barriers or sometimes just simple lines drawn in the dirt. If a prisoner crossed over these, the guards we under orders to shoot them dead! These boundaries were called deadlines.

Now deadlines are used to make the world a more organized and efficient place. They force us to push ourselves a little bit harder to do more and be more. Think about this: If none of us ever died then we probably  would not even have a clue why anyone would want to set time limits or deadlines on themselves, since time would not be much of a consideration or may not even seem to exist, at least when wanting to get things done.  Why? Because we’d never run out of it.

But, of course we all have a limited amount of this thing we call time (remember, the average person lives less than 30,000 days or 720,000 hours) so it’s important to use it wisely and efficiently. Deadlines help us do just that.

Think what the world would be without deadlines. What if we didn’t have deadlines for any or all of the following?

1. Time to start or finish work.
2. Time for school to start or end.
3. Response time on business deals or real estate offers to sell, buy or close a deal.
4. Court deadlines for filing document.
5. Departure or arrival times for airlines, trains or buses.
6. Times or dates by which we want to accomplish goals that we’ve set for ourselves.

So my message for this week, and really a message for a productive and more satisfying life, is this—Always set goals for yourself and be sure to set those deadlines as well so as to push yourself to use your time wisely and more efficiently.   But don’t shoot yourself if you step over the ‘deadline’ a bit. Just re-boot and try again.

 

 

 

Immoveable Deadlines

While I was preparing for a trip to Kauai a few days ago, I was suddenly hit by a pretty powerful thought.  The thought came as a result of my packing and getting hundreds of things organized before I was to leave.  I noticed how really organized and efficient I was becoming–making lists of items I needed to take, the things I must do before I left, and the people that I needed to meet with or email or call.  I will be gone for months so I knew all these things needed to be done, without question, and there was definitely a dead line on all of it–my flight out.  This kind of deadline pushed me to become an almost perfect picture of efficiency and effectiveness.

In the midst of my packing, I stopped for a few moments and observed what I was doing, how I was I was plowing through dozen of tasks so quickly and quite smoothly. Of course the motivation was obvious. I had a very fixed and non-movable deadline that I couldn’t easily be changed without a huge expense and hassle. But the thing that struck me was that this packing was a goal with a deadline I was not willing to miss.

Especially now at the beginning of a new year, as I am setting goals for myself, I realize how important this is–goals need to be set with time deadlines we are not willing to miss. Deadlines, ones we adhere to, are a huge key to pushing ourselves to be more effective, more efficient and ultimately more successful!

Think about that a moment.  Look at your own habits and behavior when you know you have a flight or other seemingly immovable deadline to meet. Don’t you get done what needs to be done? The great lessons here are:

1. We all need to recognize how very beneficial it is to have deadlines attached to our goals.
2. We must become tougher on ourselves by setting goals with absolute time deadlines attached to them.

Never forget that you and I only live, on average, about 700,000 hours, so it’s critically important to use our time wisely. If you want to accomplish a lot in your life and do big things for yourself, your family, your friends, and for mankind, you need to be efficient and well-motivated.

So with your next goals, pretend that your deadline is like a flight you have booked to Paris or Hawaii and if you miss it or have to postpone the flight it will cost you many thousands of dollars.  Depending on what your goals are, missing a time deadline may actually be more costly than a few thousand dollars. In the long run, a missed goal could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars or even worse if you have a huge loss of confidence or damage your self-esteem.  Bottom line here is, make time deadlines your biggest friend, helper and partner by seeing them as the important, unnegotiable deadlines they really are.