The old saying that "Rome was not built in a day" applies
here. Just because you open a business doesn't mean that you're going to
immediately start making money. It takes time to let people know who you are, so
stay focused on achieving your short-term goals and give the rest time to come
together.
Successful people have known for years
that to stay productive, it’s essential to build habits that organize your day
and help you get the most out of your time.
Only when you have a spirit or urgency
can you push your way through the admin and red tape. Only by acting with
urgency can you get others to deliver on time. Only being truly urgent in your
dealings can you achieve anything significant in a year. Here are 3 of the most powerful habits
that highly productive people do every day — even when they’re pressed for time.
Early Risers.
There was probably a period of time in your life where it was easy stay up late into the night (or early into the next morning) trying to get things done.
Be mindful that all eight-hour periods
just aren’t created equally.
Going to bed at 10 p.m. and waking up
at 6 or 7 a.m. is exponentially better than going to bed at 3 a.m. and waking up
at 10 or 11 a.m., even thought the time frame is the same. I’ve tested this over
and over again and the evidence is pretty clear: I don’t perform well if I stay
up past 11 p.m.-ish.
Early risers really do have a distinct
advantage when it comes to mental clarity, acuity and energy. Simply put: Waking
up early works better than any other strategy for becoming more productive. But
you have to make sure you get enough sleep to back it up. So get to
bed!
I’ve had to give myself a bedtime and
be my own parent by ruthlessly enforcing it — which is harder than it seems,
because I’ve been programmed to stay up late for so many years.
Intention, focus or
meditation.
Starting your day with a clear idea of what you want to do changes everything.
Take 10 quick breaths, think about your
main objectives for the day, and then get moving. This seems too simple to have
an effect, but it’s not.
They train their bodies.
Working out is probably the highest leverage tool in your arsenal that can make you feel predictably better and keeps you both physically and emotionally healthy year round. If you want to have the mental energy to take on a large workload, and you have a full calendar of to-do’s that people want from you — you have to be in the gym. Period.
Training yourself physically not only
gives you benchmarks to hit on a regular basis, but it also creates a
predictable backbone in your daily life that you can count on, even if
everything goes wrong. Mentally, that’s very comforting.
Trust me, I know that integrating these
habits into your life won’t be easy at first. But if you’re not healthy, your
business can’t thrive anyway. Consider them a long-term investment in your
business.