Remember, If You Lay Down in Front of a Door…

You can’t blame people for using you as a doormat. What does this possibly have to do with increasing your productivity, accomplishing more and moving closer to reaching your goals?

People generally start off with good intentions. They want to use their time wisely, they want to get as much done as they can, and they want good things to happen for themselves. The problem occurs between the wishing and the doing. People have to have a way of taking those good feelings and thoughts and turning them into reality. Here’s how to do that.

Stop lying down in front of doors. Stop being the person who lets other people dictate to you what will be done. You want to be the person who sets the agenda and has other people follow them. It is not difficult, it takes planning, organization, the ability to spot problems before they occur and most of all, and it takes some discipline. Let’s break it down further.

Planning and organization are crucial to your success. If you walk into your place of employment, your own business, anywhere you want to accomplish something and you have not already planned and organized, you are absolutely at the mercy of those around you as well as the events that will unfold around you without you being prepared. That is a disaster waiting to happen. There can be chaos all around you, interruptions waiting to sidetrack you, people confronting you at all turns, but if you have planned and organized yourself, you can and will be able to persevere. Those people that have a clear game plan, an agenda set up for the day, laid out in front of them when they start their day, have just increased their chances of being productive that day exponentially. If I had to put a figure on it, it would have to be close to 100% compared to those that do not have a plan, agenda set up. The difference is this,

NO AGENDA: almost zero chance of succeeding

WITH AN AGENDA: you go from almost zero to almost 100% chance of success. An agenda gets you in the game, you are an active player, and you have given yourself a fighting chance. No agenda, you never get off the bench, you never get in the game.

The ability to spot problems before they happen gives you a huge edge on the people and events around you. If you know that at a certain time in the day, there is an influx of people into the office and they tend to drop by on people and just chat and socialize, you may want to schedule things away from the office at that time. Preempting problems and then planning to counteract them puts you way ahead of the others you are dealing with. You are competing with those around you, and the events that occur around you for a very limited amount of time. In the true sense of the word, they are in fact your competitors; they compete with you, for your time. When you start to look at your time, as YOUR time, you will start to view what happens around you for what it is, external sources, that if allowed, will take what is yours and use it for their own benefit. I know, it sounds like I’m a conspiracy nut; everybody is running around trying to steal your time. But that is not too far off the mark.

The discipline part is probably the most important. No sense in doing the planning, organizing, spotting problems before they occur and setting up your defenses, only to fail to execute when push comes to shove. It’s the constant assault we all experience during any working day, the assault that comes from all sides, the people and the things that say, "Deal with me. Talk to me, stop what you are doing and react to me." Those of us who can stay the course and follow our own agenda, will be the ones that succeed in the end.

Remember, staying your course does not mean you are any less social, cordial or friendly to those around you, it just means that there are things you want and need to do in order for you to be successful and your agenda will not always coincide with some one else’s.