How to Be Incrementally More Productive Every Day—and Earn More
Recently I noticed that successful people all seem to get up early and work on personal development. This includes knowing their body’s needs and exercising. I realised that reading the news and gossip online or admiring others was never going to get me anywhere near my own goals.
My goals include: improving my learning materials and making them easier to visually take in. (a business goal).
Creating free classes/webinars to interest 500 new people a year (a marketing goal).
Interesting and signing on 24 new clients a year (a sales goal).
Getting exercise thrice times a week for 30 minutes and stretching (a personal body goal).
To achieve your goals faster, here is a productivity system you could use.
Learn the 1000% Improvement Method
This is ‘incremental improvement’—getting a little better every day—otherwise known as ‘the Kaizen principle’.
Brian Tracy asks: “Is it possible for you to make a 1/10th of 1% improvement in productivity per day?”
(Doing it weekdays, your actions would be 0.5% more improved within a week and 13% in a month).
This translates to you working on a more important task or doing a task slightly better. (Perhaps a new system occasionally as well, I presume).
Your overall output can become amazing, posits Tracy… in fact, 26% more productive in a year.
Your income would likely go up 26% per year too. This building on improvements is called the Momentum Principle.
You start early, set good priorities, and work a little harder. If you do this improvement as a habit, so every year over the course of ten years, the compounding effect means you will be working at around 1,400% better, according to Tracy. This then would be reflected in the quality of projects you do and the amount of money you earn.
Here is Brian Tracy’s famous 1000% Improvement list but with my own interpretation. Watch the video afterwards, if you like.
1. Spend your First Hour of the Day on Personal Development
I am spending nearly an hour most mornings on personal development, and then I write out some more on my goals. I do a few stretches. Then if it’s a weekday, I move to writing out my task list.
Your Dream Life Starts Here by Kristina Karlsson is a good book for inspiring you to set all your goals both small and large.
It however has a very small font, so bear this in mind.
My audio reading at the moment is: Booked Solid (Michael Port) and Tamed.
2. Make a Task List
Then I make a Task List of everything I need to do that day, but not too many.
3. Prioritise that List
Then I look at the tasks and find the most important to move my business or life forward. I put the two most important things an call it A.
(This I learned from Eat That Frog, also by Brian Tracy).
