Tuesday, May 22, 2007

I'm reading Dan Kennedy's book "No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs" because like a lot of people I have time challenges. Dan is one of America's most successful businessmen and I recommend this book.

Every page or two has a great idea, at least, so in the interest of time I'm only going to share a couple of ideas here.

First, gleaning and sparking the imagination for new ideas is an essential part of success. The late Earl Nightingale wrote:

"a single thought can revolutionize your life. A single thought can make you rich or well-to-do, or it can land you in prison for the rest of your life. Everything was an idea before it became real in the world . . . the law of averages begins to swing in your direction when you produce ideas."
That's profound and the keyword in that wisdom is "produce" because in reality you cannot "manage time" - but you can manage your activities and what you do as time passes.

Dan recommends an approach I've used for years. People have fetishes of all kinds; mine are notebooks and cards. I buy a new notebook every time I get excited about starting something new. And I keep a stack of note cards around to capture the ideas I have. Whether you decide the idea is worth pursuing or not, you should still capture it because it may be the seed for something else.

I break my projects down on note cards, writing the basic essential steps along the way on a fresh, clean card. When that task is complete, I get rid of the card. It's a good way to move forward and build in a sense of accomplishment along the way.

How you use your time this day will create a ripple effect that ultimately determines where you will be one year from this day - and the final destination ten-years from this day.