Tag Delaying

What’s Your Favorite Day of the Week?

Steve Keating 1 Comment

I’m not really sure how I’d answer that question. I tend to like all seven of them equally. I do hear some people say they hate Monday’s. I think that might have to do with their attitudes about their jobs more than their calendar preferences. 

I also hear some people say they love Fridays. That might say more about their job too, plus the fact that Friday gets them closer to their real favorite day of the week…Saturday. 

But whatever people say, when you watch them you see what their actual favorite day of the week is. For a whole lot of people their favorite day of the week is tomorrow. 

Tomorrow appears to be an absolutely fantastic day. It’s the best day to do almost anything. I hear people saying all the time, “I’ll do that tomorrow.” Sometimes they say, “I’ll finish that tomorrow.” The most popular of all is, “I’ll start that tomorrow.” 

Isn’t it interesting that tomorrow is both the best day to start something AND the best day to finish it. 

Tomorrow is truly a wonderful day!

Except for this one little bitty problem…tomorrow is not a day of the week. Tomorrow is not on your calendar. Tomorrow never actually happens because when you get to the next day of the week that day turns out to be today. 

The most successful people never allow tomorrow to be their favorite day of the week. Nothing kills the opportunity for success like waiting for tomorrow to implement a good idea. Once you’ve started something the best time to finish it is the earliest opportunity you have. 

Never finish tomorrow something you could finish today. 

Eliminate “tomorrow” from your vocabulary today. Just stop saying the word. The day after today has a date on the calendar…use the date. I’m going to do it on May 7th! Make the day after today real by being able to see it on your planning calendar. 

When somebody tells you “they will do it tomorrow” do them a favor by asking what’s the date for “tomorrow is on their calendar.” Help them hold themselves accountable by giving you a date, maybe even a time. 

You can hold yourself accountable in the same way. Use dates not days, especially don’t use days that you can’t find on a calendar. 

Tomorrow I’ll be giving away free money on Twitter to better illustrate what happens when you wait for tomorrow. I’ll see you then…or maybe the next day. 

Procrastination and It’s Cousin Fear

Steve Keating 5 Comments

Procrastination hardly ever enters a person’s life by force. It’s most often invited in by it’s close cousin fear. That being the case perhaps the most effective way to end procrastination in your life is to stop being afraid. 

I’ve had lots of good excuses for procrastinating in my life. Didn’t know where to start. Didn’t have time to get started. Wasn’t going to have time to finish so why start at all. Had more important things to do. “Somebody” would be unhappy if I did it. Didn’t have money to do it. Didn’t know how to do it.

Most procrastinators have great excuses for not taking action. But they will seldom tell you the real reason. They won’t even tell themselves. 

The real reason is fear. The biggest reason I suppose is fear of failure. I can tell you that pretty much every time I’ve failed to take action that would have led to success it was because fear held me back. 

Every time I missed a sales goal it was because fear held me back. Fear of prospecting, fear of asking for the order, even fear of asking a customer basic questions. It probably never looked like fear to someone else, it most likely looked like your run of the mill procrastination. 

But fear was driving the procrastination. 

It was the same for trying new things, attempting something new. “Tomorrow” became a shield against the fear of not knowing how to start, not knowing how to avoid looking like a fool if something went wrong. 

I never really overcame procrastination, I kinda outlasted it. I’ve had enough success now that I don’t have to worry about failing. If I fail I can just shrug and move on. But here’s what I have learned through my success and failures…I could have always shrugged off the failures. I didn’t need a base of success to do that. 

And neither do you. Failure is a part of success and the sooner you get some failures under your belt the sooner you can stop worrying about it. Procrastination quickly loses it’s interest in people who don’t fear failure. 

Now yes, as some of you will point out, sometimes plain laziness leads to procrastination too. That is true but when compared to fear laziness is a distant relative. Fear and procrastination grew up together, they are inseparable, they can finish each other’s sentences. 

Eliminate fear and procrastination has no place to live in your life. You can do it, you only need to begin the focus on the potential for success rather than the unlikely failure. 

The sooner you try the sooner you’ll wonder why you ever procrastinated in the first place.

Try today! 

Today is the Best Day to Do It

Steve Keating 6 Comments

The problem with doing something tomorrow is that when tomorrow comes it’s today. Then what will you do… push it to the tried and true tomorrow again? 

 

How many tomorrows does it take for tomorrow to become the day you actually take action? There are probably many people who can’t answer that question because they don’t know how many tomorrows it will take. They don’t know because they haven’t taken action yet. They are still counting tomorrows. 

 

Successful people will miss few opportunities today. Less than successful people will miss many opportunities tomorrow. 

 

For the record, someday, the perfect day, and the right day are just as bad as tomorrow. Today is the only someday for successful people. You can make today the perfect day, you can decide today is the right day. Yesterday’s tomorrow is today. 

 

You are out of excuses. 

 

You may not realize it but all that stuff you “plan” to do tomorrow weighs you down. It is a drag on today’s productivity. Each day you delay taking action on “tomorrow’s stuff” the weight becomes heavier and the drag greater. 

 

Here’s an idea: if something takes less than a minute to do then do it immediately. Do it right this second. You’ll be surprised how many things you put off that could be done in less than a minute. 

 

Most of the things we put off are not delayed due to a lack of time. We put them off because we don’t like doing them or they make us uncomfortable. We use time as an excuse. 

 

You should know that one of the biggest differentiators between successful people and less successful people is that successful people have developed the habits of doing the things that less successful people simply don’t like to do. 

 

Success is far more about possessing the discipline required to take action than it is about anything else. You can be the smartest person on earth but if you don’t use your brains what does it matter. Lack of initiative kills far more opportunities than lack of money. 

 

Do you have the discipline required to invest a handful of minutes a day to stop putting off those things you don’t want to do? Even the ones you know would make a positive difference for you?

 

When you start doing the things that require less than a minute pretty soon you’ll have enough momentum built up to tackle longer and tougher tasks. Before you know it, nothing can stop you. 


So what do you say? Got a minute to succeed?