Tag Do it Now

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. 

Tomorrow I’m going to…

Steve Keating 8 Comments

Tomorrow I’m going to write a post about the dangers of procrastination. It will say something about how harmful procrastination is to your chances for success. I’ll probably write something about how procrastinating makes easy things hard and hard things almost impossible.

I could put some stuff in there about how to avoid procrastinating by doing immediately everything that takes less than 30 seconds to complete. People will be surprised when they learn that something like 90% of the things they procrastinate on take less than that 30 seconds to do. (It’s somewhere around 90% I’ll look up the exact percentage later)

I’ll think I’ll call it “the 30 second rule” and encourage people to try it for a solid week and see the difference it makes in their productivity. I don’t know, maybe I’ll save that for a post I do at some point in the future.

I’ll almost for sure put something in the procrastination post about a “Prioritized Daily Task List.” That’s like a do-to list except everything on it is prioritized in order of importance. Successful people use those all the time, like on a daily basis. (guess that’s how it got it’s name) They also don’t allow themselves to work on the second highest priority until the highest priority task is complete. 

That takes some pretty strong discipline which is another topic I should post about someday. 

I would write the procrastination post today except I’m really busy. There are a whole bunch of decisions I need to put off. I also need to come up with excuses for why I didn’t get yesterday’s work done and my fantasy football team needs work too. 

Plus, I’ve got to get to the gym. I’ve been putting that off too long and the last time I was there I left my brand new iPod Nano behind. I hope it’s in lost and found…they wouldn’t throw it away after only 14 years would they? 

I’m thinking I’ll close the post by reminding people that they won’t find “someday” on a calendar. They won’t actually find tomorrow either. 

I learned that whole tomorrow lesson thing by attending baseball games in my hometown in Minnesota. All the beer vendors wore t-shirts that said “free beer tomorrow.” I went to something like 18 games in a row until I finally figured out that if you always wait until tomorrow you’ll be waiting one heck of a long time. Alas, there would be no free beer for me. 

I can only hope people will read the post on procrastination as soon as they first see it but something tells me many of them will put it off until later. What they won’t be able to answer however is exactly when “later” is. 

 

I also hope you’re not one of those!

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? 

The Best Time to Plant Ceeds

Steve Keating 2 Comments

I’m told the English language is one of the hardest languages to learn as a second language. There are many words which appear to be identical yet have multiple meanings. Then there’s the your vs you’re thing that even many native English speakers can’t seem to figure out. Do I write this blog or do I right this blog? This list of conflicts within the English language could go on and on.

 

As challenging as the English language can be however it’s also fascinating when you really study it. 

 

For instance, Google says there are 171,476 words in the English language and only three of them end in “ceed.” 

 

The first of the “ceed” words is proceed. Proceed, as in begin or continue. Successful people know this word well; while almost everyone wants success not everyone is will to proceed down the path required to achieve it. Wishing for something rarely makes it happen, working for it frequently does. Proceed to take positive steps toward your goals or just keep wishing, the choice is always yours.

 

The biggest challenge for most people in their pursuit of success is simply beginning. They don’t “proceed” to the starting line, they procrastinate, they make excuses, they just never build any momentum for themselves. You cannot finish what you never begin, so proceed to the starting line and then push yourself over.

 

The next “ceed” word is exceed. Not coincidentally, successful people know this word well too. In almost everything they do they exceed the efforts of less successful people. The most successful people know that they are due absolutely nothing until they actually do at least something.

 

Once you’ve begun you must keep going. One trait of highly successful people is that they kept going when they thought they couldn’t continue. They “exceed” not only their own expectations but the expectations of the naysayers who said they couldn’t do it. Never quit without thinking about why you started in the first place. If your initial reasoning still makes since then push on; do not limit your success by failing to exceed previous limits.

 

The final “ceed” word is of course succeed. Clearly the definition of what it means to succeed is as varied as the population of the world. We all define success on our own terms. But this much is certain, success comes from doing. It comes from doing something significant, something that matters. 

 

The people who decided that proceed, exceed, and succeed should be the only “ceed” words in the English language were pretty smart. They must have known that the process of success was to proceed, then exceed and if you accomplish both of those you’ll almost certainly succeed. 


The very best time to plant your own “ceeds” for success is today. Don’t limit yourself even one more minute. Do it now with the absolute certainty the only chance you have to finish is to begin.

30 Seconds to Success

Steve Keating 6 Comments

I’ve known many a procrastinator through the years (myself included) but I’ve known few people who were procrastinators by choice. They were all mostly procrastinators by chance.

 

Most procrastinators have more to do than they know how. They almost get paralyzed trying to figure out where to begin and the result is often that they just don’t…begin that is. They just don’t begin. They don’t get much finished because they don’t get much started. 

 

This much is certain, you will never finish what you never begin. 

 

So the first step to overcoming procrastination is to simply begin. But the question remains; where to begin.

 

Here is one piece of advice I received years ago that has really helped me overcome my procrastination tendencies: If you have something to do, anything to do, and it takes 30 seconds or less to do it then do it now, RIGHT NOW.

 

Now the best procrastinators out there will tell you that you can’t get anything done in 30 seconds or less. They would be wrong about that. 

 

30 seconds is actually quite a long time. 

 

In 30 seconds you can make a prioritized task list of the things you must accomplish today in order to be productive. Then you’ll know exactly where to begin.

 

In 30 seconds you can answer an email. If you don’t believe that then time yourself when answering a few. You’ll find that most, the vast majority in fact, take less than 30 seconds. Most people read the same email several times before finally answering it. That’s called procrastination and it’s a waste of time.

 

In 30 seconds you can delete about 60 emails from last year that you never did get around to answering. 

 

You can respond to several text messages or send one to someone, like mom or dad, that you’ve been meaning to send for a while. 

 

In 30 seconds you can set a meaningful goal. 

 

In 30 seconds you can pay a bill online.

 

In 30 seconds you can say thank you to someone you’ve intended to thank for days.

 

In 30 seconds you could pay someone a sincere compliment. 

 

In 30 seconds you could make a decision that changes your entire life.

 

You can do a lot in 30 seconds if you choose to be productive instead of busy and overwhelmed. 

 

It should take you substantially less than 30 seconds to decide which one will lead you towards greater success.