Busy or Productive? Here's 15 Differences

Busy people drive me crazy. The whirlwind of their lives, at work and at home, reminds me of a hover craft or a hydrofoil boat – never touching the ground or the water. It’s as if they have permanent ADHD with no medication, and that impairment forces more and more activity just for activity’s sake. Productive people, on the other hand exude a calm determination. They seem to know “where they are going” and how they are going to get there, and their race is slow and steady, like the proverbial tortoise who wins the race. And what does winning the race look like? It looks like “results.” It’s easy to identify busy and productive people by these following 15 behaviors.

THE TASKS THAT ARE CHOSEN

• Busy people take on any and all tasks, because they want and need to look like they always have a “job” to do. These tasks are rarely interconnected nor do they serve some larger goal. The goals are the tasks themselves.
• Productive people are selective about tasks. They have long-term plans and goals, and they select tasks that serve those plans and those goals. If the productive person decides that s/he wishes to move from a sales position to an IT position within an organization, then the tasks that are chosen will serve that goal – additional classes, exploration of methods by which salespeople can better use technology, etc.

DEFINITION OR PRODUCTIVITY

• Busy people equate time spent with productivity. Thus, if they stay late, “push more paper,” and keep a rapid pace, they are productive
• Productive people equate results with productivity. It is never how many tasks were completed; it is always about how the tasks that were selected achieved a goal. If, for example, a company is not getting its product out to customers in a timely manner, the busy person will drop everything, run down to the loading docks, and “crack the whip” to make the warehouse people work faster. S/he may even pitch in with the truck loading as well. The productive person will study the logistics of the warehouse-to-loading and devise a better system.

USE OF RESOURCES

• The busy person will work harder with the resources s/he has, never stopping to think if there are better resources that could be acquired and used.
• The productive person will look at current resources and try to find better ones, in order to improve task efficiency – perhaps a new software program or app.

SAYING “NO”

• Busy people never say “no.” they simply take on more and more, until they are so scattered trying to do everything, that nothing is done well. They exhaust themselves in the process.
• Productive people say “no” a great deal of the time. They refuse to take their focus off of what they have prioritized as important. A busy person will drop everything when a friend calls with a request, even if it means giving up the one evening this week s/he may have to spend with family. The productive person will say “no” because that one evening is a priority.

PRIORITIES

• Busy people identify everything as a priority, so many, in fact, that they cannot keep track of or manage them. The result is that they forget things, miss appointments, and disappoint all of those people they keep saying “yes” to.
• Productive people identify far fewer priorities – no more than they can manage at one time. Thus, they do not forget things, do not miss appointments, and do not disappoint those people they said “no” to.

EVENINGS

• Busy people are on the go until they collapse into bed at night, completely exhausted. They awake to begin the frenetic pace all over again – no overall plan – just “do.”
• Productive people plan for “down time” before bed – time to reflect on the day and to plan for tomorrow. They wake with their plans in place for the day, with a clear idea of what is to be accomplished.

MULTI-TASKING

• Busy people believe that multi-tasking is a great skill, and they practice it daily. What happens, ultimately, is that no one task really gets done well. Everything is either only partially poorly done.
acceleratedrightnow.com
• Productive people have learned the importance of the old adage, “one potato at a time – that’s all you can plant and that’s all you can harvest.” They begin a task and focus only at it until it is completed.

INTERRUPTIONS

• Busy people allow, and perhaps even welcome, interruptions – they take phone calls in the middle of important things; they check their email every 30 minutes; they pick up that phone every time it pings a text; and they let other people interrupt them too. Every interruption means focus is lost, and it takes time to re-focus.
• Productive people don’t allow interruptions. They check email at the end of the day; they don’t take phone calls or respond to texts; and they do not allow others to interrupt their focus.

BRAIN SHUT DOWN

• Busy people do not shut down their brains from the time they awake until they go to sleep at night. The problem then becomes that sleep is elusive. Lack of sleep results in poor productivity the next day.
• Productive people understand that they have to shut down down their brains for brief periods during the day – they meditate; they get some physical exercise; they watch a silly television show. These things allow more restful sleep and a more productive next day.

TASKS OR OPPORTUNITIES

• Busy people see tasks and activities as “chores” to get done. They don’t enjoy, they just “do.”
• Productive people see tasks as opportunities – opportunities to get results. This is because they pick and choose and select those tasks that bring results. They enjoy what they do.

JUDGING OTHERS

• Busy people de-value others who do not “look” and behave as they do. This is particularly true of supervisors and managers who are busy people themselves. They see the more methodical individual who may take time to think or to re-charge as unproductive.
• Productive people only judge by results and they do not micro-manage their subordinates by observing their on and off-task behaviors.

TIME

• Busy people complain about having too little time to get everything done during their waking hours. And amidst all of the complaining they take on even more tasks because they cannot say “no.” The result is more activity and no results.
• Productive people make time for those things that fit their priorities and do not engage in “time-killing” activities which, in the long-term are meaningless.

TALK

• Busy people spend a lot of time talking about how busy they are. This, of itself, is a time-waster, and is usually meant to gain sympathy or to place oneself in a martyr role. They insist that they want to change things, to be less busy, but then the next request or activity comes along, and they are “on it!”
• Productive people are actively “doing” according to their plans. They don’t talk about how hard or much they are working. They focus on the touchdown, get there, take time to enjoy that moment, and then move forward.

STUFF

• Busy people keep adding “stuff” because that is their reward for all of the work they do. The harder they work and the more money they make, the more they can accumulate.
• Productive people keep subtracting stuff as they move forward. They have certain “stuff” that is important, and the rest becomes rather meaningless. As they “let go,” they experience even more freedom.

Article source: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/busy-or-productive-heres-15-differences

Ways to Push Yourself Out of Your Comfort Zones to Achieve Prosperity

We are all going to come up against things that we are scared of in life. This is normal. Fear is healthy it is designed to protect us from harm, but it works to hard and overprotects us sometimes. You have to learn to look fear in the face and decide to not let it stop you, you must do what scares you. A way to make it easier is to not judge the outcomes of choosing this, but to just measure your actions to overcoming your fear. It also helps to have an accountability partner supporting and challenging you, and when you report your progress publicly you will be even more motivated to succeed.

Do what Scares you

This is where you have to begin. You have to identify something that scares you and chose to face it and overcome the fear. Fear is there to protect us, but unfortunately it is there to protect us from more than just harm it is also protecting us from growth and expansion. To truly achieve abundance and prosperity you have to grow yourself to make room to receive all of the new goodness coming your way. The journey towards this growth and expansion can be uncomfortable but it is well worth it.

Measure Action not Results

A large part of fear can often be associated around fear of failure at the new task which is why we do not measure the results of our actions, we measure if we took the action at all. We do not actually have control over results, no matter what we do, but we do have control over the actions we choose to take. So measure by what you control, your level of action you decide to take to overcome your fear. When you can learn to asses your progress this way you learn to take more risks because there is less to fear because you can no longer be scared of failure, except the failure to act.

Have an Accountability Partner

One of the great lessons I have learned about success in any area is that we cannot achieve success going it alone. We need to have support in all things we do, and this is especially true in the case of doing what scares us. It is easy to back out of taking the needed scary action when there is no one there to support you or push you. So find an accountability part, someone you trust and know cares deeply for you. They will know if you challenge is dangerous and tell you, but will also know when you are not pushing yourself hard enough and will make sure you get out of your comfort zone so you can grow.

Report publicly

One last way to helping to ensure you push yourself to do what scares you is to report on your intention and your action publicly. When we are scared it can be easy to hide to avoid confronting the fear. When you start to share publicly you can no longer hide and one of two results will occur. You will face and overcome your fear and get the admiration and support of the public community, or you will have to explain publicly why you didn't. For many the fear of explaining why you didn't take the action becomes greater than the actual action itself helping them to take that step.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7078134

One Key to Success is Positive Emotions

Do you want your life to be more positive in every area? Your health, your wellbeing even your feelings of success and happiness? Then one key you need to utilize to unlock this flight to success is your positive emotional energy.

Think about it for a moment, you have had a day when something good happened (getting that job, he or she said yes to going out with you or something else that was important to YOU) and you were happy. Along with that happy, smiling, bright-eyed feeling came some excited energy. On the other side of that same coin is that vacuum of no energy that comes should something unpleasant happen to you.

See the pattern? Your emotions either provide you with energy or suck it right out of you. Positive emotions provide a pool of excited and charged energy while negative emotions pull the plug on that pool and your energy swirls right down the drain. When you emotions are positive you sparkle with energy and enthusiasm, you interactive more with the people around you, they respond more positively to you and you even think more creatively. However, when you are depressed, angry or negative for any reason (valid or not), you feel tired, listless, frustrated and finally burnt out.

You body has a “ladder” of energy. When you are not doing physical labor it takes approximately one thousand units of physical energy to operate your body and all it’s essentially systems. Your body in its intelligent design converts one level of conserved energy up to the next level when it is unused. Those one thousand units of physical energy can also be refined by your body to create one hundred units of emotional energy. This far more refined emotional energy is absolutely critical to healthy emotional functioning.

If you do not consume those emotional energy units via some expression of negative emotions (i.e. fear, anger, doubt or even resentment) then they are conserved. Again, this conserved energy will be refined up to the next level. One hundred units of conserved emotional energy will be refined and converted into ten units of mental energy. This mental energy enables you to think more open and creatively.

One example of the energy robbing potential of negative emotions is anger. Have you ever seen someone so angry with someone or something that they were literally shaking? This shaking with anger is their body burning up sugar based energy call glucose. This depletion of energy keeps it from being conserved and refined so it can be used as emotional or mental energy. Thus, they are literally weakening themselves in more ways than one when they have such angry flare-ups.

Success people are more productive, not just working more hours but working smarter hours. More often then not, they get more done in the same period of time than the average person – thus they get paid more and promoted far faster than the average person. They become role models for their fellow associates, and even become leaders for them. Highly respected and most esteemed they rise to the top of their field and into the upper range of the income available to that field. You too can be one of these highly respected, highly paid, highly esteemed leaders.

To do this though you will need to take some pointers from such successful people. Points like not taking things personally. Successful people also tend to avoid getting drawn into other people’s issues or arguments. This saves that energy for far more productive purposes. They also have learned the benefits of relaxation. Those periods of time off from work, whether spent at some exotic location or just chilling around the house are not so much just to relax your physical body. At some point of success you’re probably not working your physical body too hard but you probably are working your mental and emotional capacities to a high point of fatigue. So the aim of this period of rest and relaxation is to recharge your mental and emotional batteries so you can in turn improve your quality of life.

One last point to share is that these success people have learned to keep themselves calm far longer than the average person does. They have refined that conserved physical energy into emotional energy so they are more relaxed, amiable and in control of their emotions. They have become aware that the flare-ups discussed earlier rob them of the precious mental state and resources they need to be effective and get the more important things done. They avoid becoming angry or update over the trival things that life offers and often even the larger things we all come across. They remain steadfast, objective and detached so they can react, resolve, re-plan and remove the issue.

Take action:
These are all actions you can do and the results will be those that every other successful person as been rewarded with. Here are three specific actions I would suggest putting into your life right away so you can reap the reward you desire:

Keep your thoughts focused on your goal and aspirations. Avoid being sucked down the energy draining path of people and situations that generate negative emotions and stress. I’m not saying it will be easy but I am saying it is a very important skill to master.

When you do find yourself in a situation of difficulty or pressure, remain calm and positively focused. Avoid becoming angry or enraged conserve your energy so you can in turn focus it on those goal and aspirations you truly desire. Even the most difficult of situation have some positive aspect perhaps your time is best spent zeroing in on that aspect and how you can use it to your advantage.

Lastly as mentioned earlier – you need to get ample buy cheap Nimotop online rest. Getting the right amount of sleep on a regular basis is one key point. Top that off with time away from your mental and emotional “work-outs” so you can fully recharge all your inner batteries will make you far more effective and efficient.

Thinks Successfully & Take Action

Article source: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/one-key-to-success-is-positive-emotions

Saying It Isn't The Same As Feeling It!

In order to feel it you have to trust it.
Trust is the difference between SAYING you believe something is true and ACTING as if it were true!
You can SAY all you want, but unless you trust in the truth of your words, they will be like empty promises ringing in the dead air!
Believing you can do something is the starting point from which you must begin, but unless you KNOW that you WILL do it, you won't have the energy to follow through and take the action needed to get things moving in the direction of your desires.
It's all about trusting your creative nature to do its job.
So you have to not only say you will be there to do something, you have to actually turn up and do it! And your desire to turn up and do it is in direct proportion to the trust you have in your ability to do it!

So the starting point is a desire for something with the belief that it's possible.
Yet belief in possibility alone is never going to be enough without the energy to take what is possible and make it actual.
And here is the stumbling block for most people who have tried and failed to activate their power of positive creation...

They desire something, they even believe that it's possible, but they FEAR that they will not get the results they want.
Emotion trumps words every time - feeling is the creative force of the universe, not just words or thoughts or desires.
Words and thoughts and desires kick the creative energy into motion, but without the emotion (e-motion = energy in motion) the words and thoughts and desires will fall on barren ground like carelessly scattered seeds.

This is how people try and fail to activate the Law of Attraction for positive creation.
So many of us don't realise that our fears are activating negative attraction which in turn attracts more and more negativity until we are pulled into failure like a cork being sucked into a whirlpool!
And pretty soon we give up trying because the pain of shattered dreams is far, far worse than the dull ache of mediocrity that we have become accustomed to.
You see, it's easy to justify staying where we are because of the comfort zone that we build around us.
It is far more comforting to know what to expect in our lives from the mediocrity that we surround ourselves with, than it is to venture out into the unknown!
Where there are unknown variables there could be danger, and danger creates fear.

It is the fear that keeps us where we are.
Until we can build our desires and beliefs into positive trust that is stronger than our fear, we will remain trapped where we are.
We may venture out occasionally, but the elastic band of our fears will eventually SNAP us back at the first sign of adversity.
So what we need to do is first of all be aware of what is going on in our lives. Only then can we stand a chance of changing it.

Knowledge and experience come from study. So we must study our thoughts and emotions to find out where we are directing our creative power.
For most of us, that focus will be generally negative, with the occasional positive thoughts scattered here and there... even carelessly scattered seeds might find some rich soil to grow in occasionally.
But the key is to realise that our successes in life happen for a reason, and when we can identify what those reasons are, and focus our attention upon more of the same, then we will be able to control more and more of our results.

Thus self-awareness is the first step in making positive changes.
But do not exercise judgemental self-awareness.
Simply become a passive observer, like someone watching clouds pass across the sky. Do not attach any meaning to the clouds, simply watch what they do. Thoughts, like clouds can dissipate and move on. They are constantly on the move.
Take note of the thoughts and feelings that you experience regularly.
Only by being aware of where you are now can you make the changes in direction that will create a new destiny for yourself.

You cannot change what you are unaware of. So become aware.
Once you are aware of your thoughts and feelings, you can make the effort to begin changing. And that comes with practice.
Remember that your current habits of thought and feeling have had plenty of practice to be as effortless as they are. In order to change, you have to erase and replace these old ideas, which takes time.

But now that you know how it works you have a better chance of making lasting changes that will benefit you in your future endeavours.

Inspiring Records use the power of music and affirmations to control the results we get in our lives by changing the underlying programs that make us what we are. You control the input to your sub-conscious by choosing what you want to think and feel by recording new ideas directly into the deepest part of your mind. You become the creator of your own life! Find out more at http://www.inspiringrecords.com

Article source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Saying-It-Isnt-The-Same-As-Feeling-It!&id=8431820