Work the System: the Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less by Sam Carpenter landed in my lap at a very fortuitous time. I was already knee-deep in one of those “what am I doing with my life” phases, trying to discern the difference between accomplishing something and accomplishing nothing (but staying very busy). I am always amazed at how fine the line is.

If you’ve never heard the phrase “fire killing” (I hadn’t), be advised before reading that it refers to attacking urgent problems (like an angry client on the phone) instead of focusing on what may actually be more important (like creating a corporate culture that creates fewer angry clients). It is one Carpenter’s favorites, and it illustrates perfectly the difference between “accomplishment” and “staying busy.” The phrase immediately reminded me of Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – another book that stresses the “important” over the “urgent” as a key to leading a better life.

My mention of Covey’s 7 Habits is by no means unintentional, because I rank Work the System right up there with the two books that I think anyone who wants to actually do anything should read. One of them is 7 Habits, obviously. The other is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, which is an invaluable guide for navigating the intricate pathways of human emotion and interaction.

That I am mentioning Work the System in the same company as 7 Habits and Emotional Intelligence is an enormous compliment, because those two books have long been the rocks upon which I based much of my world-view. I think, armed with the knowledge contained in these three books, one could make a very good run at leading a happy life and a successful business. In other words: Work the System is staying on my shelf, right where 7 Habits and E.I. would be (if I hadn’t given away my copies to people that I felt needed them more than I did).

Carpenter spends the first third of his book guiding the reader towards the same realization that he experienced 12-odd years ago. He calls this process “getting it,” and he will be writing a guest post or two about it in his guest series, which starts on Monday. Look forward to this, because life is not the same once you “get it.” Even if you already sort of “got it” before picking up the book (Carpenter does mention that there are, of course, people out there who “got it” long before he did – and many of them built very successful careers for themselves because of this), it will reenergize you.

An example: Mid-way through reading this book, I wrote up a budget for my household and began tracking our spending so that we wouldn’t end up going into debt this year for the day-to-day stuff like gas, groceries, and entertainment. And I reorganized my weekly schedule to free up some extra time in the evenings for my side-projects by wasting less time watching TV.

The greater changes are still to come, however. Carpenter’s book lays the foundation for a simple yet powerful shift in your life. Before reading it (if you’re not one of the rare few who already “get it”), it’s very likely that you’re spending a lot of time running on a treadmill without even realizing it. After reading it, you’re ready to take your run outside.

About the author: John J. Walters is a social media marketer with Wasabi Ventures, director of marketing with TestSoup, and a research associate with The Maryland Public Policy Institute.

Being a member of a business book club is the easiest, most fun way to get you to read while infusing your brain with usable information. It’s also a great way to network with like-minded people. (You can also adapt this information for starting a casual book club with your friends.) Setting this up is easy if you follow these simple parameters:

•  Ideal Size: 10-12 like-minded people (knowing that only 8-10 will probably make it on a regular basis)

•  Meeting Frequency: Once a month at the same time (i.e. 1st Friday of the month)

•  Suggested Meeting Length: 30-60 minutes – maybe a breakfast meeting would work?

•  Location: A quiet and private location – restaurant back room, someone’s home, an empty office

•  Fees: Just the cost of the books (and food if in a restaurant)

•  Refreshments: optional, pot-luck or bring-your-own

At your first meeting, decide what types of books you want to read. Create a 12 month reading list with one book a month (or two months if life dictates). Then talk about ground rules to include the responsibilities of members such as reading the book(!), attending meetings, absentee policy, judgment-free participation guidelines, guests, etc.

If you prefer to make this a business magazine reading group, go for it! There’s a lot of great current information disseminated in magazines with much to talk about. Just make sure everyone in the group have similar interests and want to read the same publications.

Every meeting should have a designated facilitator who reminds members of the upcoming meeting, leads the discussion, monitors start and stop times, and encourages dialogue from all participants. The facilitator can stay the same or rotate among the members.

That’s it! As you continue to meet, go with what works and abandon things that don’t. As a result, you will be more interested in reading, more interesting to talk to and more well-informed!

About the author: Abby Marks Beale is America’s #1 Speed Reading Expert. She has taught speed reading for the past 25 years and is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Speed Reading and 10 Days to Faster Reading.  She is also the creator of Rev It Up Reading, the online speed reading course. Please visit www.RevItUpReading.com for more.

The most common reaction I get from people at this idea is: “I have more than one thing!”  Well, so do I, but here’s the truth as I see it.  IF you identify ONE outcome that is not negotiable in order for you to get the results you want in 2012, and you get results, the positive outcome will roll over into many other positive results. But if you don’t identify — or acknowledge — that one goal, the resulting negative energy will prevent you from accomplishing the other goals as well.

I’ve identified that the most important thing for me to accomplish in 2012 is to get more sleep.  In a recent conversation with my best friend of nearly 30 years, she pointed out something she has observed repeatedly through the years: Whenever I don’t get enough sleep, I have a variety of negative results which dramatically reduce my productivity.

It turns out I’m not alone.  Tony Schwartz, author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, in a speech to Google employees makes the staggering statement that sleeping less than 6 hours/night for 2 weeks has the same effect on cognitive ability as 48 consecutive hours without sleep.  He further points out that we deny the effect, the same as someone who drinks too much alcohol denies any negative effects. If you’d like to learn more astonishing effects, do a search on YouTube for “Tony Schwartz Google.”

So, based on all this data, and much more research that totally supports it, I’m committed to getting more sleep in 2012, so I would share with you how I am using our 5-Step Productive Environment Process:

1)  State your vision.  My vision is to get 8 hours of sleep at least 5 nights out of 7, and on the other 2 nights, no less than 6 hours.

2)  Identify your obstacles. One big obstacle will be my travel schedule. Another will be a habit of watching TV with my husband when I could be going to bed. And, admittedly, the biggest obstacle is not making sleep a priority.

3)  Commit your resources.  My resources include my business partner and my best friend who are also working on similar goals, and are committed to helping me be accountable, and my husband who has been saying for years I don‘t get enough sleep.  Other resources include My PlannerPad calendar, and numerous resources I have collected on the subject of sleep which I have put in my SwiftFile tickler system throughout the year to remind me!

4)  Design your plan.  First of all, I will track the number of hours of sleep I get each night in my Planner Pad so that I have to face the truth about my progress. I have shared my goal with Andrea, Flo, and Alfred. Once a week, at a minimum, I will read or listen to one of my resources on the subject to get encouragement and new ideas.

5)  Maintain your success.  At the end of the 1st quarter of 2012, I will assess my progress and share with my accountability partners.  If I have reached my goal, I will plan a night out at a new restaurant (one of my favorite things to do) to celebrate my accomplishment, and I will make any necessary adjustments for the next quarter.

So, that’s my “one thing” for 2012.  What’s yours?

About the author: Barbara Hemphill is the founder of Productive Environment Institute whose mission is to help businesses reduce costs and increase productivity by implementing systems to manage information, space, and time.  For information about speaking or consulting services, www.BarbaraHemphill.com or call 888-380-6799.

Usually, all of this could be solved by a good talk over coffee. But that’s not dramatic. And we want drama. We want action. We want to see those flawed and human characters working through their problems because we want to think that we can work through our own.

That’s my theory, at least. My friend has a different one: It’s not that TV shows are defined by a lack of emotional intelligence but a lack of courage. In most cases, he posits, people are actually aware of what “the right thing to do” is – they just are too weak to do it. But we like stories about people who finally find the courage to do what they know is right.

Both our theories are bound by a common thread. Namely: we think people like watching TV shows about characters acquiring something that most people lack. For me, it’s emotional intelligence. For him, it’s courage. I assume that most people are fools that need to be pointed in the right direction. He assumes people already know where to go, but lack the will to get there.

The case could be made either way, I think. That really doesn’t matter. What does matter is this central question: how do these characters go from being flawed to being heroes? In most cases, it is because the writers and TV producers are kind enough to strip away all the distractions from the life of their characters so that they can make some crucial decision properly. The less time that character has to get it right, the more simple his life will become and the greater the hero’s chances will be of doing something great.

For TV heroes it seems easy. It’s always “do or die!” or “go after her!” The choice seems simple. What we don’t realize as people living disorganized lives filled with distractions is that it’s the same for us. We just have longer to figure it out than any fictional characters do, so we get to spend more time messing about and focusing on the wrong things.

Trouble is, the consequences are often just as real. Regrets, heartbreak, or even death. They’re just further off and obscured by the blur of possibility. But that doesn’t make them any less real – or any less probable.

The desire to create, accomplish, and be remembered is something that I think nearly every entrepreneur must feel. Perhaps it’s part of the human condition. But if we want to have any chance at all, we need to give ourselves the same advantage our heroes on TV have: simplicity.

About the author: John J. Walters is a freelancer with Wasabi Ventures, director of marketing with TestSoup, and a research associate with The Maryland Public Policy Institute.

The principle was further strengthened when I started focusing on the problems clients were having with paper.  What papers do I keep?  For how long? Where? How can I find them again?   When I moved on to helping clients make their offices Almost Paperless™, the principle once again proved foundational.

All the decisions you make determine the life you lead. If you decide to forego exercise with fat-laden foods and a sedentary life, you’ll undoubtedly face disappointing consequences.  If you decide to forgo a good night’s sleep for a mediocre movie on TV, you’ll undoubtedly hamper the quality of your life the next day.

Look around at the people you most admire.  I did, and I saw unlikely people running in marathons, community leaders making a difference in the world instead of complaining about it, volunteers giving of their time, and philanthropists giving of their resources. What decisions are you making?

During tough times, decide to control the things you can control, rather than complain about the things you can’t.  That decision will mean the difference between thriving and surviving. It’s often been said that you teach what you need to learn.  I’m the poster child for that truth!  So I thought I’d share with you some techniques I continually try to implement during these challenging times, along with a few examples I’ve experienced recently:

1.     Decide to ignore the media and negative people.  The reality is that only God really knows what is going to happen, so ignore human prognostications, and decide to create your own reality.  Today at the San Francisco airport I resisted the impulse to pick up the newspaper and instead bought an inspirational book “The Christmas Sweater.”

2.     Decide to take care of yourself physically and emotionally.  It’s far easier to stay positive mentally when you feel good physically.  Instead of sleeping in this morning, I got up and did my Fit 10 Exercise, and rather than ordering a drink and a fat-laden meal at an airport restaurant, I brought healthy food I could easily carry with me from home.

3.     Decide to strengthen relationships with family and friends.  If you need motivation to follow this advice, just talk to someone who has survived a life threatening disease. I called my daughter while I was waiting for my flight, and made arrangements to have lunch next week with an old friend I haven’t seen in months.

4.     Decide to eliminate physical clutter from your environment.  Unfortunately, many people have become numb to the environment in which they live and work.  It continually amazes me how I can improve my state of mind while passing on to others items that don’t help me “accomplish my work and enjoy my life!”

5.     Decide to improve the surroundings where you are.  Traveling on airlines these days is a challenge to positive thinking for sure, but one thing I’ve noticed is how differently people approach the challenge.  One passenger yelled at the flight attendant about the price he had to pay for his ticket, while another passenger exchanged her aisle seat for a center seat to let a family sit together.

6.     Decide to be thankful for what you do have.   Regardless of how badly I feel, I don’t have to look far to find something for which I can be exceedingly grateful. Driving down the road, I noticed the sun setting in the rearview mirror making the sky a vivid purple, while the front window revealed a rainbow the width of which I had never seen in my entire life.  It felt like God’s reassuring message, “This is my world.”

7.     Decide to give to others who are less fortunate than you are.  I took my 9-year-old granddaughter shopping for gifts to put in shoeboxes for the Samaritan’s Purse project.  When I explained what we were doing, she asked, “Why can’t we buy a present for every child?”  Unrealistic perhaps, but a Christmas dream worth working toward.  The adults in our family opted to donate the money normally spent on gifts for each other to a worthy cause.  The idea took on new meaning to me when I decided to explain to the recipient who I selected and why.

I’m deciding to have a Merry Christmas, and I hope you do too!

P.S.  Last month I talked about using one of my favorite productivity tools Send Out Cards to send greetings — if you didn’t, you have another opportunity with the New Year. Check out www.SendOutCards.com/17790.

About the author: Barbara Hemphill is the founder of Productive Environment Institute whose mission is to help businesses reduce costs and increase productivity by implementing systems to manage information, space, and time.  For information about speaking or consulting services, www.BarbaraHemphill.com or call 888-380-6799.

When entrepreneurs are close to a sale, or when job seekers believe they excelled in their interview expecting an offer, panic usually sets in if instead one hears excuses as to why the opportunity may not go through and objections prevail.

Those unfamiliar with the sales process usually view the objections as defeat.  They believe there is no way of saving what just happened and attribute the matter to some type of miscommunication.  Unfortunately, when you begin to believe defeat is on its way, it usually is.  Therefore, the better objective is to see the circumstance as potentially being saved.

Once you have a more positive outlook, it’s easy to place a critical eye on what just took place.  Ask specific questions such as, “What is being objected to, why, and what may I do to fix it?”  Those three questions usually nail the problem, enabling you to provide a targeted response.

Communicating with confidence and a smile on your face will usually produce the right result.  You may simply need to make a minor adjustment.  Always greet objections as a positive, because they are not a direct “no.”   They enable you to make things right to receive the much preferred “Yes!”

When objections are met with care and understanding, they normally turn into a very Smooth Sale!

About the author: Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC authored the International Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results” and “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews”.  Elinor delivers inspirational keynotes at conferences, team training, private coaching and finds joy in helping her clientele turn their dreams into reality.  Elinor is available upon request for consultation.

When we set out to accomplish something in life, we adopt or acquire a certain skill set to attain it and (as Greg Salciccioli observed) a separate skill set to maintain it. A common example; certain choices and skill sets allow one to lose weight, additional choices and skill sets allow one to maintain a healthy weight.
In the often frenetic, fast paced, ever changing landscape of life in the 21st century, it’s not easy task to balance life, health, family, finances and work.  Additionally, for whatever reason, success at work seems to have a stronger magnetic pull on our lives than other areas.  

Most of us are aware of the fact that a truly rewarding life mandates a skill set to find better life balance; a state (which in all transparency) I do not yet find myself.  In that journey and based on the insight garnered in this book, it may very well be that I have not understood the importance of developing two skills sets: one for attainment and one to maintain the balance I have managed to implement.

Great food for thought and an equally great road map towards that end can be found The Enemies of Excellence.

One of my favorite bloggers, Jonathan Fields, wrote a post about just that recently entitled Make More Bad Stuff.  He interviewed an accomplished guitar maker and confided that he had long thought about making his own guitar, but was deterred by the difficulty of the task.  The guitar maker’s advice?  Go make a really bad guitar.  Learn from it.  And then make one that’s less bad.  You’ll be making great guitars sooner or later.

The key part here that many neglect is the learning component.  You can’t just go out there and make mistakes all willy-nilly.  As a rule, be very careful about what you do “willy-nilly.”

The best way to make sure that you learn the right lessons from your mistakes is by conducting a project post-mortem.  These don’t have to be huge and formal (although they certainly can be, especially if it was a big project that involved a lot of people), but they do have to get done, and you do have to take them seriously.

I’ve been devoting a lot of thought to my most recent project, the Back to School Giveaway, which I organized for TestSoup along with five other co-sponsors.  We pulled together $150,000 worth of educational technology services and set up a raffle to give them away to 20 eligible schools.  The contest had over 250 entrants in the three weeks for which it ran.

Was it smashing success? No, definitely not.  But we got some promising leads for potential partnerships and made some decent connections with other companies in the edtech business.  We also scored TestSoup some extra exposure and gave away a bunch of product that will help educate kids, which always feels great.

But what did I learn?  Here are the highlights.

1) Don’t rely on other people.  Assume that everyone else involved in a project is just as busy (or busier) as you are.  Unless people specifically say that they will do something, don’t expect it.  So if your plan hinges on the active involvement of others, recruit those others carefully.

2) Spread the word in as many ways a possible every single day that you can.  If you are working on something that relies on sign-ups or participation from the public, you need to devote a massive amount of time and energy to getting the word out.  You cannot slack on this one, sorry.

3) Apply the “three times as much” standard.  This is a rule that my friends and I came up with for when we work on our cars.  Take as much time you think a new project will require and multiply that by three.  That’s how long you should actually budget for it.  Same goes for workload.  New stuff takes three times as long.  That’s because you need to figure out how to do it, do it once badly, and then do it again properly.

Granted, those are all just general business lessons that I learned from organizing the BTSG.  It’s not a true post-mortem (I do those privately, and mostly in my own head during contemplative walks), but there’s still some valuable information in there.  These are lessons that I would not have learned if I hadn’t put in the effort to run the contest and then to think critically about how it fared.

It may not be fun — or good for your ego — but conducting a post-mortem after each new project is an important step towards becoming a great entrepreneur.

About the author: John J. Walters is a freelancer with WasabiVentures, director of marketing with TestSoup, and a research associate with The Maryland Public Policy Institute.

It seems to me that’s a perfect analogy for life these days. Regardless of where you are, you can see wonderful things or terrible things.  So how does that fact impact what you do on a daily basis? When I’m feeling overwhelmed with life and recognize I’m seeing the vultures instead of the peacocks, here are some tips I find helpful:

• When business isn’t going as well as I would like it to, I am reminded that I need to do a better job of explaining the value I have to offer — or do something to actually improve the value so I really have something to explain!
• When I’m seeing more vultures than peacocks, I probably need more sleep! As a society, we are highly sleep-deprived. I’ve discovered that if I can’t sleep, my best approach is to get up and do something about the reason I can’t sleep, and usually I’m soon sleepy again and I can go back to bed — even if it’s just for a “power nap!”
• When I’m feeling overwhelmed, it’s time to update my “to do” list. While people often assume I am a perfectionist when it comes to organization, they are wrong. The reason I’m good at helping people figure out better ways to accomplish their work more effectively is because I continually have to keep figuring it out for myself. I now use iPEP task lists to manage my projects. The tasks all have dates, and frequently I miss them because I have unrealistic expectations of myself, but having everything in one place so I can re-prioritize — or even eliminate some “to do’s” — makes life far more productive and peaceful.
• When my relationships are not working as well as I would like, it’s time to take a look at what I can do to improve the situation. I can’t change anything that anyone else does, but I can always do something about what I do. It’s amazing how just walking away instead of starting a fight with my husband makes both of us feel better!
• When I hear myself griping again, it’s time to implement what Dan Sullivan of The Strategic Coach calls The Gratitude Principle. Regardless of my circumstances, I don’t have to look very far at all to see the peacocks instead of the vultures, and it is my spiritual belief that even the most terrible things will have positive outcomes if you just wait long enough.

So here’s my challenge for you! Instead of being overwhelmed by the vultures, be amazed by the peacocks.

About the Author: Barbara Hemphill is the founder of Productive Environment Institute whose mission is to help businesses reduce costs and increase productivity by implementing systems to manage information, space, and time.  For information about speaking or consulting services, www.BarbaraHemphill.com or call 888-380-6799.