- Choose 3 things that made you better in 2017 and focus on how you can improve on those.
- Choose 3 things that hindered you in 2017 and determine to eliminate those in 2018.
- Get up 30 minutes early.
- Implement The Miracle Morning. http://bit.ly/2ku1dyr
- I highly recommend the program ManicTime for tracking your time and productivity. It’s awesome.
- Purge your LinkedIn Contacts so you only have those with whom you truly want to continue having a relationship.
- Start a journal to keep track of your goals. Studies show that writing down your goals and having a specific time frame to complete those goals ensures you will be much more likely to complete them. The SELF Journal, 5 Second Journal and the Ink+Volt Planner are all great tools to help you with this.
- Get a sunrise clock for a less stressful start to your day.
- Take a family photo.
- Go see Hamilton or at least listen to the soundtrack. It’s great.
- Have a dinner party for 10 of your closest friends “just because” and have a chef come in and prepare the meal.
- Buy flowers for someone significant in your life just because.
- For every article of clothing you buy, remove two from your closet. It will make it easier to decide what you wear in the morning and you can help others who are less fortunate by donating these clothes to charity.
- Think of one word that you want to be the theme for your year and try to implement this word into each area of your life: Ideas include: Calm; Improvement; Enthusiasm
- Do you want to be less sedentary at your office? Get a stand up desk. They are great for your lifestyle and they’ve been shown to improve concentration.
- Get a Kindle or the Kindle app on your tablet, and read one book every three weeks (if you need suggestions let me know). When you read, highlight important passages and access them in your Amazon account at (https://read.amazon.com/notebook) and then download them using the Bookcision app https://www.norbauer.com/bookcision/). This way, you can review them because we never absorb everything we read the first time. Engage in deliberate practice.
- If you commute, get the Audible App and listen to a book on 1.5x speed.
- Turn off all electronics 30 minutes before you head to bed.
- If you have a sibling, talk to them once a week.
- Get actively involved in a nonprofit organization.
- Choose to do something completely unexpected and awesome like my brother-in-law who was Bar-Mitzvahed at age 60!
- Fail more frequently, so you can learn more.
- Just in case… update your resume.
- Find two new podcasts that you’ve never listened to and try them out.
- Delete all apps from your phone that you haven’t used in the last year.
- Speed up your computer by deleting old programs that you no longer use.
- Coffee drinker? Buy a coffee maker to make your own coffee at home before you leave for the office. Use the money that you save to buy something to reward yourself for completing a goal or for number 40 below.
- Make one call every day to an old referral source or client to schedule a breakfast or lunch and catch up.
- Every day, send a thank you note to a client for whom you just concluded work, a mentor, a referral source who sent you a client, or simply a friend or colleague who simply did a favor for you.
- Take a day off from work and go to a museum you’ve always wanted to go to.
- Start small. Exercise one day a week. As you create the habit, add another day and then another. You eat an elephant one bite at a time.
- Listen more. Most people think about what they are going to say next instead of actually listening.
- Instead of getting on a plane for a trip, find someplace in your state that you haven’t been to and spend a long weekend there. I’m sure you’ll find new and exciting things to do that you never thought possible.
- Be present. Take a screen break and turn off your cell phone from Friday 5:00 pm – Saturday 5:00 pm
- Focus on the process, not the end result.
- STOP STOP STOP (and yes, I am yelling) multi-tasking. It doesn’t work, you’re actually less productive. And think how you would feel if a person was multi-tasking when talking to you, or when they were working on your matters.
- Most successful entrepreneurs pick a strategy and stick to it. A mediocre strategy well executed is far better than a perfect strategy that’s never started.
- Give blood to the American Red Cross. You might need it at some point and it’s always great to pay it forward.
- Find a mentor to help you grow and be the best version of yourself.
- Better yet, offer to mentor someone younger than you so they can also become the best version of themselves.
- Be adventurous – Travel to a new state or country. Eat at a new restaurant. Try a new food. Take an art class or a cooking class.
- Open the door for the person behind you.
- Buy the coffee, bagels, lunch for the person in line behind you. Simply ask them to do the same for a person in the future.
- Be kind, gracious, grateful, respectful, thoughtful, sincere and authentic, trusting and trustworthy.
- Choose to be curious. If you’re not asking questions, reading, listening, then you are not learning.
- On-time is late. Be 5 minutes early to your appointments.
- Ask yourself what you want to say to yourself one year from today.
- Avoid analysis paralysis. You never know if your decision is going to be correct, so the sooner you make it the sooner you find out if you are right. And if you are not, then you have the opportunity to change course faster.
- Shameless plug: Read my daughter’s blog The Lemon Wedge Blog. It has awesome advice on nutrition and some great recipes.
- Get an Easy button from Staples and smack it whenever you solve a problem that’s “easy”. It’s a great stress reliever, gets a lot of laughs in the office, and it’s just plain fun.
- Try going analog and keep your To-Do list in a journal or pad of paper. It’s actually much easier than having to open up an app every time you want to check what is on your list.
- You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. Make sure you’re spending your time with the right people.
Here’s to making 2018 the most powerful and satisfying year of your life!
Let me know if you implement any of these ideas or have ideas for me to use. Call 248-455-6500 and or email me [email protected]
