Coach Andrea

Coach Andrea’s Intro

It’s December.  Time to begin to reflect on the goals I set way back in January.  I knew in my gut that some of those goals didn’t feel right when I wrote them down.  Yet, I continued to plug away.  I’m going to take more time over the holidays to dig into these goals.  This week’s Tip provides 6 questions to ask yourself as you consider how you did on your 2012 goals and how that time of reflection can help in setting your 2013 goals.  See the What’s New section for a process to capture your accomplishments and set your goals.

One of my goals is to spend quality time with my family during this holiday season, so this will be the last Coaching Tip of the Week for 2012.  Look for your next Tip on January 4th, 2013.  I wish you all the love and happiness this season can bring and may the New Year find you healthy, happy, prosperous and full of joy.

Quote of the Week

“He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.”

Evaluate Your Performance This Year to Increase Next Year’s Success

By Andrea Novakowski

William, the owner of a health care consulting business, emailed me last week in preparation for our upcoming call. Should we discuss his goals for next year, he wondered, or should we reflect first on the year that just passed?

We can do both at the same time, I replied.

Back in January, William created five goals he wanted to work on. (He thought fewer would be better, and I agreed.) Of the five goals, he’d nailed two of them, had gotten very close to two, and had abandoned the last one mid-year.

After congratulating him on a job well done, I asked, “What do you think made you accomplish those first two goals and get close to the next two? What caused you to give up on the fifth?”

In other words, I wanted William to consider what the ideal conditions were for accomplishing each of his goals, and to judge whether those conditions had been in place during the past year. This exercise often sheds a great deal of light on why you did or did not achieve what you set out to do. You can try it for yourself. Ask yourself the following questions:

Did the goal harness your strengths? William is a great people person and connector, so his goal of increasing his business by tapping into his referral network was perfect for him. It was something he enjoyed working on because he was good at it.

Was it a group effort, or did it rest solely on you? One of William’s goals, bringing a new product to market, required the help of his leadership team. He succeeded because he was able to share his vision with the people who worked for him. Did your goal depend on the cooperation of others? How well did that work out? (For more on how to articulate your vision and/or enlist others’ help, click here.)

Did you make the goal a priority? What seems important at the beginning of the year sometimes falls off the radar as the months progress. Last January, William wanted to expand his business by buying another small practice that would add a service his company didn’t provide. While this seemed like a good idea at the time, he didn’t focus on the goal until the second quarter.  By the time this goal moved into the priority position, the company had decided to merge with another firm.

Did you have a concrete plan to make the goal a reality? You’re more likely to accomplish a goal if you have a road map to get there. You can either plan backward or forward; it’s up to you. With backward planning, imagine the goal has been accomplished and ask yourself: what would have to happen just before that? And just before that? And so on. With forward planning, start from today and list the steps that will take you to your goal.

Was it really your goal, or was it someone else’s?  It’s hard to admit it to ourselves when a plan is based upon others saying, “Here’s what you should do.” If you’re trying to accomplish a goal mainly because other people think it’s a good idea, or because everyone else is doing it, you may not be pursuing it with your whole heart. Before setting a goal, ask yourself if this is what you really want.

Does your goal energize you? Do your spirits soar when you think about working on the goal, or do you feel drained? When something is true and right for you, you’ll feel it somewhere in your body. (For me, it’s in my gut.) The thought of trying something new may make you anxious; that’s normal. Let the twinge of fear clear away before you really assess whether your goal is worth doing.

As 2012 winds down, it’s a great time to reflect on what you’ve accomplished, and more important, to think about why some things got done and others didn’t. How will you use this year’s experience to design your goals for 2013?

Coaching Call To Action

First and foremost, enjoy this blessed holiday season with family, friends, and loved ones.  Second, look back at 2012 – did you enjoy the journey and reach your goals? Third, plan for 2013 using the information below.

I’d love to hear from you about what you discover as you take time to reflect and plan.  Please take a minute to share your thoughts below.

What’s New?

2012 Accomplishments, 2013 Goals Forms Are Ready

It’s time to get started on your master plan for 2013.  Give yourself some quiet time, put on some relaxing music … and begin.  First, acknowledge all that you have accomplished in 2012.  Next, write down your goals for 2013.  Open your mind to ALL the possibilities.  Start each goal with “I am” or I will.”  Don’t even THINK about restricting yourself.  This process may take two hours.  It may take two weeks.  Remember, you’re building what you want in your life.  To help you with this process, here are some key questions to ask yourself:

1. Looking back at your life both personally & professionally:

• What worked well in the past year?
• What didn’t work well and why?
• What surprised you?
• Who or what disappointed you?
• Who or what delighted you?

2. Looking forward to the new year:

• What do you want more of in your life?
• What do you want less of in your life?
• Who do you want to spend more time with?
• Who do you want to spend less time with?
• What are the most important things you want to accomplish?
• What do you need to learn to accomplish these things?
• What contribution do you want to make?
• How much do you want to earn, save and invest?
• What will you do for fun and optimum health?
• What is your single most important goal?

To receive a form to capture your accomplishments for 2012 and your goals for 2013, send me an e-mail at Andrea@CoachAndrea.com with “Accomplishments and Goals” in the subject line.

Gift Certificates Available

Looking for a unique gift for a friend, colleague or family member? Giving the gift of coaching partners the recipient with a professional coach with real world experience.  Your gift provides one-on-one coaching to help them sift through their conflicting priorities and demands, determine what’s most important and take action.  The coaching will help them focus, gain clarity, problem solve, and get results.  What better gift is there to give someone you care about!

Please call Andrea at 508-231-0766 or email Andrea@CoachAndrea.com for additional information.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

In this Tip, Simon Tyler challenges you to rethink your meeting behavior.  My first reaction – “you’re kidding.”  My second response – “Hmm, let’s consider this more closely.  What could be possible for my clients and me by changing our meeting habits?”

Quote of the Week

“If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.”

~ John Cleese

Simplifying Meeting Madness

By Simon Tyler

Unless you work on your own, for yourself or in isolation, your weekly schedule will be peppered with meetings. Meetings about your projects, team members’ projects, corporate information sharing, program updates and on and on.

The culture in your organization has possibly led to the habit of multiple invitations and equally habitual acceptance and attendance. What was once a conversation, then a meeting has become a forum or even a committee.

The time left to be creative, space to think, opportunities to build relationships, has reduced down to a few chances a day, often in the margins at the beginning or end of the day or even packed into part of your travel time.

If you truly desire positive change, to create something new for you, your team or your company, then the time must surely have come for you to check your meeting habits now.

I have often found inspiration in the thinking and working practices of the late Steve Jobs and this Simple Note about meetings is dedicated to him.

He instilled within Apple the principle of meetings populated by the fewest participants possible. Unless someone is critical to the decision or has something crucial to add, they were asked to leave the meeting.

Start with small groups of smart people, every time the number increases, unnecessary complexity increases with it.

To access the best of simplicity, not least speed, I provocatively suggest that the more critical a project the fewer smart ones you co-opt in the better. This is the opposite to most corporate behavior.

And a bonus meeting culture changer: never allow a meeting to go beyond 30 minutes.

Go on, challenge your meeting behavior, and keep it simple.

Simon Tyler is one of the world’s leading business coaches. His work simplifies the lives of business leaders and owners. He is an incisive consultant, inspirational writer, provocative public speaker and master facilitator. To learn more about Simon, visit http://simontyler.com.

Coaching Call To Action

What will you do this week to change your meeting behavior so that you and your company are more productive?  Shorter meetings, fewer meetings, less people?

What’s New?

Thursday, August 16, 2012 – 9 am to noon EDT
The Return of Pounce on a Project

I’m inspired by all of the steps my clients have been taking this year!  I know I have to spend some time decluttering my office.  I’m going to do some prep work by creating a vision of what I want the room to look like.  During Pounce, I will start the hands on work.  What project would you like to get on top of and accomplish this month? Come to Pounce on a Project I – - 2012.

Join Coach Andrea on Thursday, August 16th, from 9:00 a.m. to noon Eastern. We will join as a group by phone and declare what you want to accomplish: marketing calls to hit your numbers, adding a shopping cart to your website, or cleaning your office so you can find the goals you created in January.

During the morning, the group will gather by phone a few times to check progress and get any support needed to finish with a bang. At noon, the group will celebrate their accomplishments. Who says projects have to be boring and tedious? Bring your lightness and fun and join us for the energization.

To sign up or learn more, call or e-mail me by noon on Wednesday, August 15th. Feel free to share this with friends and co-workers, the more the merrier. (Cost of the program is only the cost of long distance phone calls.)

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk to a group of highly enthusiastic and energized business owners in Concord, MA.  The time for creating goals for 2012 was upon us. About half of the group raised their hand when asked if they’d already created their goals for 2012.  Congratulations was in order!  Next, I asked if they believed they would accomplish these goals.  Not all of those hands remained raised.  This week’s Tip includes the 6 steps I used to help the business owners in Concord, as well as my clients, answer YES I Can!

Quote of the Week

“We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.”

~ Vince Lombardi

Truly Accomplishing Goals that Matter

By Andrea Novakowski

Matthew, the owner of a computer services company, greeted me at his office door with a big smile. It was the first week of January and he’d completed his 2012 goals worksheet. He was excited to share with me the vision he’d created for himself and his business. But three weeks later, when I asked what actions he’d taken on his goals, Matthew’s smile turned to a frown. He’d already run out of gas.

He’d taken a few stabs at the goals, he said, but they all felt too big and distant, and there were competing priorities, and his customers were complaining… the list went on and on. So many distractions!

Did you set big goals for yourself this year? How are you progressing on them so far? If you’re like many people, you started out the year with great intentions, but now we’re nearing the end of January and reality has set in. Not much has really changed. The same roadblocks you ran up against in 2011 are still here in 2012.

I’ll tell you what I told Matthew. It’s not enough just to list what you want to accomplish. You also need to examine each of your goals and figure out why it’s important to you, how you plan to achieve it, and what you’ll do when problems arise.

1. Before you get to work, look deeper into each of your goals. Ask yourself:

• What is the purpose of this goal? Why do you want to achieve it? How will it make a difference in your life or the lives of others?
• What are the benefits of reaching this goal? Does it honor your values?
• Deep down, do you really believe you can reach this goal? As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right!”

2. Identify the potential obstacles that might get in the way of accomplishing your goals. Be especially honest with yourself about old habits or beliefs that might otherwise catch you by surprise, such as procrastination, perfectionism, burnout, negative self-talk, lack of know-how, or having too much to do.

3. Discover your solution. How are you going to overcome each obstacle? For instance, if you’re chronically over-scheduled, check out Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix. Set aside time on your calendar to work on your goals. Recognize which tasks need 100 percent of your effort, and which can be done at an 80 percent level. Delegate or ask for help.

4. Goals usually take many steps to achieve. Breaking your goals down into these concrete steps – making what’s called a “project plan” – will help you visualize exactly what it’s going to take to get from point A to point B. Once you’ve listed these action steps, write the next step on your calendar. That will help keep it in the front of your mind.

5. Measure backward. Sometimes, when you think about what you’re trying to accomplish, it may seem as if you’re not getting any closer. Try looking at where you were when you started working toward your goal and measure your progress from that point instead.

6. Build accountability into your plans. The more people you tell about your goal, the more support you’ll receive. Design a follow-up process that works for you. Check in with your supporters on a regular basis (weekly, monthly, quarterly).

Matthew nodded throughout our discussion: he realized that while he’d listed some worthy goals on his worksheet, he hadn’t considered the steps along the way, nor had he anticipated the obstacles he was likely to encounter. We spent the rest of Matthew’s coaching session discussing how he could regain the momentum he’d had at the beginning of January — and make real progress on the goals he’d set for himself!

Coaching Call To Action

This week, pull out your goals for 2012.  Which ones are moving along on track?  Congratulate yourself!  Which ones are already stalled?  Review the six steps above and determine your next step to move into action.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

I burst out laughing when I read this article from Simon Tyler as the power had just come back to my home office after being out for 24 hours thanks to Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene. I woke up on Monday morning thinking and planning about how I was going to get my work done when there was no electricity. When will I move appointments to, where can I charge my cell phone, what time does the library open so that I can I charge and use my laptop? How long will my cell phone battery last if I make back to back calls? When will the electric company fix the power? Should I call someone? On the way home from an hour at the library, I noticed the traffic lights were working again. I crossed my fingers – hoping, hoping, hoping that the power would be on when I got home and IT WAS! Almost exactly 24 hours after it went off. There was nothing I could do to bring the electricity back any faster.  I had to allow things to work out in that department. And they did! Thank you NStar and anyone else who had a hand in bringing back my electricity.

Quote of the Week

” Do not run away; let go. Do not seek, for it will come when least expected.”

~ Bruce Lee

Allow Things To Work Out

By Simon Tyler

They do. When it appears they don’t or haven’t yet, it’s simply that we haven’t given them enough time.

I have been caught in the middle of ‘arrgghh’ moments when situations are irritatingly not sorted, giving rise to all types of unhelpful emotions and responses. Often in client coaching dialogues this is the focus of our conversation, to move to the positive, focused, and powerful state of allowing rather than effort laden, having to make things happen.

For a number of my clients at the moment their world seems to be serving up many examples of this, and as the volume increases, often without realizing it, the emotional response and general state of mind slips down and into a fog.

Hold on to the truth that these situations ARE working out, and, crucially, without you needing to get in the middle and do the sorting.

Allow things to be, well… simple.

Simon Tyler is one of the world’s leading business coaches. His work simplifies the lives of business leaders and owners. He is an incisive consultant, inspirational writer, provocative public speaker and master facilitator. To learn more about Simon, visit http://simontyler.com.

Coaching Call To Action

This week I invite you to shift what may have become an ingrained attitude. Dedicate this week to charting incidents, simply allowing them to be what and wherever they are at that moment, and discover evidence of ‘things working out’ (particularly without your control or active input). Curb your impulse to wade in, relax and let it be.

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

Periodically, the most important action you can take to improve your results is to stop.  Then assess, looking both forward and backward. This week’s Tip by Dr. Alan Zimmerman provides a simple exercise you can do whether you are sitting down with your first cup of coffee for the day or taking your first sip of wine watching the sunset. Grab your journal and pen and answer the questions below.

Quote of the Week

“Progress is the product of human agency. Things get better because we make them better. Things go wrong when we get too comfortable, when we fail to take risks or seize opportunities.”

~ Susan Rice

Seven Questions to Ask Yourself to Get Better Results

By Dr. Alan Zimmerman

We’ve all heard the motivational speakers preach the message of “Ya gotta have goals.” And they’re right. “Ya gotta have goals.”

That’s a very important start in any endeavor, but it’s not enough to guarantee your success. In addition to HAVING some goals, you’ve got to do some PERIODIC CHECKING to see if you’re going in the right direction and making sufficient progress towards your goals.

I recommend the following seven questions. They’ll keep your goals in the forefront of your mind, and they’ll help you stay on track … doing the right things to achieve your goals as you avoid the inevitable pitfalls.

1. What three things could prevent you from achieving your goals in the next six months?
2. What is the single biggest opportunity you will have to grow personally and professionally in the next twelve months?
3. If you were able to do last week over again, what one thing would you do differently to have better results?
4. If you were able to do last month over again, what three things would you do differently to have better results?
5. Are you spending your time in a way that delivers the best possible results?
6. What one thing can you stop doing today that will give you more time?
7. If it were entirely up to you, what would you change in your work?

They’re great questions. And every time you ask yourself these questions, you’re going to get a payoff.

As published in Art Sobczak’s Smart Calling newsletter and from Dr. Alan Zimmerman’s Internet newsletter, the ‘Tuesday Tip.’ For your own personal, free subscription to the ‘Tuesday Tip,’ go to http://www.DrZimmerman.com

Coaching Call To Action

Alan has provided great questions that I’m going to spend time answering Monday afternoon as I do my monthly business planning. How about you? When will you set aside time to assess your business?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

“What, you want me to schedule one more meeting?” This might be the response you have when you start reading this week’s Tip, however, please pay attention. If you are not scheduling regular time for yourself for planning, thinking, and strategizing, you are only hurting yourself. I have one client who at the start of the day has started a new habit of sitting in a comfortable recliner and thinking for 10 to 15 minutes. Taking that time daily has him know that he’s addressing the most pressing issues and thinking strategically about his life and business.

Quote of the Week

“We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly. . . spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.”

~  Susan Taylor

The Most Important Meeting

by Simon Tyler

A quick view of your calendar for next week will undoubtedly reveal days full of meetings, back to back on some days with no breathing space between.

The culture of many companies in which I have been involved seems to dictate the meeting thing. They are invaluable, most of the time in achieving an objective or two, but I have observed the meeting habit consuming teams, divisions and even entire companies. But one particular type of meeting, potentially the most valuable to you and your journey, gets forgotten.

My challenge for you this week is to schedule the most important meeting. It is simply a meeting with you. The You-on-You meeting can be strategic or tactical, and have similar intent to the plethora of meetings you attend every day.

We convince ourselves that we do have meetings with self, but until they are formally included in your schedule they almost always are sub optimal! They occur as you walk between other meetings, to the car park or train, the journey itself, fitting in the gaps, no agenda, no focus, random thoughts, open to every possible distraction, in utterly inappropriate environments. Would you seriously allow your team or project meetings happen like that? If you did what result would you expect from them?

Get it?

If you want to shift your thinking, your performance, your results, then you need a “you-on-you” communication plan. Your meeting need not necessarily be in a conference room with PowerPoint slides, just set it up in a way that you will be at your meeting best. A quiet place, for as long as you can handle being with the participant. And don’t complicate it, just have one or two agenda items/thoughts to focus on (one is my favourite).

10 minutes a day? An hour a week? You could even invite expert guests (your coach, mentor or development buddy). Create some frequency, perhaps even make notes (Einstein did). Just stop putting off this incredibly valuable investment of your time.

I’ve written about this in different ways in previous tipsletters, have a look at Focus On One and Pause.

Simon Tyler is one of the world’s leading business coaches. His work simplifies the lives of business leaders and owners. He is an incisive consultant, inspirational writer, provocative public speaker and master facilitator. To learn more about Simon, visit http://simontyler.com.

Coaching Call To Action

To be the most effective leader you can be, it’s imperative that you take time to deal with the important/not urgent issues in your work/life. What will you create in your schedule this week to honor this most important meeting with yourself?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

“What one thing would you have done differently when you started your business?” This question is often asked of me by new coaches interviewing me to be their mentor. I always respond – getting an automated contact management system. When I first started my business, I had my contacts on an Excel spreadsheet and it was very cumbersome. Then someone told me about ACT! It makes remembering to stay in touch effortless. In this week’s Tip, Tracey Lawton shares additional ideas on why you need to get organized to get clients.

Quote of the Week

“It is best to do things systematically, since we are only human, and disorder is our worst enemy.”
~ Hesiod

Get Organized To Get Clients

by Tracey Lawton

This article has been inspired by one of the respondents to my recent survey who commented “I need clients not organization”. This particular comment really stuck out for me because I feel that a lot of business owners become so focused on getting the clients that they really don’t understand being more organized means getting more clients, and therefore do not put in place the foundational pieces that will allow their business to grow.

You probably have heard me say before that you need to “manage” your business before you can “market” your business, or to take what this respondent said and turn it on it’s head:

You need to get organized to get clients.

Sure, you may get clients without being organized, but you won’t get clients consistently; you won’t be able to create a business that brings you the fulfillment of bringing in a significant income; and you won’t have the security that even in a slow economy your business will bring in the clients and provide you with a consistent income – and yes I’m talking from experience here. 2010 was one of my best years ever!

So today I’m going to share with you why becoming more organized and having your systems in place means getting more clients – and a continual flow of clients too.

It all starts with your filing system i.e. getting the papers off your desk and put away and getting the clutter off the floor. Once you have cleared away the clutter and have a system in place for retrieving information so that you can access it when you need it, you eliminate a lot of the overwhelm. And once the overwhelm has been eliminated your mind becomes clear, you can focus, and your creative juices start to flow – think implementing new programs or creating new info products. You now have the space (both physically and mentally) to start working on your business rather than in your business.

Once the clutter has gone you then need to take charge of your finances. You need to know exactly where you are financially in your business so that you can make sound business decisions, i.e. can you place an advertisement in that ezine where your target market hangs out and bring in new clients for you? Can you afford to attend that networking event where you know you will make new contacts who will eventually become clients or generate a constant referral source for your business? Having your financial information organized will tell you exactly whether you can make that investment. And making that investment will lead to new clients.

Now that you’ve placed that advertisement or attended that networking event, you need to follow up with all the people you’ve just met. A contact management system will let you do just that! And this is the real secret to getting new clients – the follow-up; the making connections; the staying-in-touch. All this comes from having your contact management system organized, and this is where you can bring in new clients consistently.

Finally, you need to create an online marketing system that draws new clients to you daily; people who sign up to your list; who want to stay in touch with you; are interested in your programs, products, and services. Your marketing system should be fully automated so that it can continue to work for you even while you’re not present in your business.

So now can you see why you need to get organized to get clients?

It’s the lack of organization that stops your business from growing; that stops you from getting new clients on a regular basis; and that takes away the security and fulfillment you get from running your own business. By being organized you will get clients consistently and your business will grow.

Online Business Development Strategist, Tracey Lawton, teaches online solo service professionals how to create the essential online marketing and office organization systems needed so that they can create a more streamlined, systemized, and automated online business. Check out http://www.officeorganizationsuccess.com for free how-to articles, resources, tips, and tools, and sign up for your free “Office Organization Success Toolkit”.

Coaching Call To Action

Share your tip on getting organized in your business. What recommendation would you give to a new business owner?

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

This week’s Tip does not only apply to Small Business Owners. No matter what your level is in the working world, you could benefit by awareness to how these 7 flaws could be impacting you and the solutions to overcome them. I know I’ve suffered from each of these traits from time to time.

Quote of the Week

“Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.”
~ Dr. David M. Burns

Top 7 Flaws of Small Business Owners

Coaching Call To Action

Where are you holding yourself back by your behavior?  What new habit will you create to overcome this behavior?

What’s New

Thursday, September 23, 2010 – 9 am to noon ET
Pounce on a Project

Welcome back from the summer break!  I hope you all took some time to recharge.  What project would you like to get on top of and accomplish this month? Come to Pounce on a Project VI – - 2010.

Join Coach Andrea on Thursday, September 23rd from 9:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Eastern. We will join as a group by phone and declare what you want to accomplish: preparing a marketing plan for Q4, starting the talk you have to give in two weeks, getting your new website finished, or getting rid of the piles of completed projects that grew over the summer.

During the morning, the group will gather by phone a few times to check progress and get any support needed to finish with a bang. At noon, the group will celebrate their accomplishments. Who says projects have to be boring and tedious? Bring your lightness and fun and join us for the energization.

To sign up or learn more, call or e-mail me by noon on Wednesday, September 23rd. Feel free to share this with friends and co-workers, the more the merrier. (Cost of the program is only the cost of long distance phone calls.)

Thursday, September 23, 2010 – 6:30 – 8:30 pm ET
Being Resourceful at The New England Chapter of ACRP

If you are like most people, you already have more than enough resources (people, places, and things) in your life that can be used for support or help when needed. But, are you using them effectively to increase your productivity and to develop your career?

Join me at The New England Chapter of the Association of Clinical Research Professionals
as I provide tools to show you how to: identify your resources, use your resources to the fullest, and handle resource “roadblocks”.  Capitalize on your resources to achieve the results that are most important to you .at Jasper White’s Summer Shack in Cambridge from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.To reserve your place, contact Patricia Seymour (pannseymour@yahoo.com).

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Coach Andrea’s Intro

I’m happy to share Simon Tyler’s description of the Urgent/Important Matrix.  The first time I saw this it opened my eyes to how much time I was spending in the Urgent quadrants, without taking the time to decide if the tasks truly were urgent or important.  I had a sense they were and rather than take the time to step back and access, I kept moving forward adding more and more to my plate.  Sound familiar?  You get an email and drop everything to respond to it, your phone rings in the middle of your precious “planning” time and you answer it – concentration lost and another task becomes urgent.  It’s a vicious cycle.  And yet, we all know some time spent in Box D (Non-urgent and Important) has a huge payoff.  As you enter the second half of 2010, will you take the time to do an audit of how you are spending your time? Will you then block off time to get familiar with Box D?  Will you focus on what moves you forward on your goals?

Quote of the Week

“The ability to focus attention on important things is a defining characteristic of intelligence.”
~Robert J. Shiller

Have You Got It? Urgentia – Addiction to Urgent

by Simon Tyler

• Identify all the tasks and actions in which you are involved.
• Assess the degree to which they are urgent (looming deadline or immediate requirement to be completed) and the degree to which they are important (developing you, solving bigger challenges, leading to your goals or greater success)
• Work on the Urgent and Important first (Box B)
• Work on the Non-urgent and Important box second (Box D)
• Handle the urgent, non-important in new ways (Box A)
• Avoid Box C

In some form this 2×2 question comes into most of my coaching conversations and this week I have become abundantly aware that I need to listen to myself for a while, as I am solving my own state of ‘Urgentia’ with a mixed dose of unimportant distractions. Things that aren’t important simply aren’t important. We shouldn’t spend excessive time involved in them; in fact we should cease them.

It is still extremely pertinent today, in our busy environments where I am frequently told that everything is now in the top right box (Urgent and Important). This is often not actually true. What may have happened to you or those around you, without being consciously aware of it, is that we have become addicted to Urgent. You are suffering from ‘Urgentia’.

Our many electronic devices are, by their nature, urgent. Phones, especially mobiles, texts (even more so), email, instant message alerts and so on. Add to this the natural urgency of our media (TV, radio, newspapers) and the adverts that scream for our attention and action NOW and we have an environment in which Urgency rules. These are almost all dangerous ‘Box A’ (the urgency masks the fact that they are absolutely unimportant).

Today we have more choices available to us than ever before, we are capable of taking amazing empowered self-development steps. Changing our business and personal lives dramatically is a real and reachable option. But we don’t. These steps are always important and non-urgent (precious ‘Box D‘). They don’t shout and scream, they require us to be conscious and deliberate. Time spent here ALWAYS pays back.

Box D enjoys only fleeting moments of your attention as your diary fills with the urgent stuff. And without you noticing you are caught, like I have been this week idling in Box C, convincing myself that whatever I am doing is important, when really it isn’t. It’s simply not urgent and I have been enjoying the non-urgency of it. The same relaxed option awaits me in the important Box D as soon as I focus on it and do it!

Urgentia is not big or clever, even though it feels like it when we are caught up in it. Urgentia leads to missed goals, slipped deadlines, excessive stress and anxiety and the feeling of no progress despite what seems to be immense effort.

A simple way to cure Urgentia? Start an audit this week of where you have spent your time. Ask yourself the question “Was this task truly important, to me, my goals and aspirations?” Begin again, deliberately. Handle the urgent and do the important. Book time, reserve the space, read, and take whatever action moves you forward in the direction of YOUR goals.

Simon Tyler is one of the world’s leading business coaches. His work simplifies the lives of business leaders and owners. He is an incisive consultant, inspirational writer, provocative public speaker and master facilitator. To learn more about Simon, visit http://simontyler.com.

Coaching Call to Action

Reread and do the last paragraph of Simon’s article.  What did you learn about yourself?  What will you commit to for the second half of 2010?  Who will support you in holding true to this commitment?

What’s New

1. What’s the most important change I’ve made so far this year?
2. How have I taken better care of myself?
3. What risks have I taken?  What fears or challenges have I faced?
4. How have I grown as a person?  What qualities have I developed?  (i.e. Am I more patient, focused, or financially responsible?)
5. How has my environment changed?  Have I cleaned up my home or office, challenged myself to throw things out, or added some beauty to my life?
6. What have I done to help others improve the quality of their lives?

As you finish this reflection, consider whether you are moved to create a new goal that is IMPORTANT to you.

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