Are you working harder and harder and becoming more productive yet you still feel like there’s much more to do with no end in site? The problem is that productivity (doing something well) is only one of the three pillars of success to your Success Making Machine. Below I highlight the other two pillars. Once you integrate these easy steps your chances for success will significantly increase.
Think
There’s some people who are productive at the wrong thing. Like the person who efficiently creates the weekly report every week- that isn’t being read. In effect, they are being efficient at not achieving their (career advancement) goals because they are wasting time doing something that’s not needed. Before you achieve any success you need to know what your shooting for- think about the goals. Then create a rudimentary plan for acheiving your
goals. This can be a quick back of the envelope session or a more formal outlining- as long as you start thinking about what you really want to achieve.

Enjoy
So now you have a goal and a plan and are being productive you still may not be successful unless you enjoy what you’re doing. Because once adversity hits (and it will) the effort will be too hard. Here’s a simple rule for enjoying your work more: Do more of what you like and less of what you don’t.

Next Steps
The principles outlined here will get you on your way to success. But there are still many more tools you can use to be more productive. The key is to build your own system that will  produce success even when you cant put effort on to it. That is a Success Making Machine and it will guarantee success.

Productivity is an admirable goal but there’s more to success than being productive. So think about what you want to do and enjoy it.

photo credit: Search Engine People Blog

43 unread emails, 1713 emails in out inbox, 18 new letters in the mail, 33 ideas in our head, 4 piles of papers on our desk, 36 items on our to do list and a blinking answering machine. Our inboxes (electronic and physical) are constantly being filled with more demands on our time. To keep our sanity and be productive we must take a short time to “process” our overflowing inboxes and get it empty (or as close as possible). This will ensure that our task lists are filled with manageable tasks.
Here’s a quick mnemonic to making this process go faster and efficiently- use the 9 Ds: Delete, Deposit (file), Deflect, Deter, Delegate, Defer, Designate(calendar), Do Now, (To) Do List.

Delete

If an item is junk or you’ll never need it, get rid of it right away. Newspapers are trash(yesterday’s news is worthless), old magazines are trash(you’re not going to get to it anyway), junk email should be vaporized, old clothes go to good will, you get the idea.
Bonus: figure out how to never deal with it again (e.g. unsubcribe from lists, sign up on do not call lists etc.)

Deposit
File your reference information. Many of the files on your desk or old emails are no longer needed except as a reference just in case. If you think you’ll need it someday- just put it in a obvious file folder- out of site so when you’ll need it you can quickly find. Get it out of the way so it’s not cluttering your workspace.

Deflect
If you are definitely the wrong person for this task then quickly point the requestor to the right place and get this out of your boxes. You don’t to do this immediately so you don’t hold up the project.

Deter
Learn how to say no. Not every request that comes to your inbox means you must do it. See if it fits within your responsibilities and/or goals. If not just say “no”.

Delegate
There are some tasks that should be done but someone else can help you with it. If someone on your staff or your spouse etc can do it let them help you especially if they can do it better. Some people get in the mindset that only they can do a task, that they do it best. Given
some else a chance. Keep in mind when you delegate you are not completely giving up the task, you will still get the last word and should keep a follow-up on your task list so the issue is done on time with quality.

Defer
Some tasks are interesting but it’s not important or urgent. Put it on your “someday/maybe list”. This way you’ll still have it on your radar but it wont clutter your mind. Examples of items to defer are painting the house (you dont have time for it now anyway), launching a
completely new product etc or other tasks that you know aren’t needed in the near future.

Designate

Designate a specific time for an appointment. Just put it on your calendar and move on. An appointment should sit in one central place so you dont double book your time or miss appointments.

Do Now
Any task that takes two minutes or less should be done quickly. No excuses- do it. It will feel great to shorten your to do list.

(To) Do List
All other tasks go on your “to do” list. Just get it out of your inbox.

photo credit: nate steiner

The Two Minute Guide To Getting Things Done(GTD) went through the steps to start being more productive. Here we’ll talk about how to become successful.
Rule 1: Write down what you want
If you don’t know what you want, you can’t get it. Take a paper and write down your goals.

Rule 2: Review your goals often
Be sure to schedule time to review your list, otherwise you’ll never
get to it. The process of reviewing will keep your goals fresh and give
you ideas on the next step to achieve them.

That’s it. This isn’t earth shattering. This isn’t anything you didn’t know. But this time I hope you do it.
Use your next minute to start your list.

photo credit: Georgio

Every Friday is filled with last minute preparations for making your shabbos perfect. There’s cooking, cleaning, ironing, bathing, preparing, setting up- it’s no wonder that Friday’s are so stressful. Imagine if there was a machine that can automate many of the tasks, eliminate others and make the tasks remaining more enjoyable. Well there is- it’s a methodology called The Success Making Machine. The system can be used for any type of project and it certainly will help ease shabbos preparations.
A Success Making Machine is system that uses the three elements of: thinking, doing and enjoying to acheive success. In short the principals are: Think before you do. Do it well. Enjoy what you’re doing.

Think
Before you do anything you need to think. Why are you making shabbos? Of course I know it’s a commandment. But why are you making it so elaborate? Certainly many of the tasks you perform aren’t really neccessary to having a great shabbos experience. So figure what you really want in your shabbos and make a concrete plan accordingly. The next few paragraphs give you some of the tools that you can include in your plan.

Eat it I actually mean Ate it: EliminAte, AutomAte and DelegAte. Eliminate tasks you don’t really need to do. Do you really need a 3rd side dish? Is it necessary to wash all the dirty clothes before shabbos- can it be done on Sunday? Automate: Can your grocery store deliver your standard order each week? Can your cleaners be automatically delivered before shabbos? Delegate: Can one of the kids prepare the shabbos table? Are there some items that would be better to buy than make yourself? Think about ways to “ate” your tasks.

Home it Every item in your house should have a home, a place where it belongs. During the week items around the house should end up in their home- this will eliminate the need for some cleaning before shabbos. For the items that are left out you can put it away without thinking or simply have your spouse or child put it away- it’s easy because everyone knows the home. All shabbos preparation items should similarly have a home. So when you’re preparing for shabbos you don’t need to spend precious time looking around for them.

Routine it- Make your shabbos preparation ritual routine. Have all members of your household know what their tasks are so there’s no need for reminders. The less time you spend thinking about routine tasks on Friday the more brainpower you can extend to doing things faster and better.

Do
Doing is the obvious part of shabbos preparation. But whatever you do, do it to the best of your abilities. Even tasks you don’t like should be done with your full effort- it gets done faster that way (more on this later). Also you’re passion will also spill over to other members of the family who will achieve more with less stress.

When you start a task, work on it until it’s done. Don’t interrupt yourself lest you end up with 20 open tasks and nothing completed as a neighbor walks in or you need to step out for a few minutes.

Don’t multitask. Many supposedly productive people will tell you that you should multitask to get your tasks done more efficiently. Experiments have proven that multitasking doesn’t work. People lose their focus and don’t adequately concentrate causing the time and or quality to suffer. Rather combine complementary tasks. Peel potatoes while you’re on the phone. The potatoes aren’t a mind intensive task, leaving you to concentrate on the phone. When you go out shopping be sure to stop at the cleaners- it will save you a trip later.

Enjoy
Shabbos is a special day. If you’re stressing the entire week about preparations and resting all of shabbos when will you be enjoying yourself? There’s a simple rule for enjoying shabbos preparation and shabbos more: Do more of what you like and less of what you dont like. Think about ways to “ate” your tasks- especially the ones that you hate.

Do something you enjoy to reward yourself. Perhaps you get the first bite of kugel. Prepare you favorite foods. Most of all eliminate stress. Are you stressed about demanding guests? Don’t invite them anymore. A stressed out parent at the shabbos table certainly doesn’t contribute to an enjoyable shabbos.

What’s next
The more you use the tools of the Success Making Machine the more you’ll achieve on Friday and everyday. (There are more tools and techniques online at successmakingmachine.com) Even in this short lesson you can start to take advantage of building your machine which will help you achieve success. Have a successful shabbos.

Success on a project, in business or in life can’t be achieved until you start. Layering is an approach that increases your chance for success. The concept is simple: break the project into small parts, start small and “launch” frequently. Then add more layers of complexity on it. Here are the steps to getting that big project done:
Identify the problem
Before you achieve success you need to know what you’re trying to accomplish. What problem are you trying to solve? What will success look like?

Start small
Break down the project. Identify some quick tasks you can accomplis h(next actions) and get them done. They will not be a full project and will have many holes in it but you will have something to show for your efforts. Congratulations, you’ve already succeeded more than most people who are only thinking about it.

Tweak it
Based on feedback on your initial launch perform tweaks to make it better/more usable/more professional. These changes may look like obvious needs in hind site. The tweaks shouldn’t cover new ground. Rather they are simple ways to make your initial output stable and usable.

Get better
Keep building on your initial success. Identify the most important steps to get to the next goal. Are there any small talks now that can get you more success?

Keep Layering
Identify more wins. Some parts of the project may be more complex, but keep trying to break it down into small launchable parts.

Real life example:
After taking over a new team of employees Mike was confronted wit hdaily fire drills when tasks weren’t being completed on time.

Identifying the problem
When investigating the issue finger pointing ensued over who was supposed to be doing the specific task. The problem was each type of task had a distinct workflow that not everyone on the team was aware of. Further the handoffs of tasks weren’t sufficiently formalized so even when a task was handed off there was no record of who had it.

Start Small
Mike realized the ideal solution would be a task management system but initiating it would take months and the resources weren’t available because they were too busy fighting fires. So he broke down the tasks: He identified and communicated work flows. That helped. Then he build a spreadsheets for each type of issue with the workflow steps identified with owners and dates. Another small victory, by now fire drills decreased substantially.

Tweak it
Now that the workflows were formalized Mike and his team discovered ways to tweak some workflows. He adjusted the spreadsheets and communicated it to the team.

Get Better
Although the work flows became more clear but fire drills weren’t completely eliminated because of some inherent limitations of excel. He initiated some manual processes and checks and balances to ensure that tasks got done on time.

Keep Layering
With a relatively stable environment and the requirements crystalized, Mike enlisted one of his team members to begin initiating a task management system. Building a full system would have taken a long time, so they started with just a system to mimik the current excel tracking and initiated a few minor improvements. After this was successfully introduced more features were added. Then more features. Until one day Mike’s initial vision was realized and the firedrills were eliminated.

Big projects are daunting. Just keep it simple and you’ll succeed.