I want to start this article with a very simple, yet powerful question…What would you do with an extra 30 minutes every day to do with whatever you wanted? 

Would you spend that time with your children, with your spouse, with your best friend? Would you take that time and invest it into your own personal education? Possibly donate that time to your favorite charity, invest it into growing your business, training staff, or launching that NEW venture you’ve been thinking about…or maybe just spending that time sitting on your back deck enjoying a little bit of peace and quiet.

What would you do…. with an extra hour every single day? What about 2 hours more each day to make a difference in your life…and the lives of the people that mean the most to you.

If you ask people what their biggest problem is today……. I venture to say that most of us would say that we just don’t have enough time in the day to get the things done that we want. With all the chaos and craziness in the world right now, it seems like we are busier than ever, but we seem to get less and less done. 

We each have 86,400 seconds in our days, and we can’t create any more of it. There’s not a 25th hour that we can magically make appear. The only thing that we can control, is how we spend our time.

As I have discussed before in previous articles, our time is the most valuable asset that we have not just as businesspeople, but as human beings…the biggest problem I hear from people around the world is that they don’t have enough time to accomplish their dreams, or their vision for the future. It’s a common problem with all of us, regardless of our income status, where we live, what we do for a living, who our friends are, or how many children we have.

Each passing day that goes by is a lost opportunity to make the biggest difference possible……

We all know that to work smarter, we have to make sure that we are spending our time on activities that bring us the biggest bang for our buck, and delegating, automating or eliminating the activities that tend to get us stuck in the mud. 

Pareto’s Principle suggests that 80% of our results are derived from 20% of our high valued activities, meaning that the other 80% of our time brings us only 20% of our intended results.

I believe it’s time for a NEW philosophy for how we determine where to spend our time, I call it the ‘Graf 95/5 Principle” …95% of our positive results are derived from 5% of our efforts. The challenge is to determine what that 5% is, then DO ONLY THAT!

How can we become more efficient with EVERYTHING we do, so we free up our time to reinvest into things that bring us bigger results and brings joy to our lives?

Play with me for just a minute… Let’s say that you evaluate how you are spending your precious time each day, and you discover that you can free up an additional 60 minutes each day by becoming more efficient with your schedule and list of priorities….and let’s also say that you decide to reinvent that time into your education, you can pick the topic. 

It might be on selling, marketing, accounting, branding, how to manage your employees, time management, gardening, parenting, finger painting, card tricks, being a mixologist, playing the flute, training an ostrich, learning the fine art of playing chess, meditation, cooking, birdwatching, investing in the stock market, becoming a social media expert, or something as simple as learning how to make the best chocolate chip cookies that world has ever seen.

If you invested just 60 minutes a day into your education, I guarantee that you will be at the absolute TOP OF YOUR FOOD CHAIN within 1 year. Can you imagine how great you would become if you devoted 365 hours into becoming an expert in your field? That’s the equivalent of spending 45/8 hours days learning how be a master at something, anything, and keeping the edge of your sword sharp.

This might sound daunting, which is why 99% of all people on this earth DO NOT make daily learning part of their routines. It’s scary and potentially overwhelming, but I promise you that if you make that commitment to yourself, after only 1 year you will become one of the biggest experts in whatever subject you choose.

Would that completely revolutionize your business, your life, your outlook? You bet it would.

And learning can come to you in a variety of shapes……. reading a book or magazine, listening to a podcast or audiobook, watching videos, taking an online course, or attending a workshop or seminar, or talking with a group of peers.

So, here’s some tips on ways you can incorporate some daily learning into your lifestyle.

#1- Create a POD of time that is purely dedicated to your education. Some people are morning people, and some do their best work at night. I’m a morning person for sure and spend the first 60 minutes of my day immersed in my education…from listening to podcasts, to reading books, to watching educational videos. 

Once you have established when this POD of time will happen, make sure you do everything in your power to not allow any disruptions to take place. If you are distracted for a mere 15 seconds (like looking a text that just came in, or checking out a Facebook notification, it takes you 10 minutes to get back to the mental state you were in BEFORE the interruption took place. 

So that leads right into #2- Turn off all notifications on your devices, and let the outside world know that you are NOT to be disturbed during this time. I realize that this is not always going to happen, but it’s important that you set yourself up for success as much as possible. 

If you were focusing on, let’s say, how to create effective YouTube ads for your business and you were knee deep into a video on how to select a demographic…and suddenly you hear “Vvvvvv, Vvvvvv.” The first inclination is to pick up your phone and see who has sent you a text or reacted to a Facebook post. 

In fact, I bet that when you read the “Vvvvv, Vvvvvv”, your body had a physical reaction and you thought about looking at your phone, or maybe you DID look at your phone. That’s why it’s so important to turn off your notifications and keep out distractions during this POD of time.

#3- Create a journal and TAKE NOTES, regardless of how you are learning. It’s a proven fact that if you write something down on paper, you are much more likely to remember it later…and if you write it down and then review it 1-2 times within 24 hours, that retention goes up exponentially. I’m not talking about typing your notes into a computer, I’m talking about the old fashion technique of writing it with a pen and paper. 

It’s been proven time and time again to lead to increased brain activity and brain synapses, and a much higher retention of the information. So, if you hear or read something you want to remember or want to utilize later, write it down and re-read your notes 1-2 times within 24 hours. 

This is beneficially whether you are a college student trying to pass advanced cell biology, or a frontline salesperson trying to learn everything they can about the art of salesmanship.

#4- Make sure you stick to your objective. The 21/90 rule states that it takes 21 days to create a positive habit and 90 days to make it a permanent lifestyle change… Commit to your goal for 21 days and it will become a habit. Commit to your goal for 90 days and it will become a part of who you are as a person.

It also takes 21 days to break a bad habit. If you can replace a negative habit with a positive one, the world can be yours and nothing will be able to stop you from becoming an expert in anything you choose! 

Now, see how easy that was?

Written by Mitche Graf.
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