” Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” – Seneca

Once upon a time, there was a very strong woodcutter. He asked for a job from a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work. The first day, the woodcutter brought down 18 trees. The Boss was very much impressed and said, “Congratulations, Go on that way!”. Very motivated by the words of the boss, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he only could bring down 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he only could bring down 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing down less and fewer trees. “I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought to himself. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going wrong. “When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked. “Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees.” the woodcutter replied. The boss said, “You have to take time to sharpen your axe for consistency.”

Our lives are like that. We sometimes get so busy that we don’t take time to sharpen the axe. A great quote, isn’t it? but it’s the opposite of what many people do. When they have a project to work on, many people just work on it directly with little or no preparation. To the contrary, smart people prepare things well in advance and that way they outperform those with little or no preparation. They accomplish the job in less time and with less stress. That’s what I call working smart.

Preparation is essential to work smart.

Initially, it may seem like a waste of time.  But preparation can make the difference between being productive and just being tired.

Preparation helps you find if something is worth doing.

Instead of working on wrong project, it’s wise to check first if something is worth doing. Is it the best use of your time and resources?  Spend time to find out whether or not the  project is feasible. The time saved from not doing the wrong project far outweighs the time spent to research it.

Preparation helps you find the most efficient way to do things. 

Once you decide that a project is worth doing, the next step is finding the most efficient way to do it. If you don’t prepare for the project, you adopt the first method you can think of or the one you are familiar with. But chances are that other methods may save your time and efforts. Do some research to find them. One good way is by watching how the best people in your field work. Find several models and observe the advantages and disadvantages of their methods. Then combine the best methods to create something that suits your project, style and situation.

Preparation makes you ready when opportunity comes. 

When there is no project, you should keep building your skills and knowledge. Keep learning, keep growing, and open your eyes. By this you can see opportunity and can grab it.

Caution:

There is a danger though: you could be over-prepared.

Over preparation may result into delay in taking action. Or it may become a reason for not taking action. Hence do only the preparation that significantly contributes to your project and your personal growth. Prepare well but don’t over-prepare.

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• A water bearer had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full 2 years, this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
• After 2 years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.” “Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?” “I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don’t get full value from your efforts,” the pot said. The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion, he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.” Indeed as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wildflowers on the side of the path and this cheered it some. But at the end of tile trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure. The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on YOUR side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them. For 2 years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”

Just Love Yourself:

• Each of us has our own unique flaws. We’re all cracked pots. Some of us don’t age gracefully, some are not so smart, some are tall, large & big, some bald, some physically challenged, but it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together and so very interesting and rewarding.  You have to accept each person in your life for what they are and look for the good in them. There is a lot of good in them and in you. Remember to appreciate all the different people in your life, including yourself.
• Your attitude decides how do you love yourself? To love yourself you have to change attitude. To do that I am prescribing following steps. Stop all the criticism of yourself and others. Accept yourself as you are. When you approve and accept of yourself, your changes become positive, your attitude becomes positive. It is very important to understand that everyone in your world is a reflection of your beliefs. Don’t blame others; change your beliefs and your perception towards the world changes. Be gentle, kind and patient with yourself. Praise yourself as much as you can but avoid boasting. You received the body. You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire lifespan. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time information school called Life. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant or stupid. There are no mistakes, only lessons. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that “works.” A lesson is repeated until learned. It will be presented in various forms until you have learned it. Then you can go on to the next lesson. Learning lessons DO NOT END.
• Others are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects you something that you love or hate in yourself. You can love life and everything around you, the mantra is “Just Love Yourself”. You have all the tools and resources you need. To use them is up to you. The choice is yours. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is listen, look and trust. Your subconscious always there to help you with your spiritual progress.
• As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story and opinion.  Don’t get washed away with their opinion. That is their opinion and not yours and they have right to give their opinion. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are enemies of the soul and the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career. Give a treat to yourself for a big or small success. Failures are not final. Take another look at the problem. Find the mistakes done avoid them or try another way to tackle it. Nurture strength of your spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Enjoy with your family and friends and sometimes in solitude.
• Be gentle with yourself. You are great as all other great things in the universe. You are the child of this magnificent universe. Be at peace with God, everybody, yourself and your soul. Just love yourself.

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 Some Non-essential tasks and method of their elimination:

Don’t read or answer non-essential emails:

• How much time do you spend typing and replying to work emails each day? Now, ask yourself how much of your time is spent on essential emails? By essential emails I mean, emails that are directly related to the execution and completion of your job and your priorities. It is estimated that only 10% to 20% of emails that most people get at work each day require their attention and are essential to their job (80/20 rule).
• If you are spending the majority of your time on non-essential email, you have less time for your other job-related activities. You could have an assistant filter your emails to eliminate.  Unsubscribe from non-essential bulk emails lists. The idea is to spend as close to 100% of your time devoted to essential email only. This goes for personal email as well.

Don’t waste time in reading all submissions to Facebook and Whatsapp Chats:

• If you are a member of the non-essential group on social media, get out of it immediately. Because you yourself know reading the post and chats in such group is time-wasting activity. I am not against social media use. But time used for this activity can be minimised by viewing only those submissions which are in your interest or which give you some knowledge. It is found that 80% submissions to Facebook or chats on Whatsapp are not worth seeing it or reading it. If we become choosy we can save a lot of time.

Watch less TV:

• Another popular time-waster is watching TV. This is one of the hardest habits to break, but there is a simple much more effective ways to spend your time. Unless you’re on vacation, turn the TV off. Besides, removing the exposure to devastating and negative news will greatly benefit your outlook on life and help you sleep better at night. Try it for a week and see if you notice improved sleep and reduced nightmares. Experience it yourself. You can use this time by playing or enjoying with your family, reading a book. Make a list of the things you would like to do and arrange them in order of importance. The ones that make you feel the best should go at the top of the list and should be the first thing you do when you create the time.

Make TO-DO list:

• Writing a To-Do List before you go to sleep every night will help your mind run through the day and organize it. While you’re sleeping, your brain is organizing how to create successful outcomes for the next day‘s tasks. If you give it a task, it will figure out a way to complete it successfully – and be more focused on success supporting actions instead of time-wasters.
• Prioritize everything on the list so if you don’t have time for everything, you at least get the most important   (and not easiest) items done.

Delegate your work:

• If you have assistants at work, find if there are additional tasks you can delegate to them. Have your assistant look through your email, check phone calls or walk-ins, schedule all appointments, or research something you need more information about.
• If you are self-employed, find an assistant! For non-essential delegation, you can hire a college student at a reasonable rate. For vital tasks, stick with professionals. If you have young adults in the house, offer a part-time job to one or more of your kids. Hire an experienced virtual assistant to help you part-time or full-time. There are many good people out there if you can live with them not being physically located in your office.

Learn to say NO

• You have to learn to say “No.” You cannot always take care of everyone else. Talk less on phone particularly at works. Do one task at a time and avoid multitasking. If you’re multitasking while talking on your phone – someone or something is missing your full attention.

Use App Like Truecaller to block unsolicited calls:

• Answering unsolcited from telemarketers and service providers always waste lot of time, block them.

Decide how much to talk on a phone.

• Phones and particularly mobiles were developed for an emergency. Hence the talk on mobiles and phones should be precise. If you want to have long chat, keep time aside and meet them personally.

Conclusion:

• If you want to be successful in life, then set your priorities and develop your activities around these priorities and your life goal. Time saved can be used to work on your goal.

The post Eliminate Non-Value Tasks From Your Day appeared first on The Fact Factor.

• In 1958, C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a satirical book describing human behaviour. The book was entitled, Parkinson’s Law: The Pursuit of Progress and is the source of the well-known law: “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” One everyday example given in his book is that of two people writing a postcard. An elderly, retired person might spend hours choosing the right card, take great pains to craft a personal message and then walk to the post office to mail it. On the other hand, a busy businessman is to pick the first card he spots, write a quick note and mail it on the way home. Same work but different time allocation, because for the retired person more resource time is available while for the businessman it is scarce.

• This law was actually proposed by him to explain tthe ime-consuming nature of bureaucracy in Great Britain. Actually, it is true everywhere. He found that the bureaucracy insists to continue hiring more and more people to achieve the same results. What happened to the “free” time now available to those who were responsible for the results in the first place? Parkinson was surprised to discover they were just as busy as they had been before the addition of layers of assistants. The end result of all of their business was the same economic output as they had achieved before the hiring binge, but they found ways to expand the work and remain “busy.” Emails between the various layers of employees exploded. Of course, this internal correspondence had to be checked for proper spelling and grammar. And someone had to manage the escalating staff. In fact, in the specific case he describes in his book, seven officials ended up doing the same amount of work as one had done before. In short, “Officials make work for each other.”

Corollaries of Parkinson’s Law:

• Data expands to fill the space available for storage.
• Storage requirements will increase to meet storage capacity.
• Expenditures rise to meet income.
• A modern version is that no amount of computer automation will reduce the size of a bureaucracy.
• The Stock-Sanford Corollary to Parkinson’s Law reads, “If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.”
• “Parkinson’s Law” could be generalized further still as:
• The demand upon a resource tends to expand to match the supply of the resource. OR The amount of time which one has to perform a task is the amount of time it will take to complete the task.

Explanation of Corollaries of Parkinson’s Law:

• If a task can expand to fill the time allotted, then conversely, the effort given can be limited by limiting the allotted time, down to a minimum amount of time actually required to complete the task. This is often associated with procrastination. This generalization has become very similar to the economic law of demand; that the lower the price of a service or commodity, the greater the quantity demanded.  Today, there are many variations on this principle. For example, Parkinson’s Law of Data states, “Data expands to fill the space available for its storage.” (Check your hard drive) Parkinson’s Law of Bandwidth Absorption claims, “Network traffic expands to fill the available bandwidth.” And so on. So what started as a humorous commentary by Parkinson has become an axiom in many parts of our lives.
• However, there is good news in all of this. And that is the inverse of Parkinson’s Law: “Work contracts to fill the time available for its completion.” Take examples of many students. They say they have no time available for their studies during their normal course. They give different reasons to show their occupancy with their work. This is because their resource time is available in larger quantity in a normal course. Hence their work expands to fill this time. But the same amount of study they are able to do one day before the exam. Because now the resource is scarce and there is no way out but to complete the study. Thus they are able to fit their studies in this one day only. Thus the work reduces as the resource time reduces. When you are reducing the work and if you use 80/20 Rule. You will be doing the smart work rather than the hard work. This phenomenon is known as student’s syndrome.

• See behaviour of a child. Ask him or her to help you with your daily household work or ask them to do studies. The child may take a long time to do it. But if you say “I’ll allow you to play with your friends after completing this task”. Just see how fast the child completes the task, almost in no time.
• The Stock-Sanford Corollary to Parkinson’s Law reads, “If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do.” So, why don’t we have this sense of urgency throughout the year? It is simply because there is more time available. What we don’t get done during the day, we can finish that evening. The week’s surplus of work can be taken home for the weekend. Thus we slip into the habit of procrastination; the arch enemy of a balanced life.

How to Challenge Parkinson’s Law in Everyday Life:

• Make a practice of focusing on your high-value tasks until they are complete. Free up every minute possible by doing those things that yield the highest return on your efforts, delegating everything that someone else can do. Ensure you stay focused and maintain a sense of urgency in all that you do while at work. In this way, you will defy Parkinson’s Law and lay the foundation for achieving one of the goals of doubling your time off.
• Stop spending hours of your time on one activity.
• Try to squeeze your work into several hours and enjoy free time however you like.
• Do not attempt to apply this law in the workplace. Your boss may ask you to do twice the amount of your daily tasks! If you get a bonus for extra work, then it is fine. If this is not the case, this law should be disregarded.
• If you are trying to establish your own business or are already a business owner, this law will save you a great deal of time and many headaches.
• Focus solely on one piece of work within the given deadline and you will achieve much better results. When the work has a deadline you will naturally eliminate all the unnecessary work and concentrate only on essential tasks.
• Therefore it is better to give yourself two hours time to accomplish quite a large project rather than to dedicate a whole week for that.
• When you apply Parkinson’s law to your daily activities you will notice how much spare time you have left. This law will make you productive and pro-active.

Action Plan:

• Plan your daily activities in advance.
• Enter into your daily planner the deadlines for each activity.
• Try to keep the time frames short, so as to achieve better productivity.
• Try to stay within the deadline no matter what you do.
• Skip the unnecessary tasks if you see that you are likely to go over the deadline.
• Do not let anyone distract you from your work

Note:

• The result may not be exactly as perfect as if you had spent a week on the task, but as mentioned in the Pareto’s principle, 80 percent of the value will come from 20 percent of the activities anyway. Or you may wind up with a better result because you haven’t overcomplicated or over polished things.
• This will help you to get things done faster, to improve your ability to focus and give you more free time where you can totally focus on what’s in front of you instead of having some looming task creating stress in the back of your mind.

Thus from today challenge Parkinson’s law and Just Do It.

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Examples of the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle):

• 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers
• 80% of your profits come from 20% of the time you spend
• 80% of your sales come from 20% of your products
• 80% of your sales are made by 20% of your sales staff
• 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients
• 80% of land in the country is owned by 20% of the population.
• 80% of the wealth in the country is owned by 20% of the population.
• Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most reported bugs, 80% of the errors and crashes would be eliminated.
• In health care in the United States, it has been found that 20% of patients use 80% of healthcare resources.
• Several criminology studies have found that 80% of crimes are committed by 20% of criminals.
• Even if we take the ten wealthiest individuals in the world, we see that the top three (Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim Helú, and Bill Gates) own as much as the next seven put together.
• Using this principle, many businesses have improved their profitability by focusing on the most effective areas and eliminating, ignoring, automating, delegating or re-training the rest, as appropriate.

Explanation:

• It means that 80 percent of the value you will receive will come from 20 percent of your activities. So a lot of things and activities what you do is probably not as useful or even necessary to do as you may think.  You can just drop those activities or greatly reduce the time you spend on such things.  If you do that you will have more time and energy to spend on those things that really brings your value, happiness, fulfillment and so on.

Locate Yourself:

You’re in your 80 percent if the following statements are true.

• You’re working on tasks other people want you to, but you have no investment in them.
• You’re frequently working on tasks labeled “urgent.”
• You’re spending time on tasks you are not usually good at doing.
• Activities are taking a lot longer than you expected.
• You find yourself complaining all the time.

You’re in your 20 percent if the following statements are true.

• You’re engaged in activities that advance your overall purpose in life;
• You’re doing things you have always wanted to do or that make you feel good about yourself.
• You’re working on tasks you don’t like, but you’re doing them knowing they relate to the bigger picture.
• You’re hiring people to do the tasks you are not good at or don’t like doing.
• You’re smiling.

How to be in 20% category? Or How to Apply Pareto’s Principle in Everyday Life:

Activities For All:

• List all activities which are not contributing to 80 % of your goal. If possible abandon such activities or they are very much necessary, decrease time spent on them.
• List all activities which are contributing to 80 % or more of your goal, increase the time spent on them. Spontaneity is joyous but if possible plan such activities.
• Find your core genius and passion. Concentrate on them and not on material possessions.
• Ask yourself, “What do I really want to do with my life and my time? What 20 percent of my work should I be focusing on?”
• Don’t waste time in reading non-useful newspapers, books, magazines and watching such programs on TV etc.
• Make yourself aware of new technological innovations. Use the latest technology. You can save a lot of time.
• Twenty percent of your friends, colleagues, staff, customers, and patients probably give you 80 percent of the support and satisfaction you need. They are your true advocates and supporters. Take good care of them. Likewise, you can probably name several friends and family members who would be there for you under any circumstances. Try not to put them on the back burner.

Activities For Parents:

• Find core genius in your child. Find what he or she likes.
• Arrange their activities along with their core genius and you will notice the difference.

Activities For Teachers:

• Find core genius in your student. Find what he or she likes. Arrange their activities along with their core genius.

Activities For Educationalist:

• Avoid exams on the subjects like history, geography and non-essential languages which are not useful in everyday life.
• Instead of exams give interesting projects on these subjects.
• Instead of teaching, have student’s involved discussions and worksheet. These subjects unnecessarily increase the burden on students.
• I have not included civics in this list because this is the most important subject. It should be compulsory for all branches of education. It gives is the idea of our duties to our society and our rights.

Activities For Businessmen:

• In a business sense, finding the 80/20 ratios is crucial for maximizing performance.
• Find the products or services that generate the most income (the 20 percent) and drop the rest (the 80 percent) that only provide marginal benefits.
• Spend your time working on the parts of the business that you can improve significantly with your core skills and leave the tasks that are outside your best 20 percent to other people. Work hardest on elements that work hardest for you.
• Reward the best employees well, cull the worst. Drop the bad clients and focus on upselling and improving service to the best clients.
• If you want to make your passion as a business, learn to get output from your passion. Learn at least 80 % of activities in this business. Study all legal issues and loop holes associated with this business.
• As you grow in your business or area of speciality, remember your ethics and values. Let them guide your decision making, and you’re bound to end up focusing on your 20 percent.

Don’t Let Fear Stop You:

• The biggest factor that stops most people from chasing their dreams and working towards their real goals is fear. Fear of the lack of security, the reduced income and of the unknown future keeps people locked into routines that are not satisfying. That path leads to sadness, depression, poor health, low income and ultimately an early death. Who wants that!
• Don’t let fear be the reason for not achieving your goals. Stop, reassess your real passions, remove the money equation long enough so you can think without worrying about finances, and make plans to move towards your 80/20 lifestyle activities. Maximize what you are good at. Find the activities that produce the most results for you and your business and put your energy where the big rewards are.

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