5
Practice Creative Procrastination

Every body procrastinates, but creative procrastination can change your life. Deliberately and consciously procrastinate on low-value tasks. Eat the biggest, ugliest frogs before you even think about dealing with the tadpoles.

NOTES

1. You can get your time and your life under control only as much as you discontinue lower-value activities. To set priorities—what you do more of and sooner—you must set posteriorities, or those things that you do less of and later, if at all. Think about how you spend your day, week, or month. Which activities are the true priorities? Which ones should you do later, if at all? Pick a time (day, week, month, year) and then write down your priorities and posteriorities on the following diagram.

2. Look at your life outside of work. Which activities do you find yourself spending a lot of time on, with little value added to your life? Using the chart, lay out the amount of time you spend on different activities daily. Use the blank spaces to make the chart your own.

3. Look at the most time-consuming activities in the chart. Do they help you become more successful or other wise enhance your quality of life in a meaningful way? Scrutinize each of your personal and work activities and evaluate it based on your current situation. Select at least one activity to abandon right now—or at least deliberately put off until your more important goals have been achieved. You must put something down if you’re going to pick something else up!

4. Practice “zero-based” thinking. Ask yourself: “Knowing what I know now, is there anything I am doing today that I wouldn’t get into again today if I had it to do over?”

Key Question: “Knowing what I now know, is there anything I am doing today that I wouldn’t get into again today if I had it to do over?”

1. Is there any relationship, business or personal, that I wouldn’t get into again today?

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2. Are there any products I would not start offering/selling again today, knowing what I now know?

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3. Are there any services I wouldn’t start offering today?

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4. Are there any markets I wouldn’t get into again today if I had it to do over?

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5. Are there any customers I would not solicit or take on again today, knowing what I now know?

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6. Are there any sales processes or methods I wouldn’t start using today, knowing what I now know?

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7. Are there any staff members I would not hire, promote, or assign to a particular task if I had it to do over again today?

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8. Are there any channels of distribution that I would not start using if I was starting over today?

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9. Are there any business processes or methods in my company that I wouldn’t start using if I had it to do over?

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10. Are there any advertising or marketing methods or expenses that I wouldn’t get into again, knowing what I now know?

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11. Are there any sales offers that I wouldn’t get into again if I had them to do over?

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12. Is there anything in my current strategy that I would change or discontinue if I had it to do over again today?

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13. Is there any investment of time, money, or emotion that I wouldn’t get into again today?

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14. Is there anything to do with my health, fitness, diet, or lifestyle that I wouldn’t start again today?

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15. What actions am I going to take, or stop taking, as a result of this exercise?

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16. What one action am I going to take immediately?

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