The Key to Taking Control

The Key to Taking Control
By: Brian Tracy

Set Priorities

Stress management requires that you take complete control over the activities of your daily life. This means that you plan your day, set priorities and work on high value tasks. The indispensable key to time management is concentration, the ability to focus single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and to stay with it until it is 100% complete.

Create Chunks of Time

This is not only the hardest challenge that a manager faces, but the ability to concentrate single-mindedly is probably the rarest single ability in the workplace. Most of our important tasks take large chunks of time. We need to plan and organize our days in such a way that we allocate these chunks of time so that we can do the jobs upon which our success depends.

A Burst of Energy

The wonderful thing about setting priorities and concentrating single-mindedly is that, the very minute that you do these two things, you will begin to feel a tremendous sense of control and well-being. As you work progressively toward the accomplishment of your most important tasks, you will feel a flow of energy and enthusiasm. As you finish something that is relevant and significant to your company and to yourself, you get a burst of energy. Your self-esteem improves. You feel good about yourself. You have a wonderful sense of making measurable progress toward greater successful in your career. You feel like you are making a difference.

On the other hand, working on small tasks or low priority items simply causes you to feel more and more stress. Even if you finish a dozen or a hundred of these minor and irrelevant low value tasks, you get no feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment.

Action Exercises

Now, here are two ideas you can use immediately to concentrate single mindedly on the highest value use of your time.

First, analyze your work before you begin and then ask yourself, “What one thing, if I did it quickly and well, would have the greatest impact on my work?” Whatever it is, go to work on that one item immediately.

Second, once you have begun on a high value task, discipline yourself by repeating over and over, “Back to work, back to work, back to work!” This will keep you focused and on track until you finish the job.