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I have a random bag of tricks that I use to be more effective with my time. It's funny no one ever asks me about how I can have 3 very active businesses going, two blogs, active on this forum, see 5-10 new clients a week (and keep all their information and strategies straight) saving them an average of $30,000/year in taxes, homeschool our son and read 2-3 new books a week.
No, it's not drugs.
I think it's funny that no one asks about that, because to be honest, I think that's way more interesting for someone who is building wealth. Of course, my whole business persona has been built around saving people taxes and protecting assets in practical ways.
But, I couldn't do any of that if I wasn't more effective with my time.
What makes you effective?
Some things I do:
I practice photoreading. It's not speedreading. And it's more effective with a higher retention rate than just sitting and reading a book the conventional way.
(1) Read the table of contents. Look at the appendices at the end of the book. Read the introduction.
(2) Next you'll need to use "soft eyes." This is the term that I use for the way you have to kind of "de-focus" your eyes to look at the hidden 3-D kind of pictures.
(3) With "soft eyes" look for 2-5 seconds at each page in the book.
(4) You're done. Go on with your day or go to bed...whenever you do your reading typically.
(5) You need to access the information the next morning. You could do this by talking about the book, explaining the concepts with a friend, perhaps. I prefer to do a mind-map. (another one of my skills that highly leverage my creativity)
It'll take a little practice. There are some books and courses on this - I was taught this by Van Tharp (stock trading author). He reads hundreds of books every month, many of them very technical, and this is how he does it. Over time, I've gotten much better at it. It's amazing how quickly you can go through books and retain so much.
I mindmap everything. There are a whole bunch of books on mind-mapping - go to Amazon and take a look. The basic concept is that it's an outline that is not the strictly linear fashion we've been taught. The main concept is in the middle, and then arms like an octupus take off from the middle. How you represent the ideas on the arms is up to you - artistic types frequently draw pictures. I use words, but use lots of colors.
I use mindmaps all the time. If I'm writing a book, a course, a talk or planning a seminar, I start with the basic concept and then create a mind map. It ALWAYS jumpstarts the creative process for me. It blows through writer's block. I can mindmap anything in less than 15 minutes. In the case of a book or a seminar, I'll then take the "arms" and combine or expand into another mindmap. And then from that mindmap, I may start the typical outline fashion to or I may mindmap it again for more clarity.
There are four things I ALWAYS carry with me:
(1) A bag of colored pens. I rarely use regular pens anymore. In fact, I am known for my colored pens! It's become a running joke for people who have been to a lot of my seminars. I encourage the use of colors when you make notes because it stimulates both sides of your brain and gets you out of the strictly logical side (which is a tendency when you're discussing financial and tax topics) and allows you to access the "How can I..." solution-oriented part of your brain.
By the way, I usually put out scented pens at tables at my seminars as well. I find that some people do well breaking out of overwhelm by stimulating another sense - in this case, they can play a little with the pens and then suddenly it's all okay and they can go on to learn more. (I'm not kidding - this works!)
(2) A bound journal with blank pages. This was actually a gift to me - it's very artistically decorated with fabric, sequins, ribbons (ok, I see that I've lost most of the guys right now). Anyway, this journal is what I use for all the initial mind maps of ideas. I now have 3 years of initial mind maps and it is so much fun to go back and look at the old mindmaps of things that became seminars, new businesses, books, etc..
(3) A spiral bound notebook with blank pages. I can't find the type of notebooks that I like in the US, so I typically buy them when I'm in MX. I like the size of paper (not traditional US sizes) and they are blank! Interesting that most US notebooks have lines. Anyway, this is where I do the 2nd,3rd, etc runs of mind maps. I also take notes from talks I hear in this notebook - again in the mindmap format.
(4) A bound journal with lines. This is where I keep track of "to do" - each day is a new page. (so I have the LHS of one page and the RHS of another page) I write the names of key people in my organization and under their name write notes for things to talk about, clarify, assign, check up on, etc... We then schedule times to meet either once or twice per week. (This method stops me from bugging them every 10 minutes with another one of my new ideas) I summarize all the previous notes on the page for the day i have a meeting. These turn into action steps that I just check in with at our next meeting.
Does anyone else have any more unusual skills or methods that they find make them more effective? (As another example, I know a CEO who has no chairs in his personal office. He has specially built tables that line the walls in his office and he just hops from project to project, never sitting down. )
No, it's not drugs.
I think it's funny that no one asks about that, because to be honest, I think that's way more interesting for someone who is building wealth. Of course, my whole business persona has been built around saving people taxes and protecting assets in practical ways.
But, I couldn't do any of that if I wasn't more effective with my time.
What makes you effective?
Some things I do:
I practice photoreading. It's not speedreading. And it's more effective with a higher retention rate than just sitting and reading a book the conventional way.
(1) Read the table of contents. Look at the appendices at the end of the book. Read the introduction.
(2) Next you'll need to use "soft eyes." This is the term that I use for the way you have to kind of "de-focus" your eyes to look at the hidden 3-D kind of pictures.
(3) With "soft eyes" look for 2-5 seconds at each page in the book.
(4) You're done. Go on with your day or go to bed...whenever you do your reading typically.
(5) You need to access the information the next morning. You could do this by talking about the book, explaining the concepts with a friend, perhaps. I prefer to do a mind-map. (another one of my skills that highly leverage my creativity)
It'll take a little practice. There are some books and courses on this - I was taught this by Van Tharp (stock trading author). He reads hundreds of books every month, many of them very technical, and this is how he does it. Over time, I've gotten much better at it. It's amazing how quickly you can go through books and retain so much.
I mindmap everything. There are a whole bunch of books on mind-mapping - go to Amazon and take a look. The basic concept is that it's an outline that is not the strictly linear fashion we've been taught. The main concept is in the middle, and then arms like an octupus take off from the middle. How you represent the ideas on the arms is up to you - artistic types frequently draw pictures. I use words, but use lots of colors.
I use mindmaps all the time. If I'm writing a book, a course, a talk or planning a seminar, I start with the basic concept and then create a mind map. It ALWAYS jumpstarts the creative process for me. It blows through writer's block. I can mindmap anything in less than 15 minutes. In the case of a book or a seminar, I'll then take the "arms" and combine or expand into another mindmap. And then from that mindmap, I may start the typical outline fashion to or I may mindmap it again for more clarity.
There are four things I ALWAYS carry with me:
(1) A bag of colored pens. I rarely use regular pens anymore. In fact, I am known for my colored pens! It's become a running joke for people who have been to a lot of my seminars. I encourage the use of colors when you make notes because it stimulates both sides of your brain and gets you out of the strictly logical side (which is a tendency when you're discussing financial and tax topics) and allows you to access the "How can I..." solution-oriented part of your brain.
By the way, I usually put out scented pens at tables at my seminars as well. I find that some people do well breaking out of overwhelm by stimulating another sense - in this case, they can play a little with the pens and then suddenly it's all okay and they can go on to learn more. (I'm not kidding - this works!)
(2) A bound journal with blank pages. This was actually a gift to me - it's very artistically decorated with fabric, sequins, ribbons (ok, I see that I've lost most of the guys right now). Anyway, this journal is what I use for all the initial mind maps of ideas. I now have 3 years of initial mind maps and it is so much fun to go back and look at the old mindmaps of things that became seminars, new businesses, books, etc..
(3) A spiral bound notebook with blank pages. I can't find the type of notebooks that I like in the US, so I typically buy them when I'm in MX. I like the size of paper (not traditional US sizes) and they are blank! Interesting that most US notebooks have lines. Anyway, this is where I do the 2nd,3rd, etc runs of mind maps. I also take notes from talks I hear in this notebook - again in the mindmap format.
(4) A bound journal with lines. This is where I keep track of "to do" - each day is a new page. (so I have the LHS of one page and the RHS of another page) I write the names of key people in my organization and under their name write notes for things to talk about, clarify, assign, check up on, etc... We then schedule times to meet either once or twice per week. (This method stops me from bugging them every 10 minutes with another one of my new ideas) I summarize all the previous notes on the page for the day i have a meeting. These turn into action steps that I just check in with at our next meeting.
Does anyone else have any more unusual skills or methods that they find make them more effective? (As another example, I know a CEO who has no chairs in his personal office. He has specially built tables that line the walls in his office and he just hops from project to project, never sitting down. )
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