How to Set Priorities
Issue #2350
- WEALTHY: Take a peek into the future… and make a bundle (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: 3 simple ways to get your body swimsuit ready (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: Stephen Covey on priorities
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- 6 ideas to help keep you working at your best (Brian Tracy)
- How you can save the world from bad advertising (Charlie Byrne)
- It’s Fun to Know… about freegans
- Add "militate" to your vocabulary
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- Charlie Byrne
Oil’s Last Harrah
Picture the CEO as the driver and the company as his car. By looking at what new passengers he takes on and in which direction he’s turning the steering wheel, you can see where he’s heading in the next 20 minutes.
But predicting where he’ll be going a hundred miles down the road gets fuzzier, doesn’t it?
For that, you need not only observation and intelligence but imagination.
What changes our world in unpredictable ways isn’t war or ideas. It’s technology.
This is where the serious money can be made. For example, if you could have anticipated that oil would increase more than five times since its $20 per barrel price in the 1980s, you could have made a lot of money.
Andrew Hall, who works for Citigroup, made just such a bet based on the simple premise that growth in demand was starting to outstrip growth in supply. He’s made a quarter of a billion dollars from that insight.
Now we’re stuck at the other end of the spectrum. Most people can’t imagine oil being cheap again. But technology made oil plentiful once. Who says it can’t do it again? Technology also invented the main users of oil, like cars. Who says technology can’t invent cars that run on something besides gas?
It’s already happening. Electric cars ply the roads. Soon air-powered cars will be tooling around our cities. Technology is on its way to upending the demand side of oil. And behind the scenes, it’s making inroads on increasing the supply side.
Oil won’t stay this expensive for more than another 2-4 years. The question is, do you have the stones and imagination to short oil? If you do, you should make an investment in the Ultrashort Oil and Gas (DUG) ETF. It moves in the opposite direction of the Dow Jones Oil & Gas Index. When oil starts to go down, this ETF will be shooting up.
You have time. Oil is still making new highs and supply is still very tight. Wait for the price to head down. Then simply be willing to believe in and act on what you’re seeing.
[Ed. Note: ETR’s Investment Director, Andrew Gordon, is the editor of INCOME, a monthly financial advisory service that uncovers income-generating stocks that promise safety (first and foremost), along with much-higher-than-average profit potential.]
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"The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."
Stephen Covey
Setting Priorities
By Brian Tracy
In 1970, sociologist Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University wrote a book entitled The Unheavenly City. He described one of the most profound studies on success and priority-setting ever conducted.
Banfield’s goal was to find out how and why some people become financially independent during the course of their working lifetimes. He started off convinced that the answer to this question would be found in such things as family background, education, intelligence, influential contacts, or some other concrete factor. What he finally discovered was that the major reason for success in life is a particular attitude of mind.
Banfield called this attitude "long time perspective." He said that people who were the most successful in life and the most likely to move up economically were those who took the future into consideration with every decision they made in the present. He found that the longer the period of time a person took into consideration, the more likely it was that he would achieve greatly during his career.
Doctors, for example, invest many years of hard work and study to finally earn the right to practice medicine. After university courses, internship, residency, and practical training, they may be more than 30 years old before they are capable of earning a good living. But from that point onward, they are among the most respected and most successful professionals in the United States. They had long time perspectives.
If you take additional courses in the evening to upgrade your skills and make yourself more valuable to your employer, you’re acting with a long time perspective. Because it can have a long-term effect on your career and your life.
The key to setting priorities is to have a long time perspective - and that usually requires sacrificing present enjoyment for future enjoyment. It requires giving up a short-term pleasure in the present in order to enjoy a far greater and more substantial pleasure in the future. And it begins with deciding what you want most in life and then organizing your time and activities so you can achieve those objectives.
With your larger, long-term priorities in order, you can much more easily decide upon your short-term priorities.
Setting short-term priorities begins with a pad of paper and a pen. Sit down, take a deep breath, and list all the tasks you need to accomplish. Although there is never enough time to do everything, there is always enough time to do the most important things.
Once you have listed your tasks, ask yourself this question: "If I were to be called out of town for a month and I could finish only one thing on this list, which one thing would it be?" Think it through, and circle that one item. Then ask yourself: "If I could do only one more thing before I was called out of town for a month, what would it be?" This is the second thing you circle.
Continue with this exercise until you have sorted out the highest priorities on your list. Then number each according to its importance. You are now ready to begin working effectively toward the achievement of your major goals.
Another good way to set priorities once you have determined your major objectives is with the A-B-C-D-E method. You place one of those letters in the margin before each of the tasks on your list.
"A" stands for "very important; must do; severe negative consequences if not completed."
"B" stands for "important; should do; but not as important as my ‘A’ tasks, and only minor negative consequences if not completed."
"C" stands for "nice to do; but not as important as ‘A’ or ‘B,’ and no negative consequences for not completing."
"D" stands for "delegate or assign to someone else who can do the task in my place."
"E" stands for "eliminate if possible."
When you use the A-B-C-D-E method, you can easily sort out what is important and unimportant. This will focus your time and attention on those tasks that are most essential.
Once you can clearly see the one or two things that you should be doing above all others, just say no to diversions and distractions and focus single-mindedly on those priorities.
Much of the stress that people experience comes from working on low-priority tasks. The amazing thing is that as soon as you start working on your highest-value activity, your stress disappears. You begin to feel a continuous stream of energy and enthusiasm. As you work toward the completion of something that is really important, you feel an increased sense of personal value and inner satisfaction. You experience a sensation of self-mastery and self-control. You feel calm, confident, and capable.
Here are six ideas that you can use to set priorities and keep yourself working at your best:
- Take the time to be clear about your goals and objectives so that the priorities you set are moving you in the direction of something that is of value to you. Remember that many people scramble frantically to climb the ladder of success, only to find that it is leaning against the wrong building.
- Develop a long time perspective and work on those things in the present that can have the greatest positive impact on your future. Maintain your balance in life by setting priorities in the areas of your health, your personal relationships, and your financial goals.
- Make the commitment to improve those aspects of your life that are most important to you. If you’re in sales, learn how to be an excellent salesperson. If you’re a parent, learn how to be an outstanding mother or father. The power is always on the side of the person with the best practical knowledge.
- Take the time to do your work right the first time. The fewer mistakes you make, the less time you will waste doing it over.
- Remember that what counts is not the overall amount of time you put in. Rather, it’s the amount of time you spend working on high-priority tasks. You will always be paid for the results you obtain, not merely the hours you spend on the job.
- Understand that the most important factor in setting priorities is your ability to make wise choices. You are always free to choose to engage in one activity or another. You may choose a higher-value activity or a lower-value activity, but once you have chosen, you must accept the consequences of your choice.
Resolve, today, to set clear priorities in every area of your life, and always choose the activities that will assure you the greatest health, happiness, and prosperity in the long term. The long term comes soon enough, and every sacrifice that you make today will be rewarded with compound interest in the great future that lies ahead for you.
[Ed. Note: Brian Tracy is one of America ’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. With Brian’s Ultimate Goal Achieving Package, you can discover a simple and easy-to-learn way to get everything you want out of life. Learn more here.]
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I guarantee this new program is exactly what I say it is. To learn all about it and to get started right now just click here.
Good Cop(y), Bad Cop(y) - Let’s Make the World Safe for…
Ready to go on a mission to save the world? AND get your name "in lights"? PLUS win a genuine Early to Rise hat and T-shirt?
Good, because I’m looking for some volunteers. Now mind you, I’m not talking about stopping global warming, ending the war, or turning "green."
I just want to make the world safe for… readers. Yes, it’s time to put an end to The Plague of Bad Copy that threatens the planet.
Take a ride around your town and you’ll see it on signs everywhere you turn. Self-absorbed… inner-directed… and completely without benefit to the reader.
Here’s an example of one I saw just the other day outside a local strip mall:
"ALL TENANTS OPEN DURING CONSTRUCTION"
"Tenants open"? Why should I care about "tenants"?
Obviously the mall owners created this sign to appease their renters…
But what they really should be doing is appeasing their "tenants’" customers. You and me.
Wouldn’t something like this be more likely to attract shoppers:
"Friendly Shops Open While We’re Sprucing Up!"
I bet you can come up with even better suggestions.
By the way, here’s one of my favorite examples of a GOOD store sign. I came across it outside Gray’s Papaya in New York City a few years ago:
"OUR HOT DOG - The Thunderous Pop When You Bite Into It - The Saline Tang of the Pink Flesh!!… Oh! YES! (Please - I’m Getting Hungry Already!)"
Now that’s got some appeal, don’t you think? It’s almost… erotic, dare I say.
A bit more inviting than "All Tenants Open During Construction."
Okay. So here’s what to do right now.
Think about that sign outside the strip mall that’s under construction and see if you can come up with better copy for it.
Then post your entry on my blog here. Next week, I’ll ask my readers to vote, and the winner gets their name in lights and a genuine Early to Rise hat and T-shirt with our compliments.
Sure, we can’t expect every retailer and landlord to be a professional copywriter. But why not lend them a hand - and have a little fun at the same time? So I’ve got another idea.
Here’s what I propose…
Send me a digital photo of the worst copy you can find. I’ll post it on my blog and ask for better alternatives. Then we’ll take another vote, and maybe even send a copy of the winning entry to the offending "author" if we can track them down.
E-mail your "bad-copy" photo to me at Charlie@ETRFeedback.com.
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How to Get Flat Abs
If you want to get flat abs in time to show them off at the beach this year, quit wasting your efforts on slow, boring cardio and endless crunches. That didn’t work last year, or the year before, and it’s certainly not going to work this time either.
Instead, here’s what you need to do:
- Cut all refined carbohydrates and grains from your diet. That means nothing from a bag or a box. Get all your carbs from fruits, vegetables, and the small amount found in nuts.
- Replace slow cardio with belly-fat-burning cardio. According to research from Australia, 20-minute interval training workouts are more effective for burning belly fat than slow 40-minute cardio sessions. (In fact, the slow cardio sessions in this study didn’t result in any belly fat loss at all - and the study lasted 15 weeks!)
- Skip the crunches. Focus your resistance training program on total-body exercises. This means push-ups, dumbbell rows, lunges, and squats. And if you have a little extra time, you can train your abdominals twice per week for 10 minutes. That’s all it takes.
[Ed. Note: Fitness expert Craig Ballantyne is the creator of the Turbulence Training for Fat Loss system. For a free online source of information, motivation, and social support to help you improve your health, lose weight, and get fit, sign up for ETR’s free natural health e-letter.]
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It’s Fun to Know: Freegans
Freeganism is a relatively new (or at least newly named) subculture whose adherents try not to buy anything. They gather furniture from the side of the road, and scour dumpsters behind big box retailers for discarded merchandise. They also gather food, which they insist is perfectly edible, from garbage bins. Of course, they do have standards. They avoid perishable foods and don’t "freecycle" cooking oil.
For a list of prime dumpster-diving locations, go to freegan.info.
(Source: CNN)
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How to Get the Heart of 370 Business Magazines in Just 30 Minutes a Month
Did that headline catch your eye?
How about this one:
"32 Ways to Save Time and Money From the Pages of Good Housekeeping."
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If you are involved in any form of sales, the benefits you’ll receive could be worth hundreds of thousands to you in future earnings. Click to continue…
Word to the Wise: Militate
To "militate" (MIL-ih-tate) - from the Latin for "soldier" - is to have force or influence.
Example (as used by Donald Caton in What a Blessing She Had Chloroform): "Even though [James Young] Simpson’s youth, limited professional experience, lack of reputation, unmarried status, and modest social origins all militated against success, the twenty-eight-year-old Simpson applied for the post."
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008