Do You Hear Noises or Music?

When you study the science of productivity (and I’ve been doing so for years), you learn two things: first, it never stops, and second, you decide your level of productivity at any given time.

If you know people who complain that they never really do what’s most important, then they’ve made the decision not to be productive. It sounds harsh, yes, but it’s true.

Here’s the proof: there are always those who manage to generate significantly more results than the average person (and probably you as well) despite all the adversities.

The secret to their high productivity? Extreme awareness of what is important and delegation or omission of everything else. In other words, it’s all about suppressing all the noise so that you can hear the music.

Here are three practical tips on how to stop hearing the noise and start hearing the music:

1. Practice mindfulness. Become aware of what is really happening in your conscious mind. The brain is simply not designed to deal with the amount of information that affects all of us today. You have to start by paying attention to all the noise that is constantly pelting you.
2. Make a choice. After the mindfulness comes the decision—what do you want to get through to you from now on? A president or Fortune 500 CEO, for example, has heaps of people who do nothing but filter out all the noise so that only the music penetrates. You can also use other systems for those results.
3. Make it a habit. The difficult thing in a marathon is never the first miles but what comes after that. Yes, it’s hard to do only what’s truly important all the time, but it’s a habit that you can train. The most successful people do just that.

If you want to dramatically increase your productivity or that of your team, then we should talk about high-performance coaching. Register here to discuss your potential.