3 Keys to Developing Daily Disciplines

3 Keys to Developing Daily Disciplines Article by Todd DuncanTime is yur greatest resource. If you struggle with managing it, you likely have not yet harnessed the power of daily disciplines.As the biblical book of Proverbs says, He who neglects discipline despises himself. The most powerful decision you will ever make for your productivity is the choice to build rhythm and know-how around doing what matters most. When you do that, you feel good about yourself and can achieve at a higher level. Being a high performer is the result of your daily disciplines.Time Management Is a Waste of TimeFor most people, time management is like raking water lots of activity, limited results. We are limited not by time, but by how we use the time we have. Time management is life management. Time management is values management. Time management is activity management. You and I will never be clever enough to control our time, but we can choose the eventsto which we al locate our time. When those events are repeated through daily discipline, our productivity soars, our spirits are enlarged, and we develop unstoppable determination.3 Keys to Developing Daily Disciplines Key No. 1 Clarify Your ValuesIf you dont know what is important to you, you will spend time doing what is not.When you know what is important and commit to those things as must-dos, you create the ecosystem for a more effective use of your time.When your activities are in alignment with what is significant to you, you suddenly know inner peace. High levels of inner peace reduce stress,calming you throughout your day. We all need a full grasp of those things that mean the most to us. I suggest we spend at least 15 minutes a day in a quiet state of mind to see how we can discover fulfillment in any of our important value areas.There is a saying, often attributed to Roy Disney, brother of Walt When values are clear, decisions are easy.Deciding what to do with your time should be easy i f you are clear on your values and spend time reviewing them on a daily basis. Knowing your values also helps you frame what not to do, which may be even more critical to your performance. Once your value areas are clear, you can move from behavior to habit.Key No. 2 Block the TimeBefore a habit is formed, you must commit to repeated behavior. To create rhythm and routine is to decide in advance what your day and week will look like and then discipline yourself to live accordingly. The discipline comes from your values and living in accordance with them.Managing time is not about post-it notes. Its not scribbled to-do lists. Its definitely not being connected all day long with unvetted technology. Effective time blocking and blocking interruptions that mess up those time blocks is the key.Time blocks are planned segments of time that help you complete your most important predetermined activities. They are, at their core, disciplines that lead to achievement. They are nonnegotiable s.For example, I have a Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday morning discipline of riding my bike 50 miles. My wife, Deb, and I have a Sunday night debrief where we get to tell each other what we did well over the previous week and plan accordingly for the upcoming week. Every day between 1000 a.m. and 1100 a.m., I call three decision-makers to connect, add value, and advance relationships.Key No. 3 Form the HabitsWhy arent people as productive as they might be? Mostly because they miss the difference between trying to be productive and committing to being productive. Habits are only formed when the behavior attempted becomes permanent.Here are some ideas to help you stay focused on forming the habit of honoring your daily disciplines Be proactiveEveryone who moves toward a more productive life does not wait for life to come at them. They go out and make it happen. They know that everything has a proactive solution. You can hope that life will get better for as long as you like, but unless you do something to back up those hopes, littlewill change. Change must come from within. Heres a great question If you continue on the path you are now on, will your life improve and take you to the level of your dreams? Life will give you what you tolerate and accept Fight multitasking Multitasking is the fast track to low performance. It gets in the way of your greatness No one has everhad amanager congratulate them for being busy. The key question is Busy doing what? High-performance people are not busy they are productive. Rather than multitasking, they master the species of one-thing thinking. According to a Harvard Business Review article, multitasking can cut productivity by as much as 40 percent and IQ by 10 points Moreover, according to aUniversity of California, Irvine, study, it takes 23 minutes to get back on track following an interruption. Practice The Five-Minute Rule I learned an amazingly powerful discipline when I was 23 years old. I call it The Five-Minute Rule. I was studying high-performance salespeople and was reading an article about an insurance agent who was makingmore than $1 million a year in sales commissions. He was asked, What is the best advice you could give any salesperson? He said, Spend five minutes every hour evaluating how the last 55 minutes went, and correct. Once I started using this rule, Iwas able to identify all the things getting in the way of my productivity. I learned how to fix and manage interruptions. I learned how to say no, which is the most powerful word when it comes to being productive. Within a year, I had increased my income by more than 400 percent.Whether you are doing business, living life, or both, the most important truth is your life will be defined by your daily disciplines. The choices you make,the impact you have, and the results you achieve your entire destiny itsall in your disciplines.A version of this article originally appeared on SUCCESS.com.Todd Duncan is a sales entrepreneur and game-c hanging speaker withmore than 5 million students around the globe whom he has mentored and taught in life, time, and sales mastery. He is the author of 17 books, including The New York Times best-sellers Time Traps Proven Strategies for Swamped Sales People and High Trust Selling Make More Money in Less Time With Less Stress. Todd has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Sydney Morning Herald, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Seattle Times, Entrepreneur, SUCCESS, FOX, and CNN, among other media publications.