Tag: procrastination

The Power of 5 Minutes: Creating Big Impact In Small Moments.

Two weeks ago, my daughter Ava and I traveled an hour and a half to attend a Wisconsin high school sectional track meet in Neenah, Wisconsin. (Which is near Pinta and Santa Maria, Wisconsin.)

The meet was the last stop before the state championship meet. I coach 2 athletes who were competing that day in the shot put and discus. Both throwers, Terron ‘And On’ McCall and Luka ‘Ivanarock’ Ivancevic, finished in the top 3 of both events and qualified for the state meet last weekend in La Crosse. Which makes this story a prequel to the post I shared earlier this week about the state meet.

However, just before the shot put was set to start, after all of the throwers were fully warmed, hyped and ready to rock, a thunderstorm rolled in, like a Garth Brooks song, and forced a 1.5-hour delay in the competition. Boo.

This was double boo for me, because I had to leave the meet at 6pm, no matter where we were in the competition. It was my son Johann’s 18th birthday. And we had a family dinner celebration back in Milwaukee.

Terron and Luka, after taking 1st and 2nd in the shot put and second and third in the discus. They qualified for the state meet in both events. Fun Fact: behind Luka’s head, you can see part of the sign for Neenah’s school mascot: The Hot Pockets. Their school song is simply the Hot Pockets jingle.

When it was clear that I would miss the boys’ shot put competition, my daughter Ava and I left the shelter of the shiny new Neenah High School and headed for the parking lot to jump in our Expedition and hurry home from our northern expedition.

However, between the school and the parking lot, I spotted two familiar faces. One belonged to my college track teammate Scott Hammer. Hammer coaches at West Bend West High School, which is in our conference. So I see him regularly throughout the spring. His son Carson is a great 800-meter runner and qualified for the state meet in the 4 X 800-meter relay.

The other familiar face belonged to Josh White, another college track teammate, and one of my roommates for 3 years of college.

My University of Wisconsin track & field teammates Scott ‘Hammer’ Hammer and Josh ‘Slosh’ White. (In college, everyone had a nickname. Hammer’s was pretty obvious.)

It had been a few years since Josh and I had seen each other. Following huge smiles and hugs we quickly caught up. We said funny things to make each other laugh. We have a lot of funny history. I shared that Ava would be living just a block from our old off-campus house in Madison next year.

We then told Ava a story about the night we threw our first college house party, and how the cops showed up at our door at 4am, telling us there had been noise complaints.

But the noise complaints were not related to the party, which was long over, and very underagey. The loud noise was my roommates and I singing loudly, and repeatedly as we tried to leave the perfect answering machine message on our house answering machine. It’s fun to be around someone with whom you have so much shared history. It’s also fun to spend time with someone who remembers answering machines.

But of course, our time was short. Ava and I had a birthday dinner to get to. As we said our goodbyes, Josh said, ‘It was so good to see you. Even just 5 minutes together was awesome.’

We had to hurry back to Milwaukee for dinner and fun with Johann, the newest adult Albrecht!

As we pulled out of the parking lot and pointed the car south on I-41 towards Brew City, I kept thinking about what Josh said. ‘Even just 5 minutes together was awesome.’

He was right. And I am so thankful he said it. I asked Ava if she remembered what Josh had said before we left. She remembered it word for word, just as I had. We both reflected on the power of that statement.

Reminder

You don’t need a lot of time to catch up. You don’t need a lot of time to have a positive impact on someone. Or to make progress on a challenge, or to make something important happen. 5 minutes well spent can create magic.

In 5 minutes you can:

  • Catch up with an old friend
  • Make a new friend
  • Have a career-altering interaction
  • Make Minute Rice
  • Discover the key to unlocking a problem
  • Connect important dots
  • Make a big decision
  • Learn an important lesson
  • Have an aha moment (And write Take On Me.)
  • Start a flywheel spinning
  • Have a breakthrough
  • Say your are sorry
  • Tell someone you miss them
  • Ask for that thing you really want and get it.
  • Do that simple thing you have been putting off for too long
  • Get medical lab work done
  • Schedule your checkup
  • Call for help
  • Listen to 5 Minutes of Funk by Whodini

Key Takeaway

It only takes 5 minutes to do something that has a major impact on your life, career, or the lives of others. Meaningful reconnections, introductions, breakthroughs, discoveries and actions can happen in a flash. Never underestimate the power of these short blocks of time. Life and success are not built on hour-long blocks. They are built in meaningful moments. Take advantage of those small opportunities, and they can positively impact the rest of your life in big ways.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

You have 1 month left to make things happen in 2024.

Welcome to December. 2024 is now 11/12ths complete. Which means you have one month left to make progress on your life and yearly goals. If you are a procrastinator, you have already hit the snooze button 11 times, and it is now time to get up and go. (If you are an amateurcrastinator you are not as good a procrastinator. But I don’t know if that means you put things off more or less. #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmm.)

December means you have one month left to:

Finish the year fitter, not fatter. The best way to a better body in 2025 is to start in 2024.

Revisit your New Year’s resolution. You likely left it somewhere in January.

Start a new habit. (Read Atomic Habits by James Clear to check the box on this and the next item. Plus it is half-price right now. You are welcome.)

Read a great book this year. (See above.)

Get in touch with that person or people you haven’t touched in too long.

Go to church. December is the best time to go anyway, for Christ’s sake. And for the bread and juice. And to try to get off the naughty list.

Donate to charity. (And get the tax benefits.)

Start that business. (I am working on starting an Excite Hustle with my son. We have talked about it for forever. But we are going to make it happen this month! An Excite Hustles is like a side hustle, but it excites you about doing work.)

Begin writing that book. Just start by writing down a simple outline of what you know about the topic, or a paragraph summarizing the plot, like Sir Mix-A-Plot. I write my books in a Google Doc. You don’t need anything fancy. Or schmancy.

Take that trip. Or schedule and book that vacation. It’s a great time to lock in your spring or summer travel and give yourself something to look forward to this winter. Unless you live somewhere vacationy already. In which case, pick another thing to do with your 12th month.

Do a million other things. Those first ten items were just examples. I don’t have time to write an exhaustive list of everything you could possibly do this month. Because we both have more important things to do. So let’s go, Geronimo!

Key Takeaway

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future. You have to recognize the passage of time to make its scarcity useful. The last month of the year, the last day of the week and the last hours of the day create a valuable sense of urgency, signaling it’s go time. Remember, when you hit a deadline, the opportunities afforded by that unit of time are dead. Let that motivate you to go now. There’s no better time.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

How to respond to your imperfections like a manufacturing facility does.

I am trying to get better all the time. But the reality is that I am not always better.

I’m building good habits. But I still have bad habits too.

I try to be patient and kind. But I still get angry, lose my temper, and say naughty words.

I try to be a doer. But too often I procrastinate. (Although sometimes I don’t procrastinate until later.)

I try not to let my phone take attention away from my family and friends. But then I’ll find something hilarious on social media, or wonder about the Wordle word, or get a notification about the famous person from the 80s who got eaten by a snake, and just have to click on it to find out if it was David Coverdale.

Why? Why?

Tell em that it’s human nature.

But I keep trying.

And I don’t let my lesser actions and behaviors define me. Or confirm that I am not actually getting better. I know I am.

Instead, I always think about those signs you see in a factory that count the number of days they have gone without a workplace injury. They are reminders of your accumulated success. And encouragement to keep the streak alive. And presumably the people too.

So I have counters in my head, on my phone, and on pieces of paper around my house tallying my successful days doing or not doing various things. The streaks feel good. So I focus on extending them and not breaking the chain. But when I do, I reset the clock, start again, and try to go longer, if not forever.

Key Takeaway

Self-improvement is directional. It is not about absolutes. Increase the number of days and times you do the right things the way you want to do them in your head. Do the good things more. Do the bad things less. Focus on building your streaks. A winning streak is an uninterrupted sequence of successes. That should always be your goal. Just keep adding days. Go as long as you can without messing up. The goal is to be better for the rest of your life. But if you break the chain, always start a new chain and try again.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

An important reminder to get started because you learn faster by doing.

One of the great mistakes we make in life is waiting to act until we know everything there is to know about a subject. It seems we want to know everything there is to know about running a business before we start one. We want to know everything there is to know about investing before we commit our money. We want to know how to write a book before we actually write a book. And we want to know everything there is to know about raising a child before we ever have sex*. (*My kids may be reading this.)

Most of this quest for knowledge is simply procrastination. Starting the process is the greatest teacher of all. Because standard-issue humans learn best by doing.

When you take the first step the next step reveals itself. (Unless you are Eddie Rabbit, in which case you take that first step, ask her out, and treat her like a lady.) You will get better and smarter faster by starting than by studying alone. Until you take the first steps you don’t know what you don’t know. However, once you begin you quickly learn what you need to know next.

A Case in Point

I had thought about sharing some video lessons from my book What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? for a long time. I knew that the summaries from each chapter would translate into good shareable video messages. But I never acted on it. Because I wasn’t clear on the best way to do it.

Then one morning when I got to work I talked to Taylor Amann, our social media manager at The Weaponry (and resident American Ninja Warrior) to help me get started.

Here’s What happened.

  1. We set up her phone on our ring-halo light tripod.

2. We explored recording the video standing up and sitting down.

3. We placed my laptop behind the phone so I could read the script.

3. We found a teleprompter app on my computer that allowed us to scroll the script like the teleprompter a newscaster uses to deliver lines directly to the camera. (And, yes, I reminded San Diego to stay classy.)

4. After getting a take we liked Taylor found a good app that automatically translated my spoken word into words on the screen. So viewers could read the words I was saying as I said them. This is not only great for reinforcing the lesson I shared, but it made the video fully digestible with the audio off.

5. Then we discovered that the app, also had a teleprompter. Which would lead to an even better sightline to the camera than the laptop teleprompter offered.

6. Finally, we rerecorded the video, on the halo light tripod, using the new app, which turned Taylor’s phone into a perfect teleprompter/camera combo. The app automatically added the supers so you could read what I said in real time.

The Learning

What stood out to me about this process is that by getting started we kept getting smarter and smarter. Within 30 minutes we went from never having tried to record a video like this to having discovered the perfect app that made it simple to combine the recording, the teleprompter, the supers, and even add music, or a zany slide whistle.

The video is not perfect. My shirt is all scurzumpled. I don’t have the energy I’d want for a shareable recording. But we quickly went from nothing to knowing how to create the video we wanted through a simple progression of testing, learning, and improving.

Key Takeaway

Don’t wait to get started until you know everything. Condition yourself to take the first step sooner. Because the first step is the kindergarten step. All other learnings and lessons come as a result of that first step. What you learn from a book, class or video is just theory. The application is where the quick and useable lessons kick in. So get going. Get smarter as you go. And get back to me when you realize how useful this approach is.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

The best way to get better is by dropping your bad habits.

You are a product of your habits. That is both good and bad news. Because some of your habits are constructive and make you better on a daily basis. Others are destructive and continuously hurt you. You’ll find many of those kinds of habits in country songs. And in prison.

Identifying Your Bad Habits

Do you know your most harmful habits? The ones that most negatively impact your life? That’s not a rhetorical question. I want you to take a moment to write down 3 to 5 of your bad habits. Then rank them starting with the most problematic. These are the habits that are most detrimental to your happiness, health, reputation, productivity, or success. I’ll wait while you create your list. (If you don’t create yours now we’ll automatically add procrastination to your list.)

My Habits:

I have a lot of good habits. I get a lot accomplished most days. I work hard. I write almost every day. I brush. I floss. I exercise regularly. I spend quality time with my family. And I put down the toilet seat.

But I wouldn’t have asked you to do anything I haven’t done myself. Here are the top 3 bad habits that I would do better without:

  1. Procrastination. I procrastinate on things longer than I wish I did. I have a backlog of incomplete tasks. And I have lost out on opportunities because I have waited too long to pull the trigger. Now, if I acknowledge that I don’t like my procrastination, but put off doing anything about it, that would be ironic, don’t you think?

2. Overeating:  I love to eat. And I am good at it. But I regularly eat more than I should. And I don’t like the impact it has on my physique. I developed the habit of eating a great deal when I was training heavily for competitive athletics. Back then I needed all the calories I could inhale. That was back before my metabolic slowdown, which happened somewhere in my 30s. Today my body doesn’t need the surplus calories from a Meat Lovers Pizza binger. And if I could change this occasional habit I bet I would feel more comfortable at a nude beach.

3. Screen time. I check my phone and computer far more often than I wish I did. This is complicated. Because like you, and Elon Musk, I have a complicated relationship with social platforms. As a blogger and author, I post and share a lot of ideas. Ideas that are intended to have a positive impact on those who read them. And the algorithms reward content that is interacted with. So interacting online is also important. But I would be happier to cut my online time in half. And I don’t care which half.

The Next Step

Now, I want you to pick one bad habit to attack. Because if you can eliminate one bad habit you will improve your life in a profound way. And if you can, you should.

The first step is to change your self-identity. Tell yourself, and firmly believe, that you are a person who doesn’t struggle with (your bad habit here). In fact, you are great at doing the opposite of (your bad habit here.)

To combat my procrastination, I have already adopted my identity as an action-taker and have rewired my decision-making system over the past several weeks. I recognize when decisions and actions are in danger of being put off. And I dedicate time to doing things now. It is making a huge difference, and I feel more me than ever.

Key Takeaway 

A key component of self-improvement is eliminating bad habits. Call them out. Write them down. And start picking them off one by one. Claim your new identity. Then create good habits to replace the bad. Because without your bad habits holding you back you will be much more you.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my new book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

To achieve great things don’t let preparing turn into procrastinating.

We all have big things we want to do. Goals, dreams, and aspirations are easy to find. Just ask any waiter in Hollywood. What is harder to find is goals met, dreams realized and aspirations achieved.

You can spend a lot of time thinking about the great things you want to do. You can talk about your plans. You can write them down and sketch them out. You can listen to podcasts and read newsletters and books. You can go to seminars, workshops, and meet-ups. And all of those things will feel like progress

But Oklahoma sooner than later, planning and preparing simply turn into procrastination. Because there are only ever 3 things that matter in the achievement process.

The 3-Step Achievement Process

  1. Where you are now.
  2. Where you want to finish.
  3. What you need to do next.

You already know where you are. (You do know where you are, right?) So once you know where you want to finish you have to quickly move your focus to what you need to next. That is the entire planning process.

The rest is doing.

  • If you want to start your own business, you should be working on your product or service, or finding customers.
  • If you want to write a book, movie, or play, sit down and start writing. (Unless you have a standing desk.)
  • If you want to become an investor in real estate or business, freaking buy something.
  • If you want to be an entertainer, start entertaining people.
  • If you want to travel the world, go somewhere you haven’t been.
  • If you want to be a nude model, lose the turtleneck sweater.

Key Takeaway

The difference between dreamers and doers is action. Once you know what you want to accomplish find the next step forward and take it. Once you start moving the next step always reveals itself. Gobble up those next actions like Pac-Man eats dots. Then keep going until you have cleared the board and you are ready for the next level. That’s what achievers do. And you will achieve by taking action.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.