Just a few nuggets…

For manifesting your future business

I. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just do something and improve it as you go along. Spend more time on implementing your decisions (99%) than on making them (1%).

II. Don’t be afraid to adapt. The worst thing you can do is keep pushing something that has no chance of surviving. Also, don’t be afraid to persevere when you really believe in something. Learn to balance these two considerations, it’s the art that will define your success.

III. Don’t let yourself be scared of competition, the economic climate… or by your well-meaning surroundings. The time is always wrong, and always right. Keep your vision firmly in mind, and go for it! You will survive.

For running your business

I. Go all out or don’t go out at all. Employees can get away with shrugging things off when they leave the building. As an entrepreneur, the game is always on. For one, always have your business cards with you. Going for it is not the same as being pushy or stressed out though!

II. Do one thing at a time. Limit multitasking. When you’re offering different services or products, build out one of them at a time. Focus all your energy on that one thing until it begins to run itself. The others will automatically follow, and growing them will become easier.

III. It’s not about you, it’s about your customer. You can make excuses and feel sorry for yourself all you want; in the end the only thing people will buy is a valuable product and memorable service. Embrace – even look for – complaints and difficult customers, they’re your main source of improvement.

The Ultimate Rule Of Entrepreneurship

Make your own rules. Please, don’t take my golden  rules too seriously. They’re made up, which is true for pretty much everything. The whole world could be telling you it’s impossible, but what if you can prove them wrong? You became independent to do your own thing, so do it!

The Belgian Systemic Institute researches and teaches system dynamics. Based on the technique of family- and organisational constellations, certain basic dynamics can be deducted about the way people connect in groups. The most elementary system is our family of origin, but the Belgian political system can also be considered a system.

For the moment, one thing is abundantly clear: our political system is far from harmonious and effective. Systemically, it has root causes that can be found much deeper than the way it’s being tackled today. And that’s what we’ll be looking at on the 23rd of June: to undersand the deeper dynamics of the political stalemate.

We’ll start off with some short insights into systemic work and what its possibilities are. Then everybody’s invited to participate in the group constellation that will create deeper insight. It’s an ideal way to get to know systemic work, and who knows – to save Belgium.

Serge en Benjamin gaan eerst een woordje uitleg geven over wat “systemisch werk” is, hoe men tot een “opstelling” gekomen is en wat je daar zo allemaal kan mee doen. Daarna gaan we allemaal samen een groepsopstelling doen om inzicht te krijgen in de politieke impasse.

Mail us on info@yourcoach.be to enroll or for more information (the whole event will be in Dutch).

Setting goals has been a fixed part of my life for years now. What only recently joined in though, was actually realising those goals.

I can’t even begin to count the amount of times I’ve written down list upon list of goals. Only to find the paper six months later, crumpled underneath a pile of junk. And – surprise – nothing discernible had changed in the meantime.

How incredibly frustrating! In the end, I lost hope that I would ever manage to realise all those things I’d imagined for myself. And when you’re there, how can you still muster up the energy and enthusiasm to get things done?

Why Goal Setting is a lot like gambling

Goalsetting can be a dangerous game. When you win, your confidence rises and your upgraded situation becomes the new normal. That’s why they say the first million is the hardest: once you know you can do it, it becomes a question of HOW rather than WHETHER.

Every ceiling, when reached, becomes a floor,
upon which one walks as a matter of course and prescriptive right.
- Aldous Huxley

Every time you don’t achieve your goals however, part of you breaks. You lose energy and confidence. You put energy into something that doesn’t manifest itself. Often, this energy turns into a puss-filled blister that poisons your peace of mind. You may be able to ‘let it go’ in the end, but it’s far from satisfying.

So maybe you shouldn’t gamble on goals at all? Possibly. But wouldn’t you become aimless? It reeks of stuffiness. Most people I know that actively don’t do any goalsetting, secretly do have aims. But they won’t confess to it, even to themselves, for fear of failing. Which means that when their hidden aim never materialises, they may find themselves mysteriously deflated.

To reach a port, we must sail
—Sail, not tie at anchor
—Sail, not drift.
- Franklin Roosevelt

Why we become addicted to our shortcomings

I used to be a real expert in NOT achieving my goals. I read all kinds of books, tried many methods and still fell short. I was a real hotshot in falling into the same traps over and over again.

There’s four big traps on the path to achieving your goals. In short, they’re DOPA – not accidentally reminiscent of dope. Often, we’re addicted to one or more of these traps and that’s why we always fall into them – we actually think that’s what we’re supposed to do!

Like making plans and telling the whole world about them, but never getting into action. Or desiring things you want for the wrong reasons. Or shooting into action blindly, without thinking first, and achieving all sorts of useless stuff.

Realising your Dreams is more than just writing down what you want. You also need to look why you want those things. That’s where many of our desires strand. We actually want to get something through a certain goal. The alterior motive is what you want, while the means to it often isn’t satisfactory. So even if you achieve that goal, it probably won’t fulfill your dream.

Losing weight won’t necessarily make you more attractive. Being rich won’t necessarily make you feel more successful or meaningful. The new life you build elsewhere may well look like an exact copy of your old one after three months.

Then there’s the Obstacles. If you refuse to see or heed them, chances are you’ll slam into them so hard you’ll break your momentum completely. On the other hand you shouldn’t become paralysed by thinking about them too much. You need a nice balance: you need to know what the obstacles are, but not necessarily everything they do or exactly how they work.

Next up, you need to make a Plan. I used to make plans way too early, without even really knowing what the Dream was. While a Plan is exactly that: a road map to get to a certain destination. If you just make a plan, where the hell are you going to end up with it? If it’s vague, you’ll probably end up losing steam in the middle of nowhere.

A Plan also needs to be precise. It’s like Paris-Dakar (the rally): the more details in your road map, the quicker you’ll be able to reach your destination without unpleasant surprises.

And once you’ve done all that, you still need to take Action. You may just as well cut out everything I mentioned before if you’re not going to take action. This is where almost everybody falls flat! Many take some action, and then start procrastinating.

Or some start shooting all around, running from the one thing to the other and generally not getting much done at all. Without a plan, you’re headed nowhere fast. Even the gold diggers knew they had to go West, and some even knew in advance how to mine for gold.

I want THAT one!

Going from DOPA-minus to DOPe-Ass Shit

I’ve never been addicted to any drugs except for DOPA. I know every bump in its road intimately. I’ve crashed my hopes and dreams into its treacherous crevices so many times it’s like I built the damn thing myself (oh shit, I did). The funny thing about the DOPA-trap is that there’s actually reward in falling for it, and that’s why we keep doing it.

Thinking about your goals literally releases dopamine, the hormone you also get after an orgasm. Yes, the one that makes you fall asleep. Not exactly the kind of energy you want to be releasing too much! Before you know it, you’ll be addicted to the illusion of progress: the one in your head. But it’s all fantasy, just like a regular drug rush.

Through experience, I’ve managed to overcome the DOPA traps. I’ve gotten to know myself and my typical weaknesses, so I know how to avoid them. I’m still sensitive to its allure, but most of the time I can catch myself before I slip. How do I know? Because I’ve begun to realise my dreams, one by one.

Things that seemed impossible, are beginning to happen. I never thought I’d be a surf instructor, and yet this summer I’ll be teaching for six weeks. I never thought I’d have my own business that actually made money, and here I am. I never believed this blog would attract any intelligent readers, and yet here you are.

I know now that I’ll achieve my goals when I set my mind to it. Most of the time, it takes a bit longer than I’d like to but I’m going to make it. I also know what I want much better than before, and my desire for it is stronger and more stable.

Want to learn how to beat the DOPA-traps too?

Of course I wouldn’t be telling you this if I didn’t have an amazing way to turn it all around and achieve your life goals with ease and competence.

In the next series of article I’ll show you how you can turn DOPA into a succes story. We’ll cover each part of the bumpy road, until you’re all ready and packed to get to the summit of your dreams. Ready?

Stay tuned!

Why not receive the whole series in your inbox, one article a week? That way you have the security that you can work on your goalsetting skills, without having to worry about following up on it.

Congratulations, you can work from home! It’s a great freedom to be able to combine your household with work, to not have to commute… But with freedom comes responsibility. What if you spend all day caught up in home affairs? Or you’re sitting there in your pyjamas with no-one to check on you and you find you’re not getting much done at all?

Working from home could cost you your sixpack

Part 8/8: Telecommuting: How To Increase Productivity From Your Couch

1. Create a divide between home and work. It can make a world of difference to have a separate work space. Ideally, you have an office or studio at home or in the neighbourhood. Failing that, just a room with a door you can close. If none of these things is available to you, you can always buy a Chinese screen. Et voilà – instant office.

2. Put on your work clothes. Don’t keep running around in your pyjamas! Dress like you would at work. Because you know what? You actually are. The clothes bring you in the right mood to work, and it’s a lot less embarassing when your colleague pays you an unexpected visit.

3. Come on time. So you don’t need to do traffic jams – enjoy that extra cup of coffee! At the same time, respect the working hours that you’ve set out for yourself. If not, you could end up being one of those people that loafs around all day and then when there’s fun to be had, ‘has to finish something’. Shame!

4. Don’t watch TV. Don’t go to the movies, or the launderette. You’re working, so work. Of course, be sure to take a well-deserved break now and again and remind yourself how great it is to work from home.

5. Go out to lunch. Working from home is liberating but also isolating. Keep in touch with your friends and colleagues, forge new connections and connect to the world by going out to lunch. Better yet, go to business networking lunches!

6. Have someone to answer to. It’s easier to work when there’s someone watching and when we need to justify our time. So get one of these mechanisms to work for you (without making it disagreeable). Ask on of your colleagues or friends to check on you.

That’s the end of this series of articles on productivity! I hope your work and life have taken a spectacular new turn because of them. If not, maybe you picked out just one element that you’ve been able to use at work to be faster, more efficient and effective.

Here’s the other articles again:

1. 6 Surprising Causes Of Procrastination
2. How To Overcome Procrastination – RIGHT NOW
3. The One And Only Way To Increase Productivity
4. 10 Simple Ways To Improve Productivity Right Now
5. How To Set Priorities – Stephen Covey’s Time Management

   Grid Revealed

6. How To Manage E-mail Overload In 3 Easy Steps
7. Managing Email Overload: 8 More Fast And Easy Techniques

If you have any feedback, please let me know!

PS.: Now that you’re here, do leave a comment. Even if it’s a small one! A blog is so much more fun when people react to it…
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After last week’s article about dealing with an overflowing inbox, this week I’ll add some more handy tricks to have less quantity and more quality email in your life.

Part 7/8 – 8 Practical Solutions To Email Mismanagement

1. Delete newsletters. Face it: you’re never going to get through all those interesting newsletters and offers. Let it go, you can find whatever you need in Google when the time is right. So delete all those daily, weekly and other digest mailers from your ‘To process’ and press that Unsubscribe button.

2. Send less emails. Call, or visit. Get your answer from the horse’s mouth, and avoid endless email conversations with half the world in CC. Do not mail someone who is sitting across from you! A good test: when you feel the impulse to send a mail ask yourself: ‘Can I solve this myself?’ You probably can, can’t you!

3. Summarize. Some people are addicted to email. They’re like living status updates, including every thought they have and sending it to everyone even remotely connected. Very tiring, especially when they contain small todo’s for you. How to deal with them? Scan the contents quickly, don’t answer them and collect them in your ‘Action’ folder (see the previous post on email management).

Plan some time to process them. Then group them by sender, go through them in one go and write down the todos. You can even send that person an email with your list, just so they know you’re on it.

4. Send shorter emails. Do not rewrite the bible. Long emails are tiring to read and no-one really gets what you’re saying anyway. Less is more. Keep it under 4 sentences. Or how about this for a short answer: resist the urge to answer at all. If you want a friendly chat with lots of fluff, call them.

5. Check your emails less. 3 to 5 times a day should do it. You can always be on top of things and make sure everything is take care of. Even better: you can let things run their course while you get your work done.

6. Make rules. You could apply a CC filter that makes mails that aren’t addressed directly to you go to a separate folder. You can plan some time to go through it, without wasting time on email conversations. Stop being irritated with it, just ignore it.

7. Feel free to delete a lot of emails. Emails is like stuff in the attic: very hard to get rid of. What if you ever need any of it again? I can personally say that I’ve hardly ever needed any of my emails again, and when I did I found another way to deal with the situation. Live in the present, let go of the past. You can do it!

8. Avoid working double. When you get the same question all the time, write down your answer in a document or email template. Or put it on the website, and refer to it in your answer.

The next and last article of this eight-part series will lift the veil on how to work from home and still be efficient.

Don’t forget to check out the previous articles in this series:

1. 6 Surprising Causes Of Procrastination
2. How To Overcome Procrastination – RIGHT NOW
3. The One And Only Way To Increase Productivity
4. 10 Simple Ways To Improve Productivity Right Now
5. How To Set Priorities – Stephen Covey’s Time Management

   Grid Revealed

6. How To Manage E-mail Overload In 3 Easy Steps

PS.: Now that you’re here, do leave a comment. Even if it’s a small one! A blog is so much more fun when people react to it…
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Do you have control over your email, or do you suffer from email overload? You may actually be neglecting your work and losing incredible amounts of time. Many people could safely change their job to ‘Email Specialist’, because all they seem to do all day is send emails to and fro.

Do you recognise this story? You’re working on something and a mail comes in. You lose focus and read the email. You may be busy for five minutes writing a reply, or performing a quick task. When you’re done, you have to return to the work you were doing. You need to get into your work from scratch again, losing you time again regaining your focus and flow. Getting started is the hardest part of any job and we make ourselves do it over and over by allowing email to distract us.

Tired of e-mail overload? Ready for a new way, with less time spent finishing tasks and less time handling emails – and at the same time getting more done? Let’s get it on!

Part 6/8 – Dealing With E-mail Overload – In 3 Easy Steps

Lesson One: Email is not your friend. We instinctively look forward to email because it brings us exciting news and fun tasks. Sadly, most of the time it brings you routine stuff that just distracts you from what you could be doing. Keeping your mailbox open all the time is one of those universal habits that doesn’t make any sense. If you want things to happen to you, you need to make them happen.

Email is like an unruly child that you need to take charge of. If you don’t, it’ll take over your life with its endless interruptions and often senseless requests. So let me show you a way to deal with email that takes only five minutes to set up. It’ll help you keep your email in check and give you more space to do your real job.

First Aid for Email Overload

You have a serious case of email overload and you’re losing the pedals. No worries, here’s what to do!

1. Create an ‘Action’ folder in your inbox.
2. Go through your mail, pick out the 10 to 15 most important ones and put them in the ‘Action’ folder. Work from here as long as your inbox isn’t cleared.
3. Create a ‘Temporary’ folder. Put your complete inbox in here. Everything! You’ll be working through this in parts later, for now you can stop worrying about it.
4. Hey presto, your inbox is empty! Add the most important email tasks to your todo list and start with Email Overload Prevention.

Email Overload Prevention

When dealing with email overload prevention, carry out the following steps.

1. Work from top to bottom, from recent to older.
2. Go through your COMPLETE inbox every time you open it. So don’t leave your email open all the time; open it and then deal with the inbox. That means you can’t just ‘check your mail’ anymore, there’s work to be done!
3. Process quickly. Take one of the following actions with every mail. Don’t spend more than half a minute on any given email.
   • Delete (as much as possible)
   • Archive (when it contains information you may need later)
   • Answer (quickly, in maximum four lines) and delete/archive
   • Put in the ‘Action’ folder and add to your todo list. IMPORTANT: DO NOT work on ANY of your todos while processing your mail! No, not even the small ones.
   • Clear the inbox, close your email programme or turn of the internet.
4. Limit your email time. Open your inbox a couple of times a day to process it, then close it again.
5. Only do email. Think of the Golden Rule of Productivity: choose one thing and dedicate yourself to it. There is a difference between emails and the work that they contain – keep them separated. Make a list while you process your emails, then close your email and start on the work (according to your priorities).

Taking care of old business

So now you’ve got your emails under control. Great! You’re still sitting on a giant dungpile of emails that may or may not contain something important. Here’s how you deal with it:

1. Process it in little parts. There’s nothing more deadening than quickly going through hundreds of emails. Do it in little blocks of 5 minutes and it actually becomes fun! It’s an ideal break from some other work, a no-brainer with instant results.

2. Use the same procedure as for your inbox. Start on top, 30 seconds max per mail, delete as much as possible, only do email…

Do this and your inbox could be cleaned within the week, and the email monster tamed. Congratulations on regaining your freedom! Here, have a badge.

The next article describes a few more handy tips to deal with email.

Don’t forget to check out the previous articles in this series:

1. 6 Surprising Causes Of Procrastination
2. How To Overcome Procrastination – RIGHT NOW
3. The One And Only Way To Increase Productivity
4. 10 Simple Ways To Improve Productivity Right Now
5. How To Set Priorities – Stephen Covey’s Time Management

   Grid Revealed

PS.: Now that you’re here, do leave a comment. Even if it’s a small one! A blog is so much more fun when people react to it…
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The previous four articles in this eight-part series respectively covered the causes of procrastination, how to overcome procrastination, the Ultimate Way to increase productivity and 10 ways to improve productivity. This week another important part of time management: setting priorities.

What often goes wrong in our work is that we allow unimportant tasks to precede more essential things. Because they’re faster, easier, more urgent. That way, we end up in a rut of endless operational tasks that never allows us the time to work on those dream projects of ours. What to do?

We run around saying: ‘If only I had more time, I could get everything done.’ The good news is: you do! The bad news: you’ll have to let some things go. If you don’t, more time would just give you more meaningless tasks to fill it up with. What you need is to stay conscient of and focused on what’s really important. That’s the only way to get the big things done in life!

Part 5/8: How To Set Priorities – Covey’s Time Management Grid

An excellent and easy way to decide on priorities is Stephen R. Covey’s Time Management Quadrant. I’ve been using this to create clarity in my todo’s for ages, which has completely changed my view on my work. I used to be stressed all the time and complain about not being able to do what I wanted; now I just decide what I want to do and make time for it.

So let’s get to it! Take at the quadrant below and put it on a big piece of paper, but keep the squares empty. Now what are these quadrants all about?

Stephen Covey's Time Management Grid

Things in Sector I are both Urgent and Important. These are most often things that come from others: deadlines for clients, reports for you manager… Things that need to be done yesterday, or things will blow up. Sector II contains things that are important, but not urgent. It’s our real goals, the things we want to realize in life. Sadly, it’s also the things that we delay because of things in Sector I – or worse, in Sector III: things that are urgent but not important at all.

A good planning creates a balance between sectors I and II. Ideally, you should clear out Sector I completely and work only in Sector II. As for Sectors III en IV: it may sound harsh, but I think it’s best you let them go. Especially as long as there are still things to do in Sector I or II.

How to decide what’s important (or not)

If you find you have nothing to put in Sector III and IV, you’re probably taking on too much. Choose what you really want to get done, and what you could live without. Let them go for the time being. Focus on those things that are essential to you, and forget about all the rest. Result: more focus, less clutter!
Assignment: fill in all of your work, projects, dreams… in these quadrants. Take a look at your planning and work: are they in concordance with your priorities? If not, adapt your planning!

The next three articles in this series will deal with Email Time Management and getting things done when working from home.

Don’t forget to check out the previous articles in this series:

1. 6 Surprising Causes Of Procrastination
2. How To Overcome Procrastination – RIGHT NOW
3. The One And Only Way To Increase Productivity
4. 10 Simple Ways To Improve Productivity Right Now

PS.: Now that you’re here, do leave a comment. Even if it’s a small one! A blog is so much more fun when people react to it…
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Do you feel swamped in work? That’s probably not so much the amount of work, as the way you’re handling it. You may be doing things you shouldn’t actually be doing, and leaving the work that really needs to be done. After reading the previous posts about causes for procrastination, how to deal with it and the Ultimate Way To Increase Productivity, enjoy today’s article with practical ways to become more productive right now.

Part 4/8 – 10 Surefire Ways To Improve Productivity Right Now

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
– Lao Tzu

Don't mess with the man

With a few small changes, you can set a chain in motion to get more done in less time. Here are ten possible changes you can make to achieve just that:

1. Work on your future self – today. Unless you do something about it in the meantime, you’ll procrastinate as much later as you do today. It’s like in Back to the Future – it’s up to you now, in the past of your future, to influence how your future self will tackle his present (gotta love that sentence). That doesn’t mean you should become the most productive person in one day, but you can make an ongoing commitment out of it. Keep working on it, and before you know it you’ll have created it a brighter future for yourself.

2. Be productive, even when you’re not working. Maintain a list with small productive tasks you can do as a break. Cleaning (parts) of your desk(top), calling a customer, looking something up for your next holiday… Things that need to be done and that take no more than five minutes. This kind of thing clears your head, gives you a breather and gets you ready for the next big task.

3. Get up earlier. Are you one of those people (like me) who get up just in time to shower, grab some grub on the go and rush off the work? Why not get up half an hour earlier! Ban the snooze button. It doesn’t make you any more slept out, and your day can begin with a lot less stress. You could even meditate before work!

4. Prepare your day. If getting up earlier isn’t your cup of tea, how about taking time at the end of each day to create some peace of mind for tomorrow morning? Plan your work, put things ready so you can jump right in. That way you don’t need to wake up with that slight feeling of panicky dread at the unpredictability of today’s tasks: you already know what’s going to happen!

5. Put a limit on your time. It’s ironic: so many people work long hours and think they’re doing great. Sadly, the amount of hours spent working are no reference to getting things done. Your mind works better and faster when it has constraints. An impending deadline makes you many times more productive. So harness the power of time: limit the amount of hours you work and work more productively while you’re at it.

6. Limit your todo-list. We often have the tendency to put too many things on the list, and then hop from one job to the other, just getting small parts of each done and generally losing loads of time getting into each task. So make that long, complete list… and then select the 3 to 5 things that you really want to get done. Make sure that when you get these done, you can be satisfied about your day. Start with the most important, before you do anything else (especially before checking your email).

7. Apply the principle of TV commercials. Some TV channels begin with a new programme as soon as the previous one finishes. A few minutes later, in come commercials. Why? Because by then, people are already watching the next programme. They want to see what happens. The same goes for your work: don’t take breaks in between tasks, but a little while after you’ve begun a new task. That way you also have concrete things to think about, and you’ll automatically start working sooner.

8. Take short breaks. Everyone deserves a treat after working hard. But don’t break too long! A few minutes to catch your breath is more than enough, rather than losing your momentum with a half-hour break.

9. Fix a time for recreation. Social networks like Facebook are a powerful way to stay connected, but two or three times a day for five minutes should suffice. After that it becomes a waste of time, like many other online and offline recreations. Fix a time for them, like from five to five thirty.

10. Stop reading about time management. There’s a big difference between and being able to do something. You probably already know everything you need, especially if you know the Golden Rule of Productivity. It’s like knowing how a car works, but not being able to fix it yourself. So take one practical thing and do it until it’s a habit.

Too much reading about time management can seriously harm your productivity

Check out the previous articles in this series:

1. 6 Surprising Causes Of Procrastination
2. How To Overcome Procrastination – RIGHT NOW
3. The One And Only Way To Increase Productivity

Next week’s article is about setting priorities.

PS.: Now that you’re here, do leave a comment. Even if it’s a small one! A blog is so much more fun when people react to it…
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In the previous articles of this Productivity Series we looked at causes of procrastination, and how to overcome it. In today’s article, say hello to the number one rule of any time management and productivity improvement system.

Part 3/8 – The Ultimate Way To Increase Productivity

You sure you’re ready to stop procrastinating and to get more done, day in day out? All right then, here we go:

The best way to get more done is to choose one thing that you’ll work on next. Dedicate yourself to it entirely, without distractions or multitasking. Turn of ANYTHING that might bother you and keep going until it’s done.

That’s how simple it is! So simple actually, it’s nearly irresistible to sin against. There are always exceptions to the rule (like your office being on fire), but there aren’t nearly as many as we permit ourselves. Every concession to this golden principle is like punching a hole in a bucket. Before you know it you’re losing energy on all sides, and you can’t seem to get anything done.

You could say that most productivity methods are like plasters on a particular leak in a cauldron, more than a general solution. That’s why I prefer giving you the Golden Rule, a whole new bucket to work with. There’ll always be holes here and there, we’re only human.

Once you have this one rule mastered, you can use the practical productivity tips and tricks in the following articles to increase your productivity even more!

Previous articles in this series:

1. 6 Surprising Causes Of Procrastination
2. How To Overcome Procrastination – RIGHT NOW

PS.: Now that you’re here, do leave a comment. Even if it’s a small one! A blog is so much more fun when people react to it…

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