Hey guys, Scott Asner here! Are you looking for a view filled holiday that checks all your vacation boxes? I’ve got you covered with one of my favorite vacation spots: Montenegro. Cost effective and as rich in history as it is in beautiful landscapes, you are sure to have a good time whether you are a historian eager to widen your knowledge, an adventure junkie waiting for the next story to tell, or a family just looking make some memories.
Enjoy the Beautiful Natural Sights of Montenegro
In the West, Montenegro offers narrow beaches on the coast of the Adriatic sea in unison with small fishing villages dotted along the coast. If the beach is not for you, worry not. Further inland you will find stunning landscapes with rugged mountains, Fjord like Bays of Kodor and narrow beaches on the coast of the Adriatic sea. I would recommend visiting Skadar Lake which is the largest lake in the Balkans and one of the most prominent bird sanctuaries. Listen up adventure hunters, this one’s for you, if you’re up for the challenge go climb Montenegro’s highest peak Maja Kolata. Now, if you are eager to enjoy the history of the county, go take a walk through the historic part of Stari Grad and don’t forget to visit the monastery at Cetinje which is home to the mummified hand of St. John the Baptist.
Getting Around the City
The best way to get around without renting your own car would be by bus. Bus transport in Montenegro is cheap, safe and efficient, not to mention they also run anywhere along the coast. However, renting a car is still the best way to get around if you want to visit more remote areas.
Delicious Food
Montenegro cuisine derives from Yugoslavia. The traditional way of cooking is called Ispod and Kajmak (sour cream) is usually a main ingredient, as well as cow and sheep cheese. Montenegro locals are keen on eating lamb and veal rather than beef, and on the coast, fresh seafood is quite common. Catovica Mini and Stari Mini are excellent fish-based restaurants and some of the most scenic restaurants tucked away in the trees overlooking a river. Pod Volat is a meat focused restaurant with an excellent menu offering a taste into the country’s rich culture.
That’s all for today folks, I hope that this blog has inspired you to go and visit the magical country of Montenegro! Enjoy your time there with my little guide of places to see and food to eat!
~ Scott Asner, Founding Principal of Eighteen Capital Group (18CG) in Kansas City, Missouri
At the start of every year, millions of us take the time to come up with New Year’s resolutions and think of ways to maximize the year ahead of us.
Now, it is very likely that these resolutions fall by the wayside early within the new year – in fact, it is estimated that around 80% of set resolutions fail. The simple reality is that it can be very difficult to make definite changes or accomplish specific goals in your life just by basing them on an arbitrary date.
So this year, how about just resolving to make it a GREAT year in general? I thought I would take today to share a few ways that you can make 2020 a great year – by taking a different approach.
Trying for Too Much, Too Quickly
When most people think about what they would like to achieve at the beginning of each year, they tend to set large, sweeping goals in many different categories. Filled with the motivation and cheer leftover by the holiday spirit, they might say things like, “I’d like to get healthier, make more money, spend more time with my family and learn a new language.” And while these are great intentions to set, it may not be the best strategy to target so many different aspects of our lives at once and expect to make significant improvements by the end of a 365-day period.
By taking on too many goals and expecting too many results at the end of the year – you spread your focus too thin. It would be much more productive to set smaller goals in specific categories, then move on according to need.
Recognize that January 1st is just a date and focus on the single most critical category of your life that you would like to see changes in. Try breaking your life down into groups: health, finances, relationships, spirituality, etc. Then, take a step back to gauge which area you would like to improve most, and commit to tackling that aspect first.
Get a Hobby, Get a Life
It doesn’t matter who you are, or what kind of improvements you would like to make in your life – one sure way to making this coming year great is to get involved in a hobby. Hobbies are activities that you pursue simply out of curiosity and enjoyment, not because you want to “accomplish” something.
In many ways, finding a hobby can introduce a new, exciting and fulfilling aspect to your life. This is especially helpful to someone who may be living well and doesn’t feel a strong need to jump on the New Year’s resolution bandwagon. Even if you do stillwant to get a sense of making improvements to your life – you can use your hobbies as a tool for doing so.
For instance, you may wish to take up hiking, which is both a great way to explore and appreciate the natural world around you, while also giving you health benefits of exercise. Of course, there are other healthy hobbies to pursue, such as: picking up a sport, diving into culinary arts, or even taking dance lessons.
The great thing about hobbies is that they allow you to focus your attention and energy onto an activity that is both fun and productive. They’re a sure-fire way to enhance your life and make the year one to remember.
Practice Gratitude
Developing a strong sense of gratitude may be one of the most effective and easiest ways to make this a phenomenal year. Gratitude is a powerful way to instill a strong sense of appreciation for all aspects of our lives. It realigns our perspective to focus on the good things that we already have and enjoy.
Of course, striving for improvement is a natural instinct and reaching higher levels of success should be celebrated – but gratitude reminds us that we already have so many things to be thankful for and to celebrate.
By cultivating gratitude, you will find yourself happier, more optimistic, more inspired to tackle new challenges and with a stronger appreciation for friends and family. The simplest way to do this is by starting a gratitude journal and begin every morning by jotting down a few things that you are thankful for. Over time, you will begin to notice just how much you already have going for you, and it doesn’t cost anything other than a few moments every day.
It is one of the most freeing and gratifying journeys that anyone can embark on, and despite the hard work, there is a lot that makes the risk worth the reward.
So with that, let’s dive in!
Escaping the Rat Race
Many people have the same fundamental dream – to escape the boring 9-5 in exchange for endless free time and the funds to make the most of it.
While some people play the lottery, business people play their own kind of lottery in creating their own company. The idea of any business is to generate income that exceeds the possibilities of a normal job and to eventually be able to spend their time as they’d like while still receiving passive income.
Some want to build a business and sell it off to the highest bidder for a quicker payout; some want to build a legacy to pass down to their children; others want to establish a stable passive income stream that lets them enjoy their life while also taking a check.
These are all valid strategies and good reasons to start your own business. Few things are more rewarding than having free time for yourself, and the funds to enjoy that free time.
You Are the Boss
Almost everybody at some point had a boss that they had a hard time with, and some people simply cannot work under the direction of other people. When you run your own business, you become your boss.
This is a great and rewarding aspect for people who are more independently minded and do not like the idea of their livelihood being left in the hands of someone other than themselves. It is a mindset that comes from self sustainability and a vision of only being held to your own standard.
Ultimately, when you are accountable to yourself for your own success, you feel empowered and satisfied they you are more in control of your life. It can be terrifying to truly think about at first, but there is a sense of great satisfaction that comes with calling your own shots, taking chances as you see fit and directing your professional life purely from your own point of view.
They don’t feel connected to the company, its mission, their role within the organization or what they are doing on a day-to-day basis. This can be a soul-crushing reality for so many people who feel stuck and lost – like they’re just killing time shuffling papers while they miss the world going by.
Well, creating your own business is a ticket to the action. When you create your own business, you have no choice but to be completely engaged with the vision that you’ve carved out for yourself – otherwise, it will all come falling down around you.
What’s more, creating a business opens the door to pursuing a hobby or field that someone is passionate about and gives them an ability to make a living in that area. Even if someone is not particularly “passionate” about a business venture that they have started purely for profit, passion actually builds up around their business once they begin to see a level of success.
The Life of Your Dreams
Building a business is a golden ticket to the life of your dreams. It certainly isn’t easy, and it doesn’t come without hard work and sacrifice – but it offers you a ticket to what people crave most in the human condition: freedom.
The freedom to be your own boss. The freedom to spend your time doing what you like most. The freedom to control your own destiny.
It is exhilarating and any business owner would tell you that they wouldn’t have it any other way.
As somewhat of a lifelong entrepreneur, I have never seen such an exciting time to start up a new business venture. The rest of the country seems to feel that way too – the enthusiasm is everywhere. We are always hearing about the “gig economy,” “startup culture,” and “hustle.”
Clearly more and more people are interested in creating their own business. So today, I wanted to share some helpful tips from my life that all prospective business owners should know about the realities of running their own business.
Understand Your Market, and Develop a Solid Business Model
It doesn’t matter how much startup capital you have, how great your idea may be or how little competition you may have out there – without a strong business model and a general grasp on the overall economy, your new business might be little more than a pipedream.
Before taking out a loan or ditching a solid income, it is vital to have all your ducks in a row and to be prepared for hard times ahead. It is said that 20% of all businesses fail within their first year, and 50% fail by the fifth year.
You have to understand the risks that you’re undertaking when stepping out into a new venture. To do this, you should know whatever field you’re hoping to get into, from inside and out. This includes networking and speaking to other businesses owners in your field, researching the industry and its current/future challenges, and staying up-to-date on trends. Any business owner will tell you that running a successful business is not something that you can set and forget once the clock strikes five – it requires serious consideration and understanding.
This also requires developing a fail-proof business model, especially for the first couple of years. You will need a product or service – something that you can offer the market – and then you need a way to provide it. Whether that means developing a sales funnel, working out operational logistics, or prepping for a lack of demand – you must have an answer for any challenge.
One helpful tip here is to work backwards from your goal and anticipate the worst case scenarios to plan for them for when disaster strikes.
Concentrate on Meeting a Demand
Some aspiring business owners get too carried away about “what could be” rather than considering the realities of the market. While it’s always great to dream big and to be ambitious with your business goals – the ultimate focus of a new business should be to meet the customer’s demands.
We have all seen novel ideas that were neat, but ultimately did not meet a substantial demand. These types of businesses tend to come and go because they simply did not have a market.
For instance, apps are a new market that a lot of younger people seem to want to explore. You may have heard the phrase, “there’s an app for that,” and there seems to be no limit to what people can package into a simple software platform – but for every wild success story of a new app, there are always the unknown ones that failed.
I am NOT saying that business owners should not pursue their dreams or off-beat business ideas – but ultimately, the customer is what matters most in business. Your idea should be marketable to their demands.
Having said that, sometimes novel ideas – to downright silly ones – can turn into huge money makers. Remember pet rocks? They swept the nation like wildfire and certainly made somebody a lot of money.
If you have an idea that can capture the interest of consumers – by all means, try to generate interest and capitalize off of it. But understand that profits might be short lived before trying to establish a larger business around a singular idea or gimmick.
Monitor Your Budget and Income
Sometimes when business opportunities explode, it can become quite a challenge to keep tabs on all of your financials. Once your business starts to really take off, you will want to have someone or a team in place to manage and analyze all of your income and expenses. Those who fail to do so can miss out on a mountain of profit and not even realize it.
Things can add up when you’re running a business: office equipment, software subscriptions, staffing and all of the overhead that comes with any organization. If you’re starting out – try to minimize these expenses as much as you possibly can or it may force you to scale back and stagnate, or go bust completely.
New business owners should keep a close eye on their expenses and maintain detailed ledgers of transactions. Make sure that every item and every purchase is kept on record so that you can balance your budget at the end of every week, month and quarter.
New business owners who experience explosive growth can easily lose track of factoring in all of their expenses, as they’re riding high on success. But they should understand that growth spurts also come with contractions, and they should be prepared accordingly.
Risk and Reward
With any business venture, there is an inherent risk that comes with it. Sometimes it requires the help of a loan from a bank or business partner; sometimes it takes giving up a sure thing to journey into the unknown. That is just a natural part of business.
Running a successful business is always worth the risk, but anyone thinking about jumping into the fray should consider everything that goes into the process. Hopefully these insights can help anyone seeking to make that jump.
Staying healthy and active all day in the
office is a big challenge for all employees. Especially considering that most
of our modern workday is comprised of sitting for eight hours in front of the computer.
And while this is the reality that we live in,
it is absolutely terrible for your overall health. Everything from your
posture, to eye strain, to neck tension – all of these problems can affect your
health.
By following a few essential tips, you can
stay healthy and active during your working hours. This will improve your
productivity long-term and maintain your focus on important work tasks.
Here are some simple ways that help you to
stay healthy throughout your workday.
Pack Your
Lunch
The brain needs nourishment to perform
well, especially if you are working longer hours. One of the healthiest things
you can do to ensure you’re getting that vital nutrition is to bring your lunch
from home.
Food prepared from home allows you to
stay in control of what you’re eating and can give you the edge you need to get
through the day. And however tempted a resident of Kansas City may be to visit
one of our fine restaurants, packing your lunch helps you avoid the highly
processed foods, and it also gives you the choice to pick your favorite foods
throughout the day.
Just the act of planning and selecting
your groceries with the workweek in mind will prompt you to make healthier
choices about what you want to consume. This effect can then snowball into a
routine that adds massive benefit to your life and overall health.
This is also a great tip for anyone
minding their budget, as you will save a pile of money over time.
Get Up
and Move
The act of sitting in a chair all day and
staring at a computer screen is a slow killer. Some experts even compare the
cumulative hours of sedentary life as being on par
with smoking as a negative impact on your health.
It also makes you sluggish and dull.
To combat this and help keep yourself active
and healthy, you must spend some time away from your desk or chair. It is
essential to take small breaks and leave your chair or desk for a walk just to
refresh your mind.
A mere 5-minute break could make a make a
difference in your overall health. You can also couple your breaks away from
your screen with other tasks that have to be completed – like running that
report over to sales or attending that meeting in-person.
You could even incorporate little fitness
breaks into your day. Stand up and stretch, look away from the screen, practice
proper posture, meditate. Anything to break the habit of sitting in the same
position for hours on end.
Keep in mind how much time you actually spend
sitting down at your desk. You would be surprised how quickly those hours add
up.
Watch Out for Snacks
Tying into nutrition, it is essential to mind
how much convenient snacking that you are doing throughout the day. It can be
very tempting to leave a bag of chips at your desk, but if you’re not careful,
you will find yourself devouring the whole bag before the day is over.
And it’s not just chips that are common in the
workplace. Candy bars, sodas from the vending machine, birthday cakes, and more
are all normal snack foods that people bring to their desk.
Avoid doing this at all cost because the
calories add up quickly and you may not even be aware of it. Combine snacking
with the sedentary sitting of the average workday and you have yourself a
recipe for terrible health.
One way to avoid unhealthy snacking is by
replacing the normal junk food with fruits and calorie-light vegetables like
carrots or celery sticks. This way, you still get to enjoy food at your desk,
but you are using healthy options instead.
Control Your Caffeine Intake
Also be mindful of is just how much caffeine
you consume on a daily basis. It is extremely common for people to begin every
day with a cup or two of coffee. On top of the sheer amount of caffeine, there
is also the cream and sugars that go into our favorite morning drink. I am also
guilty of this, but it does not have to be a bad thing.
A cup of coffee is perfectly fine, but you
should try to limit it to just one. You do not want to become reliant on
caffeine to function at your best. And for those of you who cannot stand
caffeine-free coffee – there are alternative options that you might enjoy.
Hot tea is a popular option, but so is plain
old H2O. Our bodies are mostly made of water and most people do not get enough
of it. In fact, once you start to feel the sensation of thirst, you are already
hydrated to a certain extent. It is recommended that you get 6-8 glasses of
water per day.
This is a good rule of thumb, as it will keep
you hydrated, prevent afternoon caffeine crashes, and will prevent you from
overeating throughout the day.
Conclusion
Your health is essential if you want to work
efficiently and if you want to live an enjoyable life. Since we spend nearly a
quarter of our lives at work, we have to find ways to use that time to improve
or at least maintain our health.
These tips are not an excuse for avoiding
rigorous exercise before/after work – but hopefully they give you starting
point for how to incorporate healthy habits into your workweek.
In a previous blog post we discussed some practical ways that people can manage time and hobbies that anyone could develop to improve productivity throughout their lives. Continuing in that same spirit, I would like to include a couple more ways that you may use to jumpstart your workweek and achieve even more success.
Some of these tips have helped turn Eighteen Capital Group
from a Kansas City investment firm, into a nation-wide enterprise. Feel free to
use them as you see fit!
1.) Get Out of Your Head
Sometimes the best thing we can do to remain productive is
to take a break and come back with a new perspective. In our modern workplaces,
it’s easy to get stuck sitting in front of a computer for hours at a time –
incessantly clicking and typing away. And the more that we sit there, the more
stressed and less efficient we become.
This is not how human beings were designed to live and work.
It’s also not productive.
It’s advisable to break up hours of work with break periods,
to keep you refreshed and avoid feeling overwhelmed. Some people even subscribe
to the Pomodoro Technique – which is the act of timing out twenty-five minutes
to focus purely on work, then switch to a less intense break period.
You do not have to follow this exact timetable, but it
is important to mind how much time you’re sitting and staring at a computer
screen. Every hour or so, stand up, stretch, maybe even go for a walk – just
anything to break up the sitting.
This can be especially helpful when you feel stuck and need
a new perspective on a problem you’re trying to tackle.
2.) Complete the Hardest Tasks First
It is often said that the most productive hours of the day
are the ones before lunch. This does not mean that we should push our lunch
break back to achieve all of our daily tasks. Instead, we should try to tackle
our biggest challenges in the morning hours.
Even if you plan out your day and make a very detailed to-do
list, you will inevitably be waylaid by unforeseen events or have to re-direct
your time towards things that were not on the agenda. Knocking out the most
difficult or most important tasks in the morning allows you to focus all of
your energies into those tasks before the distractions start rolling in.
Once you’ve accomplished the heavy items for the day, you
then have room to shift focus or take on the random things that pop-up in the
afternoon. This strategy ensures that you stay on track as per your original
plans, but even makes you more productive as you cross off additional items
over the course of your week.
Another point to keep in mind is the post-lunch slump.
Structuring your day to address the most important tasks of the day first will
focus all of your momentum and energy into the things that matter before
feeling tired.
3.) Periodic Brain Purge
No matter your role or industry, we can get overwhelmed with
all of the different outstanding tasks and thoughts whizzing around in our
heads. It may be difficult to sort out exactly what your priorities should be
at any given moment. This is why it is extremely helpful to do a brain purge
and regain a sense of control and direction.
The first step is to simply write down all of the thoughts
floating through your mind, work-related and otherwise. Upcoming birthdays,
upcoming bills, people you should call, things the kids need for school, things
to pick up from the store – write it all down.
Just getting it all out of your head and down onto a single
document can be a relief in of itself, but then it is time to group these items
into categories and prioritize.
Separate each thought into categories according to their
urgency and their importance. For example, it may be important to call your
mother, but it is more urgent to close the loop on that presentation that is
due next week. Responding to an HR survey may be urgent, but not as important
as touching base with a client. Whatever your to-dos may be – categorize them
in this way until each one is accounted for.
Now you have an immediate compass for tackling the
outstanding tasks in your life, and you have a sense of which ones are most
immediate and most critical to your success.
*. *.
*. *. *
Hopefully you’ve found these additional tips for improving
productivity helpful and will be able to put them to use to get more out of
your day.
It is now up to you to put them into practice. With the
right mentality and know-how, there is no limit to what you can do.
You may have read about the importance of setting goals in my earlier blog entry, but today I wanted to make a special point about why it’s smart to set S.M.A.R.T. goals. It makes all the difference in terms of accomplishing your dreams.
What are S.M.A.R.T. goals?
S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for a popular approach to goal
setting that helps ensure that you have the right targets to shoot for and a
feasible way of hitting your mark. The acronym stands for goals that are
Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.
Specific
Make sure that your goals have a specific outcome in mind.
It is not enough to just say, “I’d like to be healthier,” because that is too
broad and could include too many things to actually move the needle forward on
your vision. It leaves too much grey area in terms of whether the goal was met
or not.
Instead, state what you will specifically do to get
healthier. Leave no room for in-betweens about what will be undertaken to
achieve your goal. A better approach would be to identify exactly how
you will be healthier. “I will exercise.” “I will eat healthier foods.”
Specific goals help you home in your vision in a clear way.
Measurable
Following up with specificity, make sure that your goals are
measurable and can be tracked. If you cannot measure a goal, there is still too
much ambiguity surrounding the end-result to actually matter.
To make goals measurable, include a quantitative aspect that
is either achieved or not. Going along with the above example, “I’d like to be
healthier,” should instead look more like, “I will jog around Kansas City
to lose 10 pounds.”
Now we have a specific course of action and a
measurable outcome.
Attainable
It can be easy to set unattainable goals when we are feeling
our best or are coming off of a massive win. We want to keep the momentum going
and declare that “this year is my year!” And while this is a noble thing and is
exciting in the moment – it may not leave us better off when actually setting
goals for the quarter/year.
Goals should challenge us to move forward, but they have to
be attainable. Make sure your goals are within the realm of possibility;
otherwise, you are setting yourself up for failure when you are actually trying
to do your best.
Relevant
Another problem we run into is setting irrelevant goals that
hold no real outcome on our lives. This can happen when we want to do too much
at once, or we’re looking for an easy win that doesn’t really contribute to
realizing our dreams.
Make sure your goals are relevant and work with other goals
that you may have set. Furthermore, they should matter and provide tangible
value to your wellbeing – professionally or personally.
It does no good to set a frivolous goal for all of your
effort. Tailor them to improve your life as something worthwhile. For example,
losing 10 pounds is worthwhile because it improves many other factors of your
life and is a great start to a journey of overall improved health. It is also
an attainable goal that can be expanded on with progress.
Timely
Lastly, goals should fit within a defined timetable. By
including a time measurement to the goal, it comes with a sense of
accountability. This keeps you on-track and helps ensure success from your
efforts.
Without a time component to a goal, it can be too easy to
push off into the future. What is the point of setting a goal if you never
really accomplish it or hold yourself to any sort of expectation? Add a
timetable to the goal, while also making sure that it is still attainable.
“I will jog around Kansas City to lose 10 pounds in three
months.”
End Result
When we sit down to map out goals, it is easy to fall into
the trap of idealistic optimism and to shoot for the stars. This is a good
thing, but as we’ve seen, it isn’t necessarily the smartest way to go about
mapping out your plans.
“I would like to be healthier,” is a goal that is not
specific, is not measurable, and has no timetable to judge it by.
“I will jog around Kansas City to lose 10 pounds
in three months,” is a much stronger goal as it has a specific outcome,
is measurable, and sets a time limit to keep things moving in the forward
direction. It is also an attainable goal that has relevance to one’s life.
The end result of applying the S.M.A.R.T. system is an improved chance of taking your dreams and turning them into a reality. Make sure to incorporate this method into your goal setting to be more productive with your time.
The modern world is a busy place. Reviewing memos, catching
flights, attending meetings, reading endless e-mails – it adds up to a lot.
We’re all looking for ways to make the workday more productive and to accomplish
more of our goals in practical ways.
Today, I’d like to share some of my personal tips and advice
for staying productive and keeping your edge in this busy environment.
1.) Keep Track of Your Time
Sometimes it seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day
to accomplish all of the tasks on your radar. Maybe you start out each day with
focus and the intention to mark off everything on your to-do list, but at the
end of the day, you still have many items left undone.
If this scenario seems familiar to you, you should consider
keeping a daily timesheet to keep track of your time. Keeping track of how you
spend your time allows you to get an assessment of your activity and identify
patterns of behavior that aren’t as productive as they could be.
You can use a manual sheet or digital excel sheet and block
off the hours of the day. Use intervals of 15 minutes to prevent things from
becoming overly complicated. Track your time for a whole week to gather enough
data, then review the week to identify how you spent your time. If you use a
digital timesheet, you can place the information into graphs for easy
comparison and additional details.
After a week or two, you will be surprised how much of your
day is spent on activities that are relatively unimportant or could be
delegated to free up more of your valuable attention. From here, you can make
adjustments as needed to improve your performance.
2.) Set Goals, Big and Small
Sometimes we can feel that we are grinding away, but we
don’t necessarily have a clear direction of where we’re going or what we would
like to accomplish with our time. This is where setting goals becomes an
important part of your life.
Whether in business or in life, every highly productive
person takes the time to analyze where they are in a general sense, where they
would like to be and what it would take to get there. Then, they formulate a
plan to achieve specific actions that will move them closer to their end goal.
You too can take advantage of this approach by taking an inventory
of where you are, and by setting goals on a small scope (week-by-week) to large
(quarterly or yearly). This process will naturally keep you on track toward
achieving your dreams.
3.) Avoid Multi-tasking
Multi-tasking is an ability that has become increasingly in
demand in our hyper-connected, rapid-paced world. And while it is certainly a
skill that can come in handy, it is far from perfect when it measures up to
applied focus.
Multi-tasking is the act of performing multiple tasks at one
time. This is useful in situations where you are performing low-level tasks
that do not require a lot of brain power and just need to be checked off.
The bad news is that multi-tasking is widely ineffective when
it comes to more complex tasks and can actually cause you to be less
productive in the long-term. That’s because when someone is
“multi-tasking,” they’re really just switching between tasks at a rapid rate –
cutting down the level of detail and attention that they apply to any given
task.
This is the opposite of productive. Instead of taking this
approach, you should focus on one individual task at a time and complete them
in order from most important to least. This will ensure that you are giving the
fullest level of attention to your work and actually free up time as you knock
them out one-by-one.
4.) Develop a Passion for Reading
It has been well-established that reading is an important habit
to develop for long-term success. It is a fundamental characteristic of
successful people in today’s world, from CEOs to philosophers. In fact,
legendary investor Warren Buffett is famous for his advocacy of reading,
recommending that everyone should read at least 500
pages per day.
Why is it so important to read?
Reading is one of the most powerful tools available to
educate oneself and gain the direct insights and knowledge of others. It allows
the reader to absorb a lifetime of information on any given subject over a period
of hours. Books are a tremendous resource for anyone continuing their
educational efforts and advancing their skillset and knowledge base, especially
in the business world.
It has also been scientifically proven that reading improves
memory and can train the brain for increased focus, making reading a great
activity to keep the brain working optimally.
In addition to the immense educational value provided –
reading is a fun activity and can be a crucial tool for anyone looking to be
more productive.
Onward and Upward
So, there you have it – a handful of productivity tips that
will hopefully take your days to the next level in terms of what you can
accomplish. If you’re interested in learning even more ways to be productive,
check out some of my additional tips, here.
Also, feel free to leave your own tips in the comments
section below.
Scott Asner 