How to Do More in Less Time – Simpleology, Part 2
By Marelisa Fabrega

“Every morning you are handed 24 golden hours. They are one of the few things in this world that you get free of charge. If you had all the money in the world, you couldn’t buy an extra hour. What will you do with this priceless treasure? Remember, you must use it, as it is given only once. Once wasted you cannot get it back.” — Author Unknown

This is the second in a four-part series about the system “Simpleology – The Simple Science of Getting What You Want”. This system was created by Mark Joyner following the basic tenet that simple, small things can make a profound difference in your productivity and in your ability to create happiness and success in your life. The first “Simpleology” course, “Simpleology 101″, sets forth 5 laws that will help anyone make better use of their time, and it’s completely free.

The 5 laws of “Simpleology” are the following:

1: The Law of Straight Lines

2: The Law of Clear Vision

3: The Law of Focused Attention

4: The Law of Focused Energy

5: The Inescapability of Action/Reaction

This article will focus on explaining the first law of “Simpleology”, the Law of Straight Lines, in detail.

The Law of Straight Lines points out that the shortest path between two points is a straight line, a basic principle of geometry. So, how does this apply to organizing your time? This law dictates that you should take the easiest, shortest, most direct route toward achieving your goals. That is, as you go though your day you should make sure that the actions you’re taking are necessary-and not “filler activities”-, and that you take effective action. Effective action is that which moves you in the direction of getting what you want.

However, we’re bombarded by so many different distractions throughout our day that many times the straight line-the shortest route to achieve your goals–seizes to be obvious. People have a tendency to add unnecessary, ineffective steps to the route. These are some of the unnecessary and/or ineffective steps people add:

• Spending time on low priority activities that could have been delegated or eliminated from your schedule all together.

• Wasting time shuffling papers, chatting online with friends during the time you’ve scheduled to accomplish your daily tasks, aimlessly surfing the net, and so on.

• Creating problems that don’t exist.

• Jumping around from activity to activity, starting several things but not really getting any of them done.

• Spending 15 minutes looking through your desk every time you need to find a specific sheet of paper because your desk is disorganized.

• Getting up several times throughout the day to get a doughnut from the cafeteria in an attempt to raise your lagging energy level because you failed to get proper sleep the night before.

• Taking action that moves you away from your goals. For example, if your goal is lose weight, each time you make the decision to gorge on junk food you’re moving away from your goal. If your goal is to get out of debt, every time you go on a shopping spree because one of your favorite stores has a sale you just can’t pass up, you’re moving away from your goal.

Teresa Romain, Founder and President of “Access Abundance”, teaches a similar concept which she calls “a 2-degree shift”. To understand the concept of a 2-degree shift, take a pencil and a piece of paper and draw a circle. Draw an “x” at the 12 o’clock mark and label it “true North”. At the 1:00 o’clock mark, draw another “x” and label it “magnetic North”. Let’s say you’re at “magnetic North” and you want to be at “true North”. You could take the route which takes you 358 degrees clock-wise around the whole circle. This route is slow, discouraging, tedious, and it’s so long you might never even get there. Instead, you could simply do the 2-degree shift to the left and you would reach your goal, getting to “true North”, by a much shorter and quicker route. Developing new habits, new thoughts, new beliefs, and new actions will allow you to find 2-degree shifts.

Applying the laws and principles of “Simpleology” to your life and utilizing the free software that they provide will help you to identify the shortest route to your goals and will help you stick to that route. Always keep your mind attuned to finding the shortest path to move from where you are to where you want to be.

Written by Marelisa Fábrega who blogs at http://abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com

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Each chapter is dedicated to one of the habits and these are the highlights.

1. Be Proactive. We can choose to be proactive or reactive when it comes to the choices we make. Being proactive means learning to take responsibility for all of the areas of our life. When we are reactive, we tend to blame circumstances and other people for the obstacles we face or the problems we encounter. We must learn to take action instead of complaining.

As humans we have self-consciousness and the ability to detach ourselves and observe our thoughts and actions. This ability empowers us to choose how we will respond to circumstances. Covey talks about stimulus and response. Between stimulus and response, we have the power of free will to choose our response. He refers to this as space.

2. Begin with the End In Mind. Covey recommends putting together a “personal vision statement” to clarify our perception of the vision we have for our own life. We should set long-term goals based on “true north” principles. This relates to the idea that all of us have a personal purpose in life.

The ability to see ahead into the future is an important way to develop our mission statement and Covey calls this visualization. Covey briefly touches on organizational dynamics and the formulation of group vision statements. When the entire group participates and buys into the finished document there is a greater chance for success.

3. Put First Things First. Stephen Covey describes a way to prioritize work. There are things we can do that will make a major impact upon our life but we do not do them because they are not urgent. This is the old tyranny of the urgent idea. We spend too much time putting out fires and not enough time working on areas in our life that will have positive long-term impact. Delegation is presented as an important part of time management. The primary idea in this chapter is that we should organize and execute around priorities.

4. Think Win/Win This describes an attitude where mutually beneficial solutions are sought that satisfy the needs of both parties involved. Most people think Win/Lose. They believe, “If I win, you lose.” In this kind of thinking the focus is on power and credentials. Those who hold to this mindset have a difficult time building meaningful relationships. Without good relationships it is difficult to be effective for the long-term.

5. Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood. When we try to give out advice before truly understanding the other person or persons involved, and their circumstances, our advice will likely be rejected. Few of us have training in listening and this emphatic listening is a key to effective relationships.

6. Synergize describes a way of working as a team to apply effective problem solving. Applying collective decision making, learning to value differences and choosing to build on divergent strengths, are topics covered in this chapter. The idea is that when synergy is a habit, the teamwork will exceed what each person could have achieved working alone. “The whole is significantly greater than the sum of its parts.”

7. Sharpen the saw, the final habit, focuses on balanced self-satisfaction and self renewal. The idea is to gain productive capability by attending to physical, social, mental and spiritual renewal. When we take care of every aspect of our self, we are able to be more productive.

In closing, let me remind you to make sure that you have a copy of this great book so that you can refer to it time and time again. These really are 7 habits of highly effective people.