Need advice on time management

Good afternoon from Sydney all.

I have come to have a strong respect for the people on this forum. Not only because a lot of you share the same illness as me, thus understand better than most, but because I have seen some amazing advice posted on this forum.

This may be unrelated to my sobriety (or maybe it is in a way), but I expect these are issues that others on this forum have overcome in their journeys.

I am planning on starting my own business. But before I do that I need to combat a few personal flaws.

I am looking for good literature, audio tapes, apps, etc, on the following:

  1. Time management
  2. Procrastination
  3. Motivation
  4. Avoiding distraction

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike.

Lol supposed to be working. Reading the forum instead. I really need to stop procrastinating and get the hard stuff done.

Don’t know why I go through this every time. When I start the task I usually find it’s not as hard as I thought it would be. Just need to make a start.

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I find that the search for self help etc can become a form of procrastination in itself for me!

However, there are a couple of things I have taken away from various training days etc that I find helpful.

  1. Prioritise using the urgent/important matrix.
  2. Have a plan to make sure I know what is important. Don’t make writing the plan a procrastination opportunity.
  3. Top 3 things to do list. To do lists are never ending. Have a long list that you add to if you need one but focus on 3 important things to do today or this week. It’s achievable and you get a sense of completing tasks. Also makes you prioritise.
  4. Eat the frog. Do the thing you want to do least first. It isn’t usually as bad as you think it will be and then it’s out the way.

I don’t always stick to these myself of course :see_no_evil::joy: but they are the things that I find helpful when I apply them.

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Ain’t that the truth. Spent more time looking for books than reading haha.

Great advice. My problem is working out the actual priorities. Seems in my career everything is somehow urgent.

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Good advice thank you .

I have been studying the GTD method. But the problem for me is more along the lines of procrastination and motivation. A work in progress.

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My procrastination is almost always driven by fear- I’m afraid I don’t know what I’m doing and I’ll be found as a fraud, I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it perfectly (perfectionism), I’m afraid I will disappoint someone, or its too much work, etc…
Labeling the fear, countering it with reality (ie. I am fully capable of completing this task) and getting excited about it helps break through.

Motivation is tough. If it’s not something you’re passionate about, no amount of pep talks will get the ball rolling for very long. Find your passion in the work.

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Best recommendation I can give: Listen to the Jocko Podcast, and get the book “Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual”, by Jocko Willink. Motivation. Discipline. Prioritize and Execute. Extreme Ownership. This and more.