School is a way to earn a degree, but it is not the only way to earn an education. There are other ways to learn, including to learn by doing. If you’ve graduated from school, or if school isn’t your thing, that doesn’t mean that you’re done learning. Learn by doing. Give yourself deadlines. Start moving and figure it out along the way. Go experience things. Get stuff done. Use your time being out of school to your advantage.
Author: cbarney.45
Are you delegating tasks?
At some point in time, you will have to delegate tasks and responsibilities in order to become more effective. You only have so much time during the day, and if you are in charge of doing everything, the limiting factor of how much gets done is you. You are the bottleneck.
I first noticed this when reading Tim Ferris’s “The 4-Hour Workweek.” He talks of the D-E-A-L strategy, which is summed up by deligating tasks/responsibilities that someone else can do (even if they can only do it 80% as well as you can), eliminating tasks/activities that either don’t matter or are unproductive uses of your/someone else’s time, and automating repetitive low-skill tasks that you do frequently and should not be eliminated (don’t waste your brain power or time thinking about these). Once you do those three things, it liberates you to work on the projects that give you the most joy, are in your wheelhouse, and that only you can do. You’ll have more time, energy, and, if you optimized the first three steps, money to allocate to anything else of your choosing.
The quicker you can begin delegating tasks/responsibilities, the quicker you can grow. Don’t expect it to be perfect though. Other people are imperfect (just like you) and have their own way of doing things. If you don’t provide the proper training and instructions (as well as explaining the reason why you want things done), expect worse results. Even if you do provide adequate standard operating procedures, there will still be bumps along the way. But you have to take the good with the bad. And, ultimately, as long as you delegated power to the right person, you will be able to move forward faster than if you took on everything yourself.
Actions build your reputation
Act in accordance to how you want to be perceived. It sounds simple, but that’s because it is. For example, if you want to be taken seriously, you have to be serious. If you want to be given responsibility, be responsible. If you want to be viewed as trustworthy, do trustworthy things.
If you don’t know where to get started, here are some simple rules that I feel will benefit everyone:
Don’t talk about people when they are not able to defend themselves.
Look optimistically toward the future.
Always try to perform your best/make the most of what abilities you have.
Work hard.
Be respectful.
Do things because you believe that’s the right thing to do, not because someone wants you to.
Detach
Watch out for tunnel vision (focusing too intently on one thing), especially when difficult circumstances arise. Detach or risk missing an obvious, better choice/solution.
Sport-specific training
Working on your genera fitness is great for most people. This would include your average working out like running, lifting weights, or doing yoga. But general physical preparedness (GPP, as we call it in the biz) should only be the baseline for those who are training for a specific sport or event. GPP focuses on health, but not on performance. And while you typically need to be healthy to perform at the highest level, being healthy does not necessarily translate to athletic achievement.
For example, in most sports, it helps to have one or more of the following attributes: strength, explosiveness/power, flexibility, agility, aerobic and anaerobic conditioning, etc. You can easily work on all of those at the gym by yourself. But no matter your strength or conditioning level, you still need sport-specific training to work on your skills if you want to excel at your sport. It doesn’t matter how many times you hit the weights or run, those are not going to make you run a better route, use better technique, or improve your hand-eye coordination. Being more agile will not make you a better shooter, swimmer, golfer, etc.
Always work to have GPP. But if you are competing in a sport, make sure you take the time to focus on your sport-specific skills. Most of the time, if someone is highly skilled and in decent shape, they will outperform someone with low-to-moderate skill but is in great shape.