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My mind is everywhere. I want to do this but I need to do this or I want to do this but what if I’m wasting my time with this, maybe I should do this, or maybe I should do both at the same time?

Never really concentrating on one thing long enough to see it to fruition.

Recently, I was concentrating on affirmations and finding out what worked for me and what didn’t. Then I got interested in eating healthy. Then it was exercising. Then it was using the law of attraction more effectively. Then it was de-cluttering my house and keeping it that way. Then it was “maybe I should try to go on a vegetarian diet for a month?” Then I thought maybe I should buy organic meat and try that before going on a vegetarian diet. Then I thought about how I can work fewer hours at work and still get paid the same. Then I thought more about gossiping at work and how I am getting involved again. Then I thought about doing some more 30 day experiments. Then I thought about over 4,000 email messages that are in my yahoo account that I should clean out. And this is not all, that’s just what I can think of right now.

In the end I ended up doing a lot of things in bits and pieces but nothing to full completion.

So, you can see that I did not do anything effectively.

This is the multi-tasking world, with multi-tasking mentality! At work, you should be able to respond to your emails, converse with your colleagues/boss, work on your project and update the reporting sheets all at the same time.

I started looking around at people who were achieving enormous results in a very short period of time and every single one of them had one thing in common. They were all focusing on that particular item with all of their energy.

So…. what would happen if I started doing that? hmm…

I’ve done a lot of 30 day experiments but since I feel like there is so much I want to do, taking a whole month for just one item seems like a long time. It’s not really because time is passing anyways and a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Also, a month can easily pass by just in all this confusion. Instead of getting confused, I could have done some one thing for that month. If I started to just do things that I want to or would love to do, I would learn a lot more about myself whether I failed or succeeded.

I have trained myself to be disciplined whenever I need to be. I don’t doubt that I can concentrate on one thing for a whole month for example. It’s just deciding which one thing to concentrate on. It’s more in my mind than anything else.

Still I have to look out for myself and work with myself so instead I will devise some 7 day experiments. I will totally focus on one item for 7 days.

That means not even browsing the internet for other stuff. Totally excluding, even going to forums or websites that are not directly related to my goal of the week. Let’s see what happens!

Ivy Lee’s system

In one of his books Napoleon Hill tells a story about Ivy Lee who was working with Charles Schwab, the head of Bethlehem Steel. Ivy Lee is considered the father of modern public relations.

Charles Schawb told Lee that the biggest problem he had was making his managers more effective – helping them better utilize their time. Lee provided a system to Schwab and told Schwab to first try the system out for a while and then pay him whatever Schwab thought the idea was worth.

This is basically what Ivy Lee told Charles Schwab:

1. List the six most important things you have to do tomorrow
2. Number them in order of importance/priority
3. Take the paper out tomorrow morning – start with 1 and stay with it until it is completed
4. Only then go to 2 and repeat until the end of day. If you don’t finish all six you probably wouldn’t have finished them using any other system anyway

In a short while after trying this system out, Schwab sent Ivy Lee a cheque for $25,000. Now this was in 1920s so you can imagine what that amount is today. This shows you what Schwab thought of Lee’s idea and Napoleon Hill gave it to us for free!

There are literally thousands of time management books, tapes, videos, seminars out there but so often we get caught up in designing really complex systems that we lose track of the basics. If Charles Schwab thought so highly of this basic system, and if this simple system helped people at that level, surely it can help us!

Focus on one thing until it’s done! I am going to devise some experiments for myself and find out what can be achieved in one week!

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. It has been an exciting few months. In the beginning I couldn’t post anything because of some problems at my hosting company. Even after everything was fixed and up to speed, I didn’t post anything because I had lost the momentum and was involved in a lot of other things on the side.

I will write about my past few months shortly…

Keeping everything organized is one of the most important habits that everyone should develop.  For example if you have your receipts organized you won’t have to stress much when it comes time to do your taxes.  This is especially important if you are a business owner and can write off a lot of your expenses against your income.

Even if you are not collecting your receipts for the purpose of reducing your taxable income you can still benefit greatly by keeping them organized.  Reason being, it helps to know where you are spending your money so you can make wiser financial choices.  It is one of the first rules of money management.  Whenever you go see a financial adviser, they would want you to keep track of your expenses and based on that would devise your future financial plan.

Here is what I found to be extremely helpful.  By my bedside I have a big yellow envelope and it’s named march 2008.  Every night I put all my receipts for the month of march in it after I write them down in my notebook or computer.  Every month I get a new envelope for that month and put all my receipts in that envelope.  I have tried to keep the envelopes in a nicer and safer place but I found that that just deterred me from putting my receipts in it.  I would always procrastinate putting receipts in that envelope until a few months worth of receipts piled up by my bedside.  So, one day I just decided to keep the monthly envelope by my bedside and it’s worked like a charm ever since.  At the end of the month this envelope gets sealed while a new one opens up.

And I got these envelopes from the dollar store.  I believe 10 envelopes for $1.00 + tax = $1.13 or so. Not too bad of an investment.  And it keeps my accountant happy  as well.

Prior to doing any sort of organizing for my receipts I used to keep them in a plastic bag.  Plan being that I would just sit down one day and copy everything to an excel sheet instead of wasting time every single day.  Well, that doesn’t work!  It is an overwhelming task when you have to do it and not to mention that the ink on a lot of the receipts got erased.

So, try it out and I am sure you will like it.

Following are some of the ways I have used to build my self-discipline up to a respectable level. I am still no where close to where I would like to be but I am still ahead of where I was a few years ago.

• washing my dishes right after I had used them – since I was quite weak, I could not imagine doing this for 30 days straight, so I started off with a goal to follow this for the next 100 times and stop after that. That got me started and I continued this non-stop for the whole year
• no sugar in coffee or tea – again the goal was to follow this for the next 100 cups of coffee or tea, without a break but I ended up doing this for over two months and it’s been around two years and I still drink tea without sugar
• sit-ups every single day for 30 days
• no reading self-help books for 30 days – I was reading too many of the books and not taking enough action. One day I decided that I knew enough so it was time to stop reading anymore and start taking action
• making my bed every single day for 30 days
• not watching any t.v. for 30 days – continued this for over two months
• working out every single day for 30 days – continued this for over two months without a single break, even though a lot of the times I would go to the gym around 1-2 a.m. while having to wake up around 6 a.m. the next morning to go to work
• going to the gym and doing cardio every single morning before going to work for 30 days I continued this for over two months
• going to work at 7:30 every day instead of 8:30-9 a.m. for 30 days- continued this for over two months as well
• studying for 15 minutes a day, learning new ways of improving my job, for 30 days – continued this for over two months, moving to studying for 30 minutes daily after the first 30 days
• folding my clothes right after they have dried, for 30 days – still doing it
• unloading the dish washer right after the dishes have been washed and dried – another 30 day goal and I am still doing it
• ironing my clothes every night for the next day – 30 day goal and I am still doing it
• shower/shave/bathe every single day for 30 days – I used to shower but not shave every single day so this was a challenge as well but I continued for over a year
• learning about real estate market for 30 days by spending 30 minutes daily – continued this for over two months as well
• talk to every single person who serves me for the next 30 days – this was one of the toughest since sometimes I would be in a line up at a cafeteria and I would have to yell to talk to the servers on the other side but still managed for 30 days
• read 50 pages of a book every single night – this is quite tough especially if you’re working full time and you are not a speed reader
• cold calling – speak to 10 people every single day for 30 days regarding real estate – continued this and then increased to 15 people and eventually 20 people every day
• door knocking – again talk to minimum of 10 people every single day for 30 days regarding real estate – continued this and at the end was speaking to around 20 people every day
• throw garbage out as soon as the bag is full and replace a new bag in the garbage bin – initially 30 day goal but served me so well that I decided to stick to it
• do 5 sets of chin ups in my backyard every single day for 30 days – this was a few years ago and was quite challenging as well since there was not a proper chin up bar. I was doing chin ups in the garage which was at the back end of our property. Sometimes I would go there in the middle of the night and little animals running around there and got kind of scary. But continued for over two months
• do push ups every single day for 30 days – still doing them
• do chin ups every day except weekends for 30 days – I am still doing them. Actually there isn’t a proper chin up bar so I am doing them in the washroom stall at my work. The bar that the stall doors are attached to. Hopefully it doesn’t break any time soon
• keep all my receipts in separate envelopes for each month – this is amazing when it comes to organization so still doing it
• keep track of all my expenses by writing them down every single day – still doing them, quite an eye opener

These are the only ones I can remember right now. Some of these I kept on doing because they felt so good and were quite helpful, while others I stopped after my initial goal was reached. It’s also a good way to see if a certain habit is worth keeping.

Just doing stuff like this has built a solid foundation of self-discipline in me. Right now if I wish to do something, I just go ahead and do it instead of trying to motivate myself or finding reasons not to. I usually test theories out myself instead of wasting time deciding whether they’re good or not. I think that is the best way to really find out for sure. Something that might have worked for someone else will not necessarily work for you, so just fold your sleeves and get to work and before you know it you will be done. If it works then great, if not then still you have learned that much more about yourself.

If you want to get good at something, do it often, and do it a lot. Basically if you do something over and over again, you are bound to get better at it! Such a simple formula and yet so neglected. This is what I decided to apply in order to build self-discipline.

Starting point – what’s your discipline level right now?

Before you can embark on a journey to building your discipline, you have to know where you stand right now. It may be painful and hurt your ego but you have to accept where you are in every area of your life if you wish to get better. If you wish to go to the United States, the best laid out plans, best tour guide, best maps are not going to help you if you do not know where you are starting from. Once you have a starting point, you can eventually get to your destination even without the best maps, as long as you keep on moving forward.

So, I had to figure out where my discipline level was in each area of my life. Just like working out. You have to train each body part in order to develop the whole body proportionally. There are exercises, such as squats, that have an indirect effect on the development of the rest of the body. Similarly, if you achieve a big enough goal using self-discipline, it’ll help you in other areas of your life as well.

Another thing to keep in mind is to take it easy and take it slow but never give up. When you have never trained, do not go to the gym the first day and try to lift the heaviest weights that are there. You are going to injure yourself and set yourself back a few weeks easily. More than that, you are going to lose your enthusiasm for working out and eventually give up. Realize that this is something new and start with the weights that you can easily handle and even do not do those to failure. The important thing is that you work out often. It’s the consistency that brings results.

Same thing applies to building self-discipline. Just pick any activity and do it every single day at the same time for the next 7-10 days. This alone will build your confidence. It’s harder than it seems. It’s important not to shoot for 30 days at the beginning unless your level of discipline is developed a bit.

I have personally found that the more boring an activity is, stronger your self-discipline gets. It does not take much concentration to do something that we really enjoy but it’s quite a challenge to concentrate upon something that is boring.

Here are some exercises that I have personally found to be of tremendous help

1. Stare at the same door knob every single day at exactly the same time for up to 5 minutes for the next 7-10 days – this just seems simple but is quite challenging especially after the second day but is one of the most useful exercises
2. Sit in one place for 60 seconds without any movement and work up to 5 minutes - this is very challenging as we have the tendency to itch, move around, some facial twitches and so on – do this for 7-10 days
3. Take a deck of cards – at the same time every day start laying the cards on top of each other as slowly as you can. Each card should be completely covering the card below. Do this for 7-10 days
4. Whenever you’re getting emotional and want to say something, pause until that emotion goes away and then say it – this is very challenging. Often in the middle of some conversation I would get really charged up, either negatively or positively and would want to just say something but that’s where I had to control myself until I calmed down. I would then say it if I still felt like saying it once the associated emotion was gone. This is quite helpful actually as it can prevent you from making a fool of yourself or saying something that you might regret later on
5. Before saying anything, pause (even for a fraction of a second) – sometimes this is enough to make you think before you speak – also quite challenging but very helpful
6. Clench your fists while keeping the back of your hands on a table. Now extend your thumb while focusing on it to the exclusion of everything else. Then slowly extend your first finger, then second and so on until the whole fist is open. Now reverse the process, closing one finger and then another and so on. Now do this exercise with the other hand. Work up to doing this for 5-10 times with each hand
7. Every morning as soon as you wake up, sit up and meditate for a few minutes. It can be 2 minutes to begin with. Do nothing but focus on your breathing to the exclusion of everything else. This greatly helps in putting our mind to ease since most of the time we wake up and are in a hurry to get to work. A lot of the times we wake up feeling negatively so this helps you start your day positively
8. If you can get a hold of an analogue watch or clock, you know the one with hands for second, minute and hour. Concentrate on the second hand for 1 minute. If your concentration goes elsewhere, bring it back and continue with the exercise. Do this exercise for 7-10 days at the same time everyday preferrably
9. Control/resist your urges/cravings – if you want to get a coffee, just resist it until that urge goes away. Same can be applied to any other craving or urge that you have. Initially try this for just 1 day and increase afterwards
10. Reading – read one paragraph and then try to summarize what you have just read in that paragraph. Do this until you can summarize the entire page easily. This helps your concentration while strengthening your self-discipline and also as a side benefit you will get better at studying and retaining the material
11. Try writing with the left hand for every single day for 7-10 days if you are right handed and the other way around if you’re left handed
12. At the same time every single day practice being silent for 5 minutes

As you can see, a lot of these exercises are quite boring and may seem meaningless to you but the value you will receive from them in terms of building your self-discipline can not be expressed in words. You will just have to experience it for yourself. Even if you do a few exercises, after even a few days you will start to notice an improvement.

You are just training your mind to obey you no matter what! Once you can do anything at will without procrastinating or self-doubt, you’ve mastered self-discipline.