Kaizan Blog

I wanted to share with you a little trick that I’ve started using to stop procrastination.

You know the feeling. You have a project or task that you know you have to do but the thought of sitting down and doing it is just too much to bear. It’s either too overwhelming, exceedingly boring or just plain unpleasant. We’ve talked before about how to deal with procrastination, but here is another string to your bow.

Sometimes when procrastination has set in, our mental resistance to getting started can seem out of proportion to the difficulty of the task. You’ll know this is the case if you find yourself saying

“I just can’t get started. I don’t even know why because it’s not that bad, but I just can’t.”

The task has become so associated with procrastination and pain that you can’t go near it.  So it’s time to take the pressure off. If it seems too hard to get started on the task, then do the best job you can of preparing to start the task. This may sound a little strange, but bear with me.

When you give yourself permission to NOT do the task but do related activities, the dread and resistance melts away and you can see the task for what it is. Let me explain using an example:

Let’s say you have to reorganise your filing cabinet. It’s a task that a lot of people put off because it’s fiddly, tedious and often seems like it could take a few years. But actually when you think about it, it’s not that difficult. The mental resistance to the task is greater than it should be.

So in this case, what you can do is give yourself permission to NOT start reorganising. You tell yourself it’s ok that you don’t want to do it and in fact you don’t have to. Instead you give yourself a task of preparing to do the filing. And when I say prepare, I mean it in the loosest sense of the word. It can be anything even slightly related to your reorganising task.

In this case, it may include heading to the stationery store to buy some filing folders. It may mean looking up some articles on the internet about reorganising and personal efficiency. You might want to read a book on personal organisation like Getting Things Done. You could even have a look at office makeovers on Lifehacker. In short, you do anything and everything related to filing, that isn’t filing.

What you will find, quite surprisingly, is that after doing some of these activities (which to the untrained eye appear to be time-wasting) you will at some point feel compelled to stop procrastinating and just get on with the task. And for some reason it won’t feel anywhere near as unpleasant as before. This burst of motivation can be enough to get started. And often, getting started is enough. The rest gets easier after that.

Try it, it really works!

Further Reading:

Time Management- 7 Ways to Get More Out of Your Time

The Next Step - The Solution to Feeling Overwhelmed

When people hear about this website, often the first thing they ask is what does the name Kaizan mean? To some it sounds very familiar. Perhaps because we chose a name that derives from the Japanese word kaizen, which means continuous improvement.

In this post, I thought I’d explain the concept of kaizen and how you can apply it to your life.

Kaizen is most often associated with a workplace setting. It is a management philosophy that has been applied at many companies including Toyota.

The essence of kaizen is that individual workers look for small ways in which they can do their job better. One worker improving their job efficiency on a particular day may not seem like much. But if that worker makes small improvements every day, and every other worker does the same, then over time you can get huge positive changes taking place in a company.

This same principle of kaizen can be applied to self-development.

Consider this example:

Two people want to learn a new language. One person decides to learn 100 words a day for a week. The other person decides to only learn two words a day, but continue for a year.

The first person, may look at the second person’s goal and probably think that it is too little and too slow. However, the first person’s goal of learning 100 words a day is too much for most people. More than likely after a couple of days the task will seem overwhelming and the first person will have given up.

The second person on the other hand, is just plodding away slowly. While the daily task of learning two words a day seems easy (and therefore more enjoyable) they can see definite progress over time. In fact, by the end of the year they know over 700 words. In contrast, the first person, who gave up long ago, will be lucky if they remember anything.

Kaizen is another way of saying that slow and steady wins the race (think: Tortoise and Hare).

People dismiss the slow approach and instead make over-ambitious goals that very often will overwhelm them and cause them to quit. I see this most often in dieting. Someone will decide to lose insane amounts of weight in one month when they would have been much better off aiming for slower progress. Losing a small amount of weight each month just requires making small lifestyle changes that are easy to stick to.

At the end of a year the people that opt for a slow and steady kaizen approach to weight loss will be considerably lighter and healthier. On the other hand, the yo-yo dieter who went for the “shock and awe” approach will often be even heavier than when they started.

Action Step

Apply kaizen to your life. Take a goal you want to achieve and decide to use the incremental approach.  Sure it would be nice to do it quicker, but quicker often doesn’t work out. Break it down and spread it out over months. Then make small steps every day towards accomplishing it.

See also: The Key to Starting a New Habit

It’s Saturday, time to take it easy and check out some new book recommendations on Kaizan. Enjoy!

Business - James Caan, the newest Dragon on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den worked his way up from high school dropout to one of the country’s most famous  multimillionaires. In this book, he charts his remarkable rise.  The Real Deal: My Story from Brick Lane to “Dragons’ Den”.

Wealth - Dominic Littlewood is a familiar figure on British television dispensing his own brand of financial advice. Now he has a book out, that will help you to stretch your budget further. Perfect for these belt-tightening times: Don’t Get Done, Get Dom: How to Stretch Your Money, Not Your Budget.

Personal Development - Jack Canfield is a legend in personal development and this book distills his knowledge down to its core principles. You can use this as the basis of any personal development programme: The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You are to Where You Want to be.

Health - If you think the way to lose weight and get that great figure is to eat salads and generally starve yourself, then you need a wake up call from this book: Skinny Chicks Don’t Eat Salads: Stop Starving, Start Eating … Still Get Skinny!

Spirituality - If you haven’t read The Power of Now yet, do that now! If you have, this is the next step in becoming impervious to life’s problems. You won’t read many better books than A New Earth: Create a Better Life.

Relationships - Do you suffer from the “disease to please”? The urge to make everyone else happy? This devotion to others is coming at the expense of YOU. Read more in The Disease to Please: Curing the People Pleasing Syndrome

“Life is a continuous succession of problems. They never end. They come in like the waves of the ocean, one after another.” Brian Tracy

Ask a stressed person why they are stressed, and they will tell you it’s because of any number of problems they are facing in their life. Why oh why did this have to happen to them?

Of course that same person will acknowledge that life is full of problems and that no one is immune to difficulties, but they will still express dismay at their own particular situation.

Isn’t that strange?

Looking at some common causes of stress:

• Major illness, Death – if you have found a way to ultimately avoid illness and death, please let me know

• Workplace Problems – Your income is usually in proportion to your responsibility. Responsibility relates to dealing with problems. That is what you are being paid for!

• Relationship Problems – There is no such thing as a relationship without problems. Sorry.

• Traffic - Any large city has busy rush hours. There will always be sporting events, concerts or conventions that make traffic worse. Roadworks need to be done. Car accidents will happen. There are no large cities without traffic problems.

So basically we know that problems happen to everyone. We also know that we can’t avoid most problems. In many cases problems are part of a trade-off for something we desire (like a job, a relationship or living in a big city).

And yet, we still get upset when problems occur as if they were so unexpected and unfair.

“Why did this happen to me?”
“Why have I been stuck for an hour in traffic?”
“Why won’t the phone stop ringing?”

Part of managing stress is to practice acceptance. The more you realise that problems are part of life, the more you can free yourself of the angst and anger that normally occurs when difficulties arise.

Acceptance means you acknowledge that problems are an expected experience. They are not unusual. They don’t need to create stress, shock or horror. Everyone else on this earth has to deal with problems on a daily basis. A life without problems is not something to aim for, since it’s impossible.

By practicing acceptance you avoid wasting energy fighting life. If a problem has appeared that cannot be solved, you achieve nothing by getting stressed. If something can be done about it, you can focus your energy on solving the problem.

If a problem is part of normal life, then you should resolve to accept it. And which problems are part of normal life? All of them!

Action Step
Today, as problems arise, think about your reactions. Are the problems you are encountering part and parcel of daily life (hint: yes they are). If so, accept them. Use your energy to think about how you are going to deal with them. Focus on the solution, not the problem.

It’s time to check out new self-development books added to the Kaizan website:

1. Business - Learn leadership secrets from the  extraordinary story of  Sebastian Coe, Olympic gold medallist, world record holder, business leader and now figurehead of the London 2012 Olympics. The Winning Mind: My Inside Track on Great Leadership: Developing Inspirational Leadership and Delivering Winning Results

2. Wealth - How to Get Rich is a formula for success from magazine magnate and multi-millionaire Felix Dennis. Felix says “Here is how I did it and what I learned along the way”.

3. Personal Development - What if you had the confidence to get anything you wanted? Who couldn’t do with more confidence? Let Rob Yeung show you how to develop your self-confidence and get more out of life: Confidence: The Art of Getting Whatever You Want

4. Health - Are you serious about getting fit? No, I mean really serious about getting fit? If so, check out the Official British Army Fitness Guide. It’ll give you a programme that will get you to the absolute peak of physical fitness.

5. Spirituality - To build on your spiritual development, find the source of your suffering and replace it with the truth (”what is”) in the life-transforming book by Byron Katie:  Loving What is: How Four Questions Can Change Your Life

6. Relationships - If you’re over 40 and looking for the man of your dreams, look no further - we don’t have a man for you but the next best thing - a book that explains exactly what you need to do to find one: How to Meet a Man After Forty: And Other Midlife Dilemmas Solved

Apparently you love to know what articles we have added to the site,  so here they are:

1. Business - If your idea of “working from home” is catching up on the last season of “Lost” then maybe you need to read this article: Staying Productive When You’re Working at Home

2. Wealth- Investing isn’t quite what it used to be. You can’t rely on shares, property or sometimes even a savings account. So what should the wary investor do? The answers are here: 20 Guiding Principles for Investing Success

3. Personal Development -  Jerry Seinfeld was involved in the creation of what many view as the best comedy show ever. And he has a productivity secret. Aren’t you curious as to what it is? Go on, check it out at: Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret

4. Health -  Apparently some people think the best first aid for a burn is to rub mayonnaise into the wound. If your response to emergencies involves condiments in any way, then you need to check out this article on Common First Aid Mistakes and Myths that Make Things Worse

Oh and please don’t rub mayonnaise (or Hollandaise Sauce) into a burn!

5. Spirituality - Good Advice did Yoda from Star Wars give. For anyone who thinks that Yoda’s message of harmony and backward talking resonates with this troubled age we live in, this article may interest you: Accept the Wisdom of Yoda, It is Your Destiny… Oh and if you don’t know who Yoda is, best to move on, nothing to see here folks…

6. Relationships - Dating can be expensive. Especially if you’re an old fashioned guy. But even if you’re a modern minded woman who likes to go “Dutch“. But of course there are many alternatives to the usual dinner and a movie. This article gives a few great examples ranging from the interesting “early morning jog”, to the potentially catastrophic “climbing up and lying on the roof” date: Sure-Fire Dates that Don’t Cost the Earth

Oh and by the way, we’re going to be moving this Thursday blog post to Saturdays just for a trial period. The Monday post will stay as it is.  Let us know how you feel about this. And remember we are always open to your general comments about the site at info@kaizan.co.uk

Do you have something that you’d really like to do but your fear of what others will say stops you from doing it? If so, you’re not alone. Our tribal heritage means that there is a strong motivation for not standing out from the crowd. Going against the group used to mean running the risk of being kicked out of the tribe. Not a great survival move.

Of course, this fear of doing things differently lives on today. Many people will stop themselves from pursuing new opportunities or chasing their dreams because of the fear of what friends, family or colleagues will say.

A friend of mine recently gave up a lucrative job as an accountant to follow his dream of becoming an executive business coach. Whichever way you look at it, this is a risky move. And as a result he has attracted a lot of criticism and even ridicule from his friends.

On the face of it, it looks like the criticism is intended to stop him from making a foolhardy career decision that could end in failure. But in fact his friends aren’t scared that he will fail. They are actually terrified that he will succeed!

Why? Because if he can leave his comfortable but unfulfilling job to achieve his dream, then why can’t they? Suddenly their excuses for staying in a rut don’t seem so believable. And what if, heaven forbid, he becomes even more successful than them?

And this brings up an important point. Most people are too preoccupied with their own lives to really care about what choices you make. On the other hand, when people do criticise you it’s because your actions are a threat to them. By pursuing your dream or achieving success you make them feel less worthy.

The second point to remember is that success in itself attracts criticism. It’s actually impossible to be successful and not invite disapproval. Even people who made lasting positive contributions to history like Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi and Einstein were attacked by their contemporaries at one time or another.

Criticism is common and over-rated. By doing anything that causes change (including becoming successful or chasing a dream), you will attract criticism mainly from people who fear that your success or aspirations will make them look bad. Don’t let this stop you from doing what you need to do.

Action Step

Think about areas in your life where fear of criticism is stopping you from taking action. Realise that the criticism you fear is a necessary part of succeeding. Then take action!

Most people would say that they were trustworthy and reliable. Surely it would be insulting to suggest otherwise? And yet, in your own experience you can probably remember times when you:

• Said you were going to cut down on eating junk food but when someone brought chocolates to the office, you had a piece…or three
• Said you would make four more sales calls before leaving work but left after only making two.
• Said you wouldn’t check your Blackberry for the next hour but then couldn’t resist having a “quick look”

Each of these transgressions point towards someone who cannot be trusted to keep their word to themselves.

It may not seem like much when you press that snooze button after promising to yourself to go for a run on Sunday morning. But in actual fact, each time you say you’ll do something and don’t, you are eroding a bit of trust in yourself. Repeatedly failing to do even the smallest thing that you promised to yourself will eventually lead to a situation where you don’t believe a word you say.

It will be a case of you saying “I’m going on a diet” and your mind saying “Yeah right, whatever”.

Self-belief, the confidence in your ability to succeed relies on you being able to “trust” yourself. If you hardly ever do what you say you will do, then you won’t have faith in yourself.

Action Step

For the next 7 days, pledge to only say you’ll do something if you’re absolutely committed to doing it. Only say you’ll wake up at 6am if you are sure you will do it.  You want to cultivate a personal rule that if you say it, then it will be done, no matter what.

Notice the change in self-belief you have, when you start living by this simple rule.

How you use your time determines how much you will accomplish in life. If we define time management as getting the maximum value out of your time then it can be said that, to a large extent, the difference between what you earn and what Bill Gates earns is down to time management. Bill Gates has leveraged his time a lot better than you (or I) have.

These 7 tips should focus you on getting the most out of your time. The important thing to remember is that good time management isn’t just about looking at how you perform the task but also why you are performing the task.

1. Ask yourself if the task need to be done at all?

This is often the most crucial step of all in time management.  Plenty of time can be saved by avoiding doing things that don’t need to be done at all. In an average work day, if most people looked carefully, they would identify plenty of unnecessary tasks. Do you really need to check your email every 10 minutes? Do you really need to have another meeting? Decide if the task needs to be done at all. If not, ditch it.

2. Allow your work to be leveraged.

The major way that Bill Gates gets more out of his time is that he created a product that can reach millions of people and doesn’t require him to be there for him to make money. Of course this isn’t possible with many professions but it is something to consider. Are there ways you can deliver more value to a larger group of people?

3. Ask yourself if you need to do the task?

No matter what you do there is always possibility for delegation of low value tasks to someone else. This is a key skill in getting more out of your time. Some people dislike delegating because they feel that the time taken to explain tasks often outweighs the time savings. But that only ever applies to a single task in isolation. Over time, if you can train others to consistently do your low value tasks, the investment will pay off immensely.

4. Have a to-do list.

A lot of people hate the idea of a to-do list, but you only need to try it for one day to realise that people who work from a list are much more efficient than people who don’t. Of course there are plenty of ways of managing lists these days including online task managers but often a piece of paper is just as effective (just don’t lose the paper). And nothing beats the satisfaction of physically crossing off a completed task.

5. Work out a few tasks that are a priority and get them done.

Prioritising doesn’t have to be a complicated process. It can be as easy as saying, “If I completed task x, y and z by the end of the day, I’d feel like I’d had an efficient and effective day.”  Determine what those 2-3 things are and make sure you focus on them during the day.

6. Deadlines.

The mind loves deadlines. Think about how you study for an exam. Almost everyone gets more done in the week before the exam than any time before that. Use deadlines for your tasks to help you focus your mind.

7. Work to your body clock.

Everyone has times of the day during which they can concentrate better and are more productive. Why not use these periods for tasks that require the most concentration? Sounds ridiculously simple but a lot of people will waste the first half an hour of their day (often their most productive time) socialising with people in the office (”How was your weekend?”).

Action Step

Look at the way you use your time each day. Is there a way that you can apply one (or more) of these time management tips to your life? Let us know your experiences in the comments section.

Since it’s summer (for most of us), it’s a great time to find a good book, a spot in the shade and get inspired.  Funnily enough, it’s actually surprised us that our Kaizan Books section has become so popular. Apparently you like to be pointed in the direction of good books!

We make a point of not just suggesting new books, but are more interested in suggesting GOOD books. So you’ll see a heavy smattering of self-development classics in and among the newer titles.

Happy Reading!

Business:

When you are chasing a dream (starting up a new company) it can be really tough. In these circumstances, it’s nice to know that other people went through the same kinds of experiences. Founders at Work : Stories of Startups’ Early Days takes you into the world of the technology start-up and details what people like Steve Wozniak (Apple) and Max Levchin (Paypal) had to do, to get to where they are now.

Wealth

In these lean times of credit crunches and recessions and quantitative easing, you need to make sure that your finances are in good shape and you are managing them well. Two classic books about money, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind and The Wealthy Barber give you the best foundation for building your wealth.

Personal Development

Want to know how to get more done in less time? You need this classic book - The 80/20 Principle. It will show you why most people and companies are inefficient and what to do about it.

Health

Patrick Holford is the man behind the 100% Health Weekend that we feature here on Kaizan. The Low GL Diet Bible encapsulates his approach to healthy eating that revolves around the low glycaemic load.

Spirituality

Drawing on ancient spiritual wisdom The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success is a Spirituality classic. Deepak Chopra gives you the surprising answers to finding happiness in this concise and timeless book.

Relationships

The Complete Book of Rules is a controversial addition to the Kaizan Bookshelf. Such ploys as limiting phone conversations to 10 minutes and NEVER ringing a guy, may sound manipulative, but apparently they work. Decide for yourself.