There’s nothing worse than being (or feeling) caught up in something, whether it’s work, relationships, business, your environment, whatever.  If you feel that way, then something’s not right.  And the default first step for most of us is to complain about it, or feel hard done by.

The first reason people stay caught up: they feel the pain and just spend their time and energy complaining about it. Many people never make it past this step.

Ask yourself in what areas you feel hard done by, or what you’ve been complaining about recently, and you might realise what you’re caught up in.  Some things you’ll realise will pass by, so you can just shrug your shoulders at those.  But some are unlikely to just pass by.  These are the things that you’re frustrated about that you really are temporarily caught up in.  Of course the remedy to your frustrations and worries for these is to get yourself out as carefully and as smartly as possible.

At this point, many people start throwing out the excuses and reasons why they can’t get themselves out.  But most of these excuses just sound lame when you really think about them.  Each of these excuses are effectively you casting another vote to continue to spend your short life caught up in something you’re unhappy about, instead of voting to get the hell out.

The second reason people stay caught up: they dish out excuses or reasons why they can’t get out, each one significantly decreasing any hope or chance of escape.  Of those who get past the complaining stage, few get past this stage.

The reality is usually that you can get yourself out if you drop the excuses and just go for it.  The first step then is to contemplate what you’d do if you did just drop those excuses.  If you have trouble doing that, then answer this: how would an actor in a movie play the role of you once you’d dropped those excuses?  Consider acting like that.

Obviously consider the consequences on your life and relationships in the short, medium and long term of both staying in what you’re caught up in, and getting out of it.  Then weigh up what you’re prepared to live with.  Then decide.

The third reason people stay caught up: they fail to decide to do something about it.  They may get as far as dropping all excuses and they may feel they’ve plucked up the courage to act.  But somehow, they just don’t make the decision.

And of course, verbal decisions (or passive decisions in your mind), in my book, can’t really claim the title of ‘a made decision’ until you act on them.  Only then have you really decided.

The fourth reason people stay caught up: they don’t plan some steps to take to get out as carefully and as smartly as possible (with minimal damage), and they don’t act on these steps.  Of those who decide to do something about their situation, few make it through to actually doing something about it.

So there it is.

Once you notice you’re caught up in something, do this:

1. Stop complaining and re-direct your time and energy…
2. Drop the excuses. Either plan a way around them, or just drop them (but consider the consequences, and weigh up whether you’d prefer to stay caught up for the rest of short your life or not)
3. Decide to act
4. Make a plan and act on it
5. Notice what happens
6. Adapt your plan and actions with what you’ve noticed and learned and keep taking actions until you’re no longer caught up

Now, depending on what you’re caught up in, you may not know what outcome you want, how you’ll plan to get it, or what you need to learn to be able to get out.  But they’re just excuses.  (See point 2 above).  Work it out.  Use your resources.  Use your contacts.  Talk to me.  Talk to each other.  Use your brain.  (What really?  Yeah yeah.  Honestly, it works)

If you’re caught up in your career, here’s your plan, map and all you need to learn and do to get out – click here

P.S.  Don’t forget to do what it takes so that you don’t get caught up in the same situation again

You might also like these:

1. Big Decisions: Taking Risks
2. 4 Decisions to Sort Your Life Out
3. How to Make Decisions for Better Returns

Its about time I nailed this. Positive thinking is encouraged everywhere you look these days. But I think it can land some people in trouble.

How to Think Smart

Smart thinking requires looking at potential consequences, both positive and negative of decisions and actions in the short, medium and long term. You want to check all three of those time scales if you want to think smart, and you must look at upsides and downsides for each if you want to make well thought out decisions.  Failure to neglect any decreases the quality of your thinking.

The Problem With Failing to Acknowledge Reality

The problem with inveterate positive thinkers, is that their default setting is to strive to look only at the positives.  But reality always has a downside.  The downside is there whether you’re prepared to acknowledge it or not.  Whilst I agree that positive thinking can make you feel better in the moment and should increase your chances of acting towards more positive outcomes, you’re also open to the surprise negative consequences you failed to look at and failed to plan contingencies for.  This breaks people.  I’ve seen it happen a lot.

Inveterate positive thinkers can become delusional.  I don’t value the positive thinker standing next to me telling me that “it’ll all work out alright” when I’m faced with an important decision.  They don’t have the authority or credibility to tell me that.  As far as I’m concerned, I might as well have a clown advising me.  Similarly positive thinkers who are into extreme sports just scare the hell out of me.

The positive thinker who thinks it’ll be OK if she jumps off a cliff and will land safely and lightly on her feet also concerns me.  Its just not useful to think positively in certain situations.

Positive thinkers may now think I’m being negative. (Or will they? Maybe they’ll see the good in what I’m saying?)

Useful Thinking

Its why I don’t talk of positive and negative thinking, and instead developed the terms “useful thinking” and “unuseful thinking”. Its useful if it enables you to avoid or minimise negative consequences (think short, medium and long term) and instead steer you towards the outcomes you really want.  Its unuseful if it doesn’t.  Some positive thinking is “unuseful thinking”.  Some negative thinking is actually “useful thinking”.  Think about it.

Some of you may feel that this post has a negative tone to it.  I’d say it has a useful tone to it.  I hope you find it useful.

You might also like these:

1. What Do You Hate About Your Job?
2. How to Make Decisions for Better Returns
3. The Slump

A lot of people in my seminars say to me ‘but I’m not a creative thinker’.  What they don’t realise is that they have the ability, they just don’t know how to turn it on.

Here’s one way:

Whatever area you’re trying to get creative solutions for, list the common popular solutions (the way it’s normally done), then next to each, write down the exact opposite.  Doesn’t mean all your ideas will be great, but it does jolt your thinking away from the norm.  Voila, instant creativity!

You might also like these:

1. Free Learning by Thinking
2. Ultimate Productivity
3. Mind Mapping and Visual Thinking

I sent this post out as a newsletter back in 2008. For those who missed it, it’s worth a look:

My advice this month was given to me 10 years ago by a colleague who I deeply respected.  It still holds true and I often think about it.  He explained to me that to increase your value and earn more money, and increase the chances of continuous employment you should purposefully become indispensable to your employer or your customers.

He explained that often there is money to be made in the jobs that most people don’t want to do or can’t easily do.  He explained that in every organisation there are certain important areas in which few people, if any, are expert.  And that if you make it your mission to become the expert in any of these areas, then you’ve just made yourself instantly valuable.  Especially if you can create value and impact in your work that no one else can.  That’s when they need you.

When you reach that level, people keep coming to you.  Word of mouth soon travels when you can do something truly useful (and relevant) that no one else around can do.  You (and the value you provide) get free advertising.

With that of course comes bargaining power.  You should become more in demand, so long as you choose the right area to become expert in.  And with that, your (employment) price can go up.

But you must not get complacent!  Times are changing so fast these days that it’s healthy to assume that whatever niche area you are expert in will become obsolete in the next 5 years.  So you must keep learning of course, and keep an eye on which areas to dominate as THE expert.

Give this some thought.  It could change your career and your lifestyle forever.  And of course, if you want to become indispensable fast, then you should learn how to learn fast and self manage effectively so that you can put what you learn into practice in the right way at the right times.

Finally, it’s much easier to become indispensable when you’re in your ideal career. Are you?  If you’d like to find your ideal career because you’re not happy in your current one, drop me a note. I might have a surprise for you.

Help Yourself and Your Organisation

Since 2003 I’ve helped businesses and corporates in the UK and Australia grow high value engaged employees who:

• learn fast and adapt quickly
• become highly productive
• think like a business

Here’s what they’ve said.

If you think I might help you or your organisation, then either get in touch, or put them in touch with me.

You might also like these:

1. 4 Decisions to Sort Your Life Out
2. Better Learning, Business and a Much Better Career
3. Should You Sack Your Employer?

This post can help you tighten up your entire approach in your work.  You’ll increase your productivity based on how much thought you’re prepared to put into this.  Despite how unproductive you may feel airlines are from a passenger perspective, they always strive to be more productive and produce a slicker turn around.  Their survival depends on it.  My next door neighbour is a pilot.  When he’s not flying, he spends most of his time answering my endless stream of questions about everything to do with flying planes.  As he talks, I clearly see the similarities between his work, my work and everyone’s work.  In fact, I see his work as one of the best models or analogies I know of to improve how we function in our own work.

Let’s steal the hard work of the airline industry…

Your flight:

• your days work
• your projects/tasks
• your entire business or career

Your roles:

• pilot
• check-in
• navigator
• co-pilot to a colleague
• and many more, depending on your team structure

Here’s some things to think about that the airline industry take seriously.  So should we:

• the point of the flight – to get passengers from A to B as safely and enjoyably as possible
• the procedures for passengers from arrival to check-in, boarding and so on (preparation to commence work)
• pilot procedures (controlling the plane, checking the dials, communicating and updating…)
• departure times (when you begin work)
• landing times (when you aim to complete work – deadlines)
• check-in times
• security (preventing any problems creeping in to your work)
• videos of what you can do at destination (what will you do when you complete this task/project?)
• turbulence
• emergency procedures (if x goes wrong, do y)
• changing the flight plan (be flexible, you MUST get your passengers to B somehow.  Diverting and organising a bus is an option.  Remember, your passengers are your customers.  And your team.  And your boss.  They all want you to help them get from A to B)
• air-traffic control (landing your tasks and projects safely to completion and organising the ‘take off’ of other tasks and projects)

How Does This Work in the Airline Industry?

This list is just a start, but I write it to encourage you to ask yourself, whenever you have a problem in your productivity or process flow, ‘what’s the equivalent of this in the airline industry?  How do they make it work?’  You’ll find some useful answers to transfer back to your own work.  A lot of productivity theory they train on courses you’ll get from this exercise if you think deeply enough.

Also, remember, the plane keeps flying even when the pilot takes a break (the co-pilot mans the controls together with autopilot).  They keep you heading to B.  So how could you maintain progress when you take a break?  Can your computer get on with something?  Can your co-pilots keep momentum on your work?  Organise yourself and delegate before taking breaks to make this possible.

Circling Planes

And they always keep moving until they land – they have to!  They circle the plane while they wait for clearance which of course costs a lot too.  Every minute they spend circling, the cost goes up and the urgency to land increases.  What flights of yours are currently circling and getting costly?  If they must land, you better prioritise and land them.  Get some order here and land them one by one!

Think about these ideas to improve how you operate in your work.  And if you have any more airline analogies (or others) for improving our productivity then please share them below in the comments.

You might also like these:

1. How to Fly High in Your Work
2. 4 Decisions to Sort Your Life Out
3. Reduce Stress and Overwhelm – 2 Things

The problem a lot of employees have during their work is they get paid to perform a specific set of actions, so they rarely tend to do anything outside of these.  Why should they if they’re not getting paid to?  That’s the common mentality.

Unfortunately, the deal they’ve agreed to keeps them firmly in place, and for many stifles their potential value and input.  Neither they nor their employers get the rewards they’re capable of creating.  The thinking is set, the actions are set, the pay is set and the rewards are set.  And all the while the thinking is set, the others won’t really change.

Entrepreneurs and business owners are ‘free’ to move in any direction and know that they get paid more for thinking of new things, innovating, creating and acting way beyond a specific set of actions.  They know they need to look for problems and solve them.  They know they need to make order from chaos.  They know the pay and rewards come in the medium to long term.

The same rules and laws however apply to employees.  Don’t let your job description and pay limit and determine what you do.  Start thinking outside of what you’re paid to think.  Start looking for problems to solve, and create more order within your team or department and more order for your customers or those who pay you.  Ask yourself how you’d run things if you were the big boss?  Then, don’t just keep your ideas to yourself.  Use them to add more value, and steer things so that you earn yourself more rewards.

You might also like these:

1. Should You Sack Your Employer?
2. They Might Cut Your Salary!
3. 4 Decisions to Sort Your Life Out

These books have all made a great impact on my work over the last 8 years or so.  Highly recommend them all.

http://www.epi-learning.com/books.html

Any to share with us that have made a great impact on your work?  Post them below in the comments.

You might also like these:

1. How to Make Decisions for Better Returns
2. 4 Decisions to Sort Your Life Out
3. Free Mind Mapping Software

If you’re looking for free mind mapping software, the best without a doubt at the time of writing is Xmind

No need for me to review it.  I’ve saved you the decision by using the best mind mapping tools available for quite some time. It rivals the commercial Mindmanager for it’s main functions and if you use a Mac, they’re keeping up Mac development unlike Mindjet are for Mindmanager.

Mind mapping can have you complete many day to day tasks in less than half the time it would normally take.

Must do: If you value your time, get your hands on Xmind and start playing around with it. Don’t pre-judge this until you have.

Any questions about mind mapping or comments you’d like to share with others, post them in the comments.

You might also like these:

1. Mind Mapping and Visual Thinking
2. The Slump
3. Should You Sack Your Employer?

A great resource on mind mapping and visual thinking/organisation software:

http://www.mind-mapping.org

You can refine your search based on your operating system.

You might also like these:

1. A Lucky Mind

Many people just don’t think things through before throwing themselves in to something.  You have…

Your inputs:

• 24 hours a day – less now after reading this
• $x
• x energy

Your desired outputs:

• money
• enjoyment (or positive feelings)

Every second of every day uses some of those inputs, and you get guaranteed outputs, but those outputs aren’t always all good.

How are you outputs currently shaping up?

If they’re not too good right now, you might not be making smart decisions.  So listen up…

You can invest your inputs in to either:

• learning something (useful?)
• doing something

Your options:

1. You can choose what you both learn and do to try to INCREASE BOTH your inputs and outputs
2. You can choose to do something else that decreases your inputs and outputs

That’s your free choice, and an opportunity to be smart.

But here’s the thing; your outputs keep coming.  Like the ripple effect when you throw a stone in a lake.  Your outputs come in the short, medium and long term.  That’s the part most people neglect to think about.

You can use your inputs in return for rewarding outputs in the short term, but negative outputs in the longer term.  You’ve got to occasionally.

You can use your inputs for lower returns in the short term, and higher returns long term.  You’ve got to do that too.

You can do things that are costly and are not really that enjoyable.  A lot of people waste their resources doing this because they don’t think.

You can do things that are cheap or free, and are really enjoyable and good for you in the short, medium and long term.  People don’t do enough of that.  They’ve forgotten that it’s an option.

Have a look at the variables I’ve laid out here and think around them.  What things could you do that you’re not currently doing that would increase your inputs AND increase your outputs in the SHORT, MEDIUM AND LONG TERM?  How could you make better decisions?  What’s the next project, event or invite you’re about to get that you might make a smarter decision on?  Maybe you could put your resources elsewhere?

P.S.  One that works well for me is reading plenty of useful business books from the library.  I order new ones in.  I love speed-reading them, I love applying what I learn, they give me more energy, give me ideas to free more of my time, and I love the fact that it brings in more money and enjoyment in the short, medium and long term.

What ideas have you got?

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