Julia Kelly, Ph.D.

Even though you may be busier than ever before, you may be simply doing things the hard way, or worse, you may just be spinning your wheels, confusing EFFORT with RESULTS.

“Create systems to help automate your most productive activities.”

Another Fact of Life

Every activity contains a series of steps that must be completed correctly to be successful. Therefore, you need to systemize your success. Identify the critical steps required to complete your most productive and rewarding activities. Then, create a “well oiled machine” to automatically crank out results for you. Systemize those steps through technology, checklists, or delegation or enroll additional team members to help you. Do this and you will achieve the results you expect far more often. Automate this factor and you’ll double, triple or even quadruple your productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.

If questioned, you could probably list the activities that produce your greatest rewards. However, lacking the systems to properly support you, you don’t get to do them as often, or as well, as you’d like. Consequently, you work hard to overcome your inherent lack of “system smarts” and erroneously confuse personal effort with optimum results.

You can have more power. You hit more home runs because you get to bat more often. You accumulate performance positives like “systematic, streamlined and automated,” immediately moving you towards the results you expect.

You hardly ever score because you rarely get up to the plate. Negatives like “chaotic, struggling and hindered” start to take their toll on your performance, quickly moving you away from the success you want.

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” – George S. Patton

The Bottom Line

If you have a great attitude, crystal-clear goals, rock-solid plans and an army of people to help you, you are well on your way to the success you desire.