Management
Michael Mehlberg
Project Management Solution? Keep It Simple ...

Project management is among a top skill to master in any business; especially one wanting to grow.

Why?

Because without project management, business owners will unnecessarily run into common issues:

Project Management Solution? Keep It Simple Stupid
Productivity
Michael Mehlberg
Getting Derailed? Leave Room to Accommodate the ...

You often get derailed by "the unexpected.”

It’s inevitable.

You get interrupted an unexpected number of times daily. Those interruptions come at unexpected times. They each take an unexpected amount of time with which to deal.

That’s why it’s "the unexpected."

These interruptions kill your flow, destroy your focus, and force you to work on the urgent instead of the important.

So how do you deter, prevent, and deal with the problems these unexpected interruptions incur? 

Getting Derailed? Leave Room to Accommodate the Unexpected
Product Development
Michael Mehlberg
The Exact Value of Your Million Dollar Idea

I was shocked, hurt, and felt like my idea had been stolen. Though I had the idea first, Nintendo would be the star. Nintendo would make $millions. It took years before I was old enough to recognize the important lesson in this experience... 

The Exact Value of Your Million Dollar Idea
Business
Michael Mehlberg
Finding Your Value Despite the Competition

Are you second-guessing your next great idea? Are you downplaying the value you could provide to others? Are you upset that you found a competitor in the market who seems to be offering everything you want to (and seems to be finding great success doing it)?

It might be time to step back and realize a few important things.

Finding Your Value Despite the Competition
Productivity
Michael Mehlberg
On the Power and Freedom of Getting Yourself ...
On the Power and Freedom of Getting Yourself (and Your Business) Organized

Goals

7 Essential Elements of a Yearly Planner

7 Essential Elements of a Yearly Planner

By the end of this article, I’m going to give you a digital version of a yearly planner for free. One I’ve spent the last decade refining and tweaking and tailoring based on a 360 degree, science-backed productivity system focused on improving all seven important aspects of my life.

It’s been so powerful for me that I wrote a book about it, have written countless articles about it (this being yet another), and have spent the last few years meticulously drawing out every month, week, and day in my paper notebook with a ruler and pen.

Why it’s so powerful is the purpose of this article. And it comes down to these seven essential elements:

The Unsexy Way to Make Massive Progress Toward Your Goals

The Unsexy Way to Make Massive Progress Toward Your Goals

They finally got three outs.

After 45 minutes of disappointing hit after hit, the opponents’ pitcher finally ended the inning by picking off our third base runner.

The runner wasn’t upset.

Our team of 10 and 11-year-old boys had scored an impressive 15 runs in the bottom of the third inning completely dominating the opponent and going on to win by eight points.

Two things about this score were surprising:

One, we lost against the same team in a walk-off hit just an hour earlier.

And two, out of seventeen plays that inning, only one was a home run.

10x Your Success Rate With This Monthly Planning Process

10x Your Success Rate With This Monthly Planning Process

Whenever there’s a new month, there should be a new plan.

With a fresh month, you’ve got 20 or so whole working days in front of you.

You weren’t thinking of just winging it, were you 😉?

You already know this, but “winging it” is not how you achieve your goals. That’s not how you’ll finish this year a success.

People who wing it often wonder how they worked so hard and yet don’t find themselves where they want to be.

On the other hand, high-achievers use every new month as an opportunity to do two things:

What is a Purpose? The Ultimate Life Hack for the Lifehacker

What is a Purpose? The Ultimate Life Hack for the Lifehacker

The average American spends 11 hours a day consuming media.

Eleven hours.

Every. Single. Day.

Two hours and 22 minutes of that time are spent on social media. The rest is spent in front of a TV or online reading, listening, or interacting with content.

According to my iPhone, I’m better than average.

But it’s hardly worth celebrating...

The Most Ridiculously Simple Way to Get Things Done

He puked everywhere.
⠀
After a hotdog, a bag of popcorn, cotton candy, and dippin dots, the nachos put his four-year-old stomach over the edge.
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It was then, having brought my son home from a Washington Capitals game (where he ate his little heart out), I remembered the project management adage:

“What gets measured gets done.”

It started with him finishing the hotdog.
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“Wow bud, I can’t believe you finished that! You’ve got a big appetite,” I told him.
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From that point forward he asked for more food, which he ate, and I kept expressing how pleased I was until... the point of no return.
⠀
Or should I say the point that everything returned. 🤢🤮
⠀
Rookie dad mistake.

It’s true, what gets measured gets done.

Just like a child who continues to do a job well when congratulated for a job well done, when you measure yourself against a certain standard you’ll naturally find ways of living up to it.
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Take, for example, a two year study published by Cornell University in 2015. They showed that tracking and charting your weight daily is “effective for both losing weight and keeping it off...”

Think of that. The only thing you have to do to start losing weight is track how much you weigh.

😮
⠀
What gets measured gets done can be applied to more than just weight loss though.
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Want to write a book? Track words written per day against a target.
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Want to bench press 200lbs? Track your weight lifted every workout against a goal.
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Want to wake up early every morning? Track what time you wake up.
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Simple.
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What gets measured gets done.
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Just don’t measure how much your kid can pack in their little stomach. They’ll get it done, and you’ll see it all again.
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PS. That pic is of my notebook habit tracker. Yes I draw it out every month. Yes I color in little boxes everyday. Yes I crush my goals because of it.

Email me to crush yours.

About the Author

mike_mehlberg.jpeg

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs organize their brain and schedule so they can organize their life and business.

Subscribe to my free, weekly newsletter on personal excellence and business mastery that one client called “The Owners Manual to an Awesome Life.”

The Difference Between Achieving Your Goals and Staying Exactly Where You Are

The Difference Between Achieving Your Goals and Staying Exactly Where You Are

Have you ever set a big goal for yourself only to lose sight of it quickly?

You planned on hiking to some distant land of happiness and abundance, but didn’t know where to start? Or maybe you started strong, but lost momentum along the way?

Over time, your goal became increasingly unattainable until, seeing no end in sight, you struck it from your list and carried on with your life.

It’s happened to all of us, and it’s not hard to understand why.

How to Get Where You're Going with a Good Plan

How to Get Where You're Going with a Good Plan

A good plan for the week starts on Monday and has two parts:

☝️ The three most important things you’ll get done this week to make it easier to achieve your goal.
✌️ The three things you will get done today, Monday, that will make it easier to have a successful week.

That’s it.

People often complicate planning, thinking it requires expensive project management software, some fancy new task management app, or PhD in Gantt charting to organize their thinking.

This over-complication transforms into an excuse for not planning—for working in disorganized chaos—for living a busy but unproductive life.

But here’s the thing:

Get the Results You Need to Hit Your Goals Faster, Better, Cheaper

Get the Results You Need to Hit Your Goals Faster, Better, Cheaper

There are three ways of working:

  1. 😫 Working in chaos.

  2. 🙂 Getting shit done.

  3. 😁 Getting the results you need to hit your goals faster, better, cheaper.

When you work in chaos or you just try to get shit done, it’s easy to think:

start work -> to get results -> so I can meet my goals.

But this is backwards.

Prevent Wasted Effort by Beginning With the End in Mind

Prevent Wasted Effort by Beginning With the End in Mind

It’s Monday, closing time, and in four days your week will be over.

Where will you find yourself Friday afternoon? What will you have accomplished?

Most people don’t know. They begin each day, do what they can, and try to “finish things up” Friday afternoon before cashing out for the weekend.

I’ve been there. Living day to day, never knowing how much I can get done, never planning a path my goals.

Reset Expectations of What's Possible

Everyone knows it snows in Michigan.

I remember shuffling down the streets of Midland one October, trick-or-treating, with thick ski pants and boots covering my Halloween costume; just a kid with a pillowcase wearing a Chewbacca mask staring out from under a winter hat.

Two feet of snow. In October. And that was in the lower peninsula.

The upper peninsula? That’s no joke.

The people that live up there, lovingly referred to as uppers (pronounced yew-pers), get hammered in the winter.

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Yet, even knowing that, we stopped in awe at a lone sign in the woods. Deep into our seven hour drive, in the northern part of Michigan’s upper peninsula, we stared up at the sky where this sign, 29.5 feet in the air, marked their record snowfall.

When you grow up seeing two to four feet of snow at a time, 29 feet seems unbelievable.

But this sign didn’t lie. It was accurate, and the record it represented has been beaten since.

(Email me a pic if you’ve seen it recently, I didn’t have a camera back then and I’d love to marvel at it’s height again)

This sign, and the extreme snowfall record it represented, reset my expectations of what’s possible. It made me wonder what else I didn’t know, didn’t realize, or couldn’t imagine.

It’s easy to get used to the status quo. But that’s not how to stand out. That’s not how you make the biggest impact. That’s not how to strike awe in your customers.

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Recognizing that, it’s helpful to ask yourself a question—one that will help reframe your expectations of what’s possible:

“What am I continuing to do myself that I’m not good at?”

Think about it. Write it down. Then improve it, eliminate it, or delegate it.

Improve what you’re not good at and raise the bar on what you can accomplish.

Eliminate what you’re not good at and give yourself time to work on more important tasks.

Delegate what you’re not good at and buy yourself energy while allowing for someone more skilled to set the bar higher.

Don’t wait for a sign in the woods. Challenge what you know. Ask yourself this question monthly to reset expectations of what’s possible, what you can focus on, what’s important, and what’s holding you back.

About the Author

mike_mehlberg.jpeg

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.

The Importance of Developing a Personalized System to Find an Optimum Path to Your Goals

Have you seen that commercial of the “productivity guy?”

He’s crushing it.

He’s emailing, texting, shuffling papers, taking phone calls, all at the same time.

It’s funny. But it’s NOT healthy.

Multi-tasking. Frantic effort. A relentless pursuit of the next task on full afterburner.

How long can you operate at that level?

Pro hockey players can for about a minute and a half. After that, they hit the bench to recover before taking back the ice.

Your work isn’t as physical, but you still need rest after focused effort.

Real productivity isn't "go go go." Real productivity requires balance.

Balance between exercise and relaxation, business and family, achievement and celebration.

Without balance, you’ll spend a few hours crushing it like the “productivity guy” only to burn out for the rest of the week.

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Which sounds better to you?

90 minutes of achievement followed by a week of under-performing?

or

Balanced, sustained, consistent progress and results week after week, month after month?

Uhhhh, option 2 please.

For these results, you need a personalized system complete with:

🍎 A nutrition plan to keep you sharp and focused so you can get work done without sacrificing fun food like 🌮🍔🥓🍩.

🏋️‍♀️ An exercise plan to give you more energy on tough days while fitting your work/travel schedule.

📅 A projects/goals plan so you can achieve consistent results over a predictable timeframe.

📝 A daily management plan so you can end each day with a sense of accomplishment and not feel guilty for resting and recharging.

Shoot me an email if you need help developing a personalized system to find an optimum path to your goals: one that will make a massive positive impact on your health, energy levels, and productivity.

About the Author

mike_mehlberg.jpeg

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.

Stop Making “Feel Good” Progress and Put a Real Dent in Your Goals

Have you ever completed a task, written it down, and then checked it off after the fact?

It’s okay. You can admit it :-). Almost everybody does.

It gives you a sense of completeness. It makes you feel good. Like, your brain literally releases dopamine to your body, the feel good chemical.

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There’s nothing inherently wrong with this.

But take care not change your mindset from making important progress to making “feel-good” progress.

✅ Call the dentist? Check.
✅ Send that email? Check.
✅ Walk the dog? Check.
⬜️ Build a product strategy aligned with a new target market? Hmmmm... maybe I’ll walk the dog again.

If you start craving that dopamine hit, you stop working on what’s important and start looking for the fastest or easiest thing to do.

And while you’ll always have easy work to do, be sure to keep an eye toward what’s important, what will make a dent in your goals, and what will leave a lasting impact.

✅ New blog post done? Check.

About the Author

mike_mehlberg.jpeg

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.

Finding Clarity with a Line of Sight

Finding Clarity with a Line of Sight

She shifted her weight hastily from one foot to the other, clearly irritated.

I was too. Irritated, that is.

Her, a hundred other travelers in front of me, and I had chosen the wrong line at the airport, and security was moving us through their checkpoint at a snails pace.

The line to my left seemed like a racetrack by comparison. Each of the travelers walked confidently toward the checkpoint faster than American Pharoe to the Triple Crown. They seemed happy, almost cheery (or so my imagination told me).

That’s when this woman in front of me made her break for freedom.

Success Doesn't Make Sacrifices, It Make Choices

Success Doesn't Make Sacrifices, It Make Choices

Your mind is an incredible transportation tool. 

In it, you can travel the world. You can put yourself in others' shoes. You can envision a future, more successful version of yourself. 

Your mind can also flip a bad situation on its head. You can see the good side of things, figuring out how to benefit from a regretful experience. 

Choosing how we view the world is a superpower. One that every human-being shares. 

This power is what incredible athletes, winning entrepreneurs, and high performers use to outperform their competition. They transport themselves into a world where there is only one path: Their path to achieving their goals. 

On this path, they don't make sacrifices. They make choices. 

The Missing Element to Achieving Your Goals and Expanding Your Potential

The Missing Element to Achieving Your Goals and Expanding Your Potential

I chuckled in the smallish veterinary clinic in Leesburg, Virginia, just loud enough to draw a glance from the doctor standing nearby.

"My wife just responded to my text," I said. "I told her Dottie gained 10 pounds. She told me 'that's because you feed her salami every night.'"

Dottie is our Bulloxer rescue; a bulldog head stuck on a boxer's body. She's four years old, has white fur, and (now) weighs 85.2 pounds. Where she was once ripped with genetically-gifted shoulder muscle striation, she now looks a little soft and full. 

Maybe full of salami...

The Cure for Uncertainty, Lost Focus, and Lack of Motivation in Your Business

The Cure for Uncertainty, Lost Focus, and Lack of Motivation in Your Business

It's debilitating, isn't it?

Not knowing if you are on the right path. The uncertainty of whether what you are working on will bring you success.

You work and work. You push from every angle to make an inch of progress Only to look up one day and find yourself lost; unsure if what you are doing is getting you anywhere, worried that you are missing something.

It's a hard feeling to shake.

When this uncertainty hits, it saps your motivation. Your focus and clarity transform into a gloomy cloud of doubt hanging overhead, raining worry and dissatisfaction upon you.

Every business owner knows this feeling.

How to Build a Business Strategy Worthy of Olympic Gold

How to Build a Business Strategy Worthy of Olympic Gold

Last weekend, the US Olympic men’s curling team took gold in a knock out battle with Sweden. People were yelling. Stones were flying. And grown men were crying. 

It was an incredible game won by flawless execution and a superior strategy. 

That’s why I harp on having a strategy for your business. 

Not some complex strategy worthy of a multi-billion dollar publicly traded company. No, just a plan to get from point A to point B with consideration for each of those steps along the way. 

How do you do that? How do you build a legitimate roadmap for the purpose-filled growth you desire? Try these steps: