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

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A post shared by Michael J Mehlberg (@michael.mehlberg) on Aug 15, 2018 at 9:06am PDT

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.

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.

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About the Author

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.

How to Find Your Breathing Space for a Productive and Important Day

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A post shared by Michael J Mehlberg (@michael.mehlberg) on Aug 17, 2018 at 9:31pm PDT

Tucson, Arizona is a beautiful and treacherous place.

At 6am, before the golden sun broke over its cactus-covered foothills, the still, dry air was not yet hot enough to have chased us visitors back in to the comfort of the air conditioned resort. The poisonous tarantulas had not yet crawled out from under their rock homes to scout for mates. The venomous rattlesnakes had not yet set out on their evening hunt for food.

The dangers were minimal. It was the perfect time to be outdoors...

But I wasn't out on that serene landscape with those dangers in mind.

I was out to escape the dangers of a world that, in a few short hours, would attack me with its demands, distractions, and expectations; just me, wandering, out for a hike through the desert for no other reason than to hike.

No, this hike didn’t solve some problem or accomplish some goal.

It was the fuel, the space between the logs, the breathing space for what would be a productive and important day.

This weekend, before the demands and distractions of the coming week, take time to find your breathing space.

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About the Author

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

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A post shared by Michael J Mehlberg (@michael.mehlberg) on Aug 18, 2018 at 4:32pm PDT

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.

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.

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About the Author

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.

You Can’t Always Be Productive

A post shared by Michael J Mehlberg (@michael.mehlberg) on Aug 8, 2018 at 7:36pm PDT

11 Likes, 1 Comments - Michael J Mehlberg (@michael.mehlberg) on Instagram: "You can't always be productive. ⠀ Some days you crush it. Other days you feel like moving to..."

You can’t always be productive.⠀

Some days you crush it. Other days you feel like moving to Australia.

I’ve seen a lot of Instagrammers make it look and sound like every day can be your best day.

It’s a lie.

Some days you wake up with a headache. Some days you miss your workout. Some days travel throws you off your routine, forcing you to eat crap food and providing no time to settle into deep, focused work.

Don’t let it get you down. Don’t let it kill your motivation.

Productivity ebbs and flows. From day to day. From month to month.

Flow with it.

• Meditate.

• Play some upbeat music.

• Call a friend or family member.

• Write down what you’re grateful for.

• Get your blood moving with some light exercise.

• Do something nice for someone else, no strings attached.

• Write down what’s bothering or stalling you, and what you can do to fix it.

• Relax, read a book, play a video game. Set a timer so you don’t feel guilty.

• Strike out everything on your todo list except one thing you know you can knock out under the circumstances.

Any one of these ideas is better than stewing in guilt, and just might kick you back into gear.

If all else fails, don’t worry, and don’t beat yourself up. If you’ve built a plan for tomorrow and a system for your week, your month, and your year, you can sit the bench today. You’re already set for balanced, productive success for the long haul.

While you’re at it, keep in mind the words of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst:

“It’s been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, day. My mom says some days are like that. Even in Australia.”

— Judith Viorst

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About the Author

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.

How to Prioritize When Everything Feels Important

If there's one thing that can confuse you, make you procrastinate, or cause undue stress in your day, it's thinking of all the things you should do.

I should meditate.

I should floss my teeth.

I should wake-up early.

Keep a gratitude journal. Plan my day. Update my website. Should, should, should.

It's downright exhausting. And what's worse, it's counterproductive.

Because people rarely do what they should do. But they always do what they have to do.

Take note though, I'm not talking about having to email someone back. I'm not talking about having to take out the garbage. I'm talking about something deep in your soul, telling what you have to do... what you MUST do.

Sure, maybe you should meditate. But if you have to update your sales funnel to convert a higher percentage of customers for your new product, then that becomes your priority.

Yes, sending that email is what you should do, but if you have to create a new Facebook Ad to generate new leads that will drive your new product sales to new heights, then that is your priority.

Should is not your priority. The things you should do are those nagging tasks that would be nice to have done, but not critical. Given enough time, the things you should be doing will turn into things you might want to do if you have time, which then  will transform into things you know you'll never do because they really aren't all that important.

The things you have to do are your priority. And focusing on those tasks will bring you clarity, relieve you of undue stress, and make procrastinating an artifact of the past.

Forget about what you should do and start working on that which you have to do. 

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About the Author

Michael Mehlberg

TRAVELER, CLARITY SEEKER, GOAL 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. 

Using Trello to Organize Ideas, Track Process, and Take Action

If sticky notes are 3M’s gift to random thoughts and ideas, and the Internet is Al Gore’s (ha) gift to communication, Trello is Trello, Inc.’s perfect union of the two; a web app combing the simplicity of sticky notes with the power of the Internet; a gift to anyone who wants to organize their ideas and turn them into reality.

Want to skip the foreplay? Sign up here and play with it. It’s free.

Note: I don’t make a penny for recommending this tool. I just love it that much.

If you’re not ready to dive in, here’s why you should consider it.

Your Ideas are Worth Nothing, Unless...

I’ve written before on just how valuable your ideas are.

Bottom line up front?

If you haven’t taken action on your idea, it’s worth precisely nothing.

Many ideas have infinite potential, but never amount to anything because their creator didn’t execute. It’s easy to understand why. One of the most challenging things to do is take that first step toward transforming an idea into reality. We fear perfection, success, and failure all at the same time. We are overcome with indecision when facing a forest full of trees to cut down.

 As such, any app that captures your ideas, if it’s to be worth anything, must also help transition your ideas smoothly into execution.

This is why I love Trello. It’s an idea organizer, process development, project management, and general productivity tool for turning ideas into reality and getting shit done. 

Trello, the Kid-Friendly Productivity Tool for Grownups

Think of Trello like an online whiteboard (called a Board) you can cover with sticky notes (called Cards). Your whiteboard is divided into columns (called Lists)—one for each step in your process.

Trello can support multiple Boards, and each can be customized to fit any stepwise process that works for you.

• Turning Ideas Into Reality - From idea generation to research to a project plan.
• Managing Sales - From lead to opportunity to sale to revenue.
• Project Management - From project charter to execution to review to project close.
• Writing - From idea to research to draft to published to marketing after.

Your Cards are the thoughts, ideas, and tasks that you need to track through your process. They are the digital "sticky notes" containing a title, description, notes, labels, assigned team members, due dates, and other tracking tools necessary for small business projects. Create new ones, delete old ones, move active ones between the columns to represent where each task lies in your process. You can even view the cards with due dates on a calendar. Oh, and if your Card is a bigger task that requires multiple actions to complete, you can list action items within and track them to completion. 

 It’s Time to Take Action

Trello is free to use for teams, making it perfect for creators, entrepreneurs, and businesses with less than 25 employees. For businesses working in distributed environments, the Trello app on iOS and Android interfaces perfectly with their web app, allowing teams to access their Trello board anywhere they have an Internet connection.

Remember, your ideas are worth nothing if not executed.

And if you don’t have a process for turning your ideas into reality, it’s about damn time you created one. Trello might be exactly the app you are looking for to help you get organized, get productive, and transform ideas into action. 

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About the Author

Michael Mehlberg

Co-Founder | Technology, Apps, and Wicked Cool Productivity Tools

Mike Mehlberg spends most of his productive hours playing with cool apps that would make him more productive, if only he’d use them for real work. Want to get organized and maximize your time? He knows an app for that. Contact him at mike@moderndavinci.net to get organized, get productive, and make the most of each day.