A quote on how to think about time and prioritization.
The Important Psychological Benefit of Gratitude
True Productivity, Self-Mastery, and Organization Requires This
Why You Can't Ever Stop Pushing
When this thing is spinning perfectly, it looks as if it could spin forever.
That isn’t by accident. It’s precision manufactured out of pure elements, this one out of Aluminum.
It’s light, it’s sexy, and it means business.
Even so, it doesn’t spin continuously. Despite a pinpoint bottom revolving on a polished glass base, friction causes this voluptuously curved beauty to slow and eventually topple.
Such is life.
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...
3 Science-Backed Daily Habits for a Life of Happiness and Success
Success and happiness are built on layers of science.
Let me explain.
Habit #1 | The Common Element to Irritability and Worthlessness (The Opposite of Happiness and Success)
Nick chucked his controller into the Nintendo, hard.
It bounced off the front plastic and flew to the floor, but he wasn't done. He picked it up in a fit of rage and threw it again, and again, and again. With every throw, his face grew hotter until he looked like a ripe cherry about to pop in the hot sun. He threw that controller over and over with all his might, cracking the plastic until the Nintendo relented and shut down (for good) when he finally destroyed the on/off switch.
3 Immediate Mindset Changes to Drastically Improve Your Life
I can attest from first-hand experience that striking out sucks.
It doesn't matter how you do it.
Swinging under a ball for that third strike feels like opening a drain to let all the potential flow out of your body. No base hit. No home run. No chance to be the hero in front of an audience of cheering fans.
10 Ways to Massively (and Immediately) Improve Your Life
Life hacks. Tactics. Pro tips for stealing small, incremental improvements to your life...
Make your bed.
Organize your desk.
Drink eight glasses of water a day.
Who. Fucking. Cares?
Seriously, are these truly going to make your life better? Are you going to look back from your death bed and say, "you know, I wish I would have drunk so much goddamn water that I needed to piss 47 times every day?"
The Most Ridiculously Simple Way to Get Things Done
He puked everywhere.
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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.
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Or should I say the point that everything returned. 🤢🤮
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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.
😮
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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
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 Most Relevant Aspects of Selling Anything to Anyone That I’ve Ever Learned
This is my son, Jack. He’s ten, and he wants an iPhone.
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The geek in me is as excited as a kid in a Chuck E. Cheese ball pit. The father in me screams “no.”
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For context, I bought my own cell phone when I turned 24. In a land of sleek and sexy Motorola Razors, my flip phone was pretty lame. Now my son wants a handheld computer with an App Store, 1000 times more power than my first PC, and a constant connection to the worldwide horrors of the Internet.
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So I told him, “if I’m gonna buy you a cell phone, you’re gonna have to sell me on it.”
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Hence began my sales lesson for ten year olds—the most relevant aspects of selling anything to anyone that I’ve ever learned—captured here for posterity and as a reminder of how the pros, the books, and experience taught me to do it.
1️⃣ Don't talk about features of the phone. I don't care. Oh, and I already have one, so I probably know about them and will be bored listening.
2️⃣ Instead, tell me how on God's green earth those features will make my life better. Then, illustrate me (the buyer) using those features. Show me a vision of skipping off happily into the distance to live a better life after my purchase.
3️⃣ I know you want one, I know your friends have one, I know you can play Fortnight on one. Ask yourself if I actually care about that. Yep, I don't. Tell me how buying you a phone will solve my problems, not yours.
4️⃣ Think of all the objections I could ever conjure up during your sales pitch and build a response showing how and why my objections are wrong.
5️⃣ Get inside my head before you sell me. Ask yourself, what conversation am I having with myself right now? Then, figure out a way to weave my conversation into your pitch to solve my biggest problems.
6️⃣ Make it pretty, make it interesting, make it entertaining. I run an App company, a coaching biz, a blog, and have a full time job and a family. Oh, and I shuttle you and your brother to baseball 73 nights a week. If this pitch gets slow, I’ll be napping.
Next time you sell anything to anyone, even if it’s just to sell an idea on IG, try these tips for results.
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Happy selling! And wish my son good luck selling me; I’ll be the toughest buyer of all :)
About the Author
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.”
30 Days of Daily Planning for a Better Life
The last place I ever wanted to be was on a twin-engine propeller plane in an ice storm.
Yet there I was, sitting in seat 2b, listening to the engines labor to keep 20 tons of metal and humanity afloat. Unlike the constant drone of a jet engine, this prop plane had a chant—a repetitive roar intermingled with a gnarly growl—like a lion voicing his displeasure as he tumbled around in an industrial dryer.
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.
What Matters
41 Ways to Get Home Early Every Day This Week
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲
1. Get 7 hours of sleep
2. Lay out daily clothes in advance
3. Block calendar for important work
4. Schedule commute time
5. Schedule breaks
6. Plan to deal with time obstacles
7. Schedule administrivia
𝗜𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴
8. Exercise
9. Eat healthy food that energizes you
10. Tell everyone when you plan to leave
11. When work begins, begin work (don’t get distracted)
𝗙𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀
12. Squeeze meetings together
13. Focus (or leave) meetings that aren’t productive
14. Reschedule meetings that start late
15. Hold stand up meetings
16. Decline meetings where you can’t contribute
17. Add buffer between meetings and tasks
𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗮𝘀𝗸𝘀
18. Schedule important tasks
19. Prioritize urgent tasks
20. Delegate unimportant tasks
21. Delete the rest of your tasks
22. Limit emailing to 3x per day
23. Automate repetitive tasks with apps like IFTTT
24. Bundle similar tasks together
25. Set a timer for your tasks
𝗗𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸
26. Begin with the end in mind
27. Minimize distractions
28. Stick to your schedule
29. Delegate
30. Work on what matters
31. Focus with music
32. Work intensely
33. Take breaks often
34. Work when everyone else isn’t
𝗔𝗱𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗮
35. Call instead of email
36. Send shorter emails… get to the point
37. Only read emails where you are in the to: line
𝗔𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗗𝗮𝘆
38. Block time before you leave to clean up your day
39. Reduce and remove clutter in your work space
𝗠𝗶𝘀𝗰/𝗗𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝗙𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁
40. Add some greenery to your work space (scientifically proven to increase productivity)
41. Sit, stand, walk, talk, act confidently
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:
The Simple Key to Success and Achieving Your Vision
Be the Mentor and the Student
Some days you teach. Other days you learn. Most days you do both.
Be the mentor and the student every day.
Teach others what you learn and learn what others teach.
It’s the best way to grow and surround yourself with lifelong learners.
About the Author
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 Necessary Ingredient to Leadership, Competitive Greatness, Everything
It was a three Advil and two Tylenol kind of morning.
I should have known it would be.
You can’t drink two beers, down three glasses of wine, eat four cake pops, go to bed five hours late, and expect to wake up at six am rearing to go.
At least I can’t.
No, when I woke this morning after a night of food-and-bedtime-debauchery, you could have told me…
