Your owner’s manual for being productive?

Productivity Ultimate Information Manager
/ By Shane Fielder
/ 3 COMMENTS

Think of the last time you purchased a significant item in your life such as a piece of technology, house or car. Did you read the owner’s manual from cover to cover? You most often never do, you just expect plug and play service.

Last year I purchased a new vehicle. One of the features that excited me was the ability to play music and audio files from my ipod touch. I plugged in my ipod and instantly started listening to various playlists. It has been fantastic over the last 10 months. However, I wondered how could I play and organize my music from the stereo controls versus the ipod directly.

Guess what?

I cracked open the owner’s manual and realized one button to the left of the regular button I have been using was the answer to my quest. For 10 months, I have wondered about this until I finally took action and read the owner’s manual.

Such is life and business… There is always opportunity to learn more and train how to be more effective than you are right now in every area. You can sharpen your results right now in one of two ways:

1. Take the time to do the research and find out

2. Learn from the experts as Brian Tracy so boldly tells audiences all over the world

Don’t do what I did.

Now regarding my ipod, its a simple example, but what about the bigger things of life and business?

The best way to rapid growth is to learn from the experts or someone who has gone ahead of you. One of my mentors, Jim Rohn often said, “if only (people) failures gave seminars”. How much could we learn from them about avoiding the wrong turns of life and be healthier, wealthier and happier.

Let me pick one challenge to focus on that you may be experiencing today:

Are you drowning in paperwork
and lost productivity?

I certainly know the feeling to be lost and overwhelmed with too much to do and it doesn’t help when people you work with keep dropping piles of paperwork on your desk. Where is the owner’s manual for productivity? Why didn’t anyone teach us that in college or high school?

All those piles of papers take up space on two planes: your mind and your desk.

Your mind is the most precious resource you have. It was designed for thinking, creating and solving problems that ultimately adds value to where you are. Value is how we create freedom and wealth. I believe that we need to address the issue of physical and mental clutter in order to lead a more productive life in our businesses and at home.

But how do you clear the
physical and mental clutter?

We are all living in the Age of Diversion. Diversion equals distraction.

Becoming aware of this issue is the first step to overcoming it and solving it. My best and simplest recommendation is to find one place where you can take all the mental and physical stuff you deal with and address it. The challenge with this is crossing the plane between the physical and the mental. In the last 20 years, we have seen the advent of personal information manager software to help us try and achieve this. There are many great versions and varieties of personal information managers to choose from. I know I have tested over 12 of the best myself. They have helped, but they have not solved everything.

Eliminate the clutter gap!

In the last 5 years, we have also added a third piece of clutter to the mix: digital clutter. Now more, than ever, you have the physical, mental and digital stuff taking up valuable mental real estate. Everything from social media, blogs, ebooks, podcasts, videos, photos to your favourite news and media sites. They add complexity to the information that you want and need to manage and store.

In 2008, I stumbled across a system by accident. I thought I could benefit from yet another technology gadget to help lessen the digital weight on my shoulders and in my mind. I discovered the power of Microsoft OneNote. What a truly amazing system. I praise the teams that worked hard to introduce this powerful tool. But like my new vehicle purchase, I didn’t read the owner’s manual very well when I first starting using OneNote.

Then one day, it occurred to me that the key to boosting my productivity was within my grasp. So I went to work over the last 3 years to train on this system with the same sincerity, focus and intention as I do when I am at the dojo training.

Over the years, my colleagues have complimented me by saying I was the most organized person that they knew. Yet others scolded me for not teaching them how to “do what I do”. After much consideration, I created the Ultimate Information Manager system. The system teaches how to align and benefit from leading productivity principles as a starting point. Then we take the principles and put them to work using the tools and resources of OneNote.

Its like training someone how to use a katana (Japanese sword).

You need 4 simple ingredients
to be a successful swordsman

1. Mind like water or the willingness to learn

2. A qualified Sensei (teacher) to walk you through step by step, teaching the principles and techniques of using the katana

3. A quality bokken (wooden training sword)

4. Practice of the basics repeatedly!

The same holds true in order to be a successful and productive person today. The Ultimate Information Manager can be your guide and way of creating powerful productivity results while creating a new-found sense of clarity for you. It will give you plug and play results along with leading you to accelerated results.

I invite you to learn more about creating a new level of productivity in your life and business with the Ultimate Information Manager.

About the Author Shane Fielder

I am a grower of human capability and a business builder. The best part of my life is helping people become stronger and develop their skills, talents and character in order to lead powerful lives. I have had the great privilege to study under some of the greatest minds of business, leadership, health and fitness along with the most talented Martial Arts instructors. My passion is helping people to become even more powerful in life than they already are.