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The Seven Minute Difference. By Allyson Lewis

•Another micro-action for increasing the amount of enjoyment you have at your office is to thank somebody for something every day at your office.  That thank you can come in an email, a short word in the hallway, or from a hand written note.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

•Consider this: For the most part, life is a series of daily habits.  That idea may sound simple, but it is also quite powerful.  You often hear people talk about the rhythm of life when talking about naturethe changing seasons, migration, the cycle of birth and death.  Well, the daily acts that make up your existence are part of that same rhythm.  You wake up, get dressed and ready for work, and drive that familiar route to the office; you get your first cup of coffee, sit down at your desk, and begin the daily tasks that make up your workday.  The ability to make the most of these daily rhythmsto use the ordinary habits of the day as a springboard for extraordinary achievementsstrengthen humans, as it does every living thing.  Even if we are recognized for our big achievements, we are defined by our daily routine.

 

•The simplest acts can make the biggest changes in your life.

 

•Are you willing to take 15 minutes at the end of every day to create a written plan of action for the next day?

 

•Your processes and systems drive the basic functions of your business; if your systems are out of date, your business cannot reach peak performance.  The most successful franchises are nothing more than replicatable systems and processes.

 

•Take ten minutes to record the major activities of your typical work week indicating how you spend blocks of time each day.

 

•Life is short; look for every opportunity to experience it richly.  Learn to savor the moments.  Wherever you are be all thereinvest in the moment.

•Only 3 percent of Americans have any kind of written goals at all. Most of us talk a good talk. We say we want to be more knowledgeable, lose weight, clean up our house, or bolster our financial condition, but we do nothing to accomplish these goals.

 

•We choose what we eat, what time we go to bed and get up, who we hang out with, how we spend the money we earn, and how we spend our days. We choose how much and what kinds of television we watch, what we read, and where we get our information about current events. We even choose how we feel about ourselves. We also choose how successful we are in our jobshow much we develop our skill sets, education, and training and how far we grow as individuals.

 

•Until you really acknowledge the choices you are making and the daily habits you choose to follow, you cannot fully appreciate the potential for change that your life possesses.  You might feel you are a prisoner of your responsibilities and that you have very little free time or freedom to choose.  Yet if you consider the power of micro-actions and understand that even small changes can make a monumental difference in your life, you begin to realize just how much power your daily choices incorporate.

 

•Every day, before you leave work, spend seven minutes writing down the top four to seven tasks you need to accomplish during the next work day.

 

•The easiest, most flexible and least expensive way to expand your knowledge is to become a reader.

 

•A love of reading runs like a common thread through the lives of the best, the most successful, and the most influential people our world has produced.  Theodore Roosevelt is said to have read over 20,000 books in his lifetime.  Abraham Lincoln would have had no opportunity to escape poverty had he not been a reader.

 

•42 percent of university graduates never read another book after graduation.

 

•If you read ten pages a day, you could finish one 300 page nonfiction book every month.  Are you willing to commit to reading ten pages of one nonfiction book each day?  What a simple concept: ten pages a day to change your life?  How different would you be next year if you read 12 phenomenal, life altering books over the course of the next 12 months?  How different would you be in 4 years if you had read 48 of those books in that time?

 

Summary: 

At the end of the day we are the sum total of the daily habits we develop.  Invest time in examining your habits to determine if they are driving you in the right direction. Small tweaks to our daily habits can make a huge impact on the entire trajectory of our life.

 

This book is common sense that we rarely practice...great reminders.

 

Book notes:

 

•I believe that making even small changes in your actions and behavior can result in monumental differences in your life.

 

•Examples of micro actions that have potential for big impact:

     oOutlining a daily plan of action

     oTaking time to thank a co-worker for a job well done

     oBuilding time into the day to catch up between meetings

     oHandwriting thank you notes to two customers a day

     oReading ten pages of a book every day

     oGetting up 15 minutes earlier

 

•When incorporated into a daily routine, these micro actions take on even greater potential for bringing about immense new levels of productivity and growth in our work and home life.

 

•A wise man once told me, Allyson, you can't choose to remain the same and expect your life to change.  If you want your life to be different, you must be different.  Although that seems like common sense, far too many of us wake up every morning, repeat the very same motions we made the day before, and wonder why our lives remain the same.

 

 

 

 

Small Steps

 

You can't choose to remain the same and expect your life to change.  If you want your life to be different, you must be different.

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