Time Management Articles
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The Great
Problem-Solving Tool
By
Earl Nightingale
All creatures on earth are supplied at birth with
everything they need for successful survival. All creatures
except one are supplied with a set of instincts that will do
the job for them. And because of that, most creatures don't
need much of a brain. In the Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright
Archibald MacLeish's play The Secret of Freedom, a character
says, "The only thing about a man that is man is his mind.
Everything else you can find in a pig or a horse." That's
uncomfortably true.
Take the magnificent bald eagle for example. To see one of
them swooping down and pluck a live and sizeable fish from the
water on a single pass is astonishing. More astonishing still
is the eagle's eyesight. And because of its need to see small
rodents moving in the grass from high altitudes or a fish just
inches under the surface of the water, its incredible eyes
take up just about all the space in its head. For the eagle,
its eyes are the most important thing, and everything else
works in unison with them. Its brain is tiny and rudimentary.
It doesn't think or plan or remember; it simply acts in
accordance with stimuli.
And it's the same with most other living creatures. Even
the beautiful porpoise, with a much larger brain, and the
chimpanzee are easily tamed and taught. Only one takes 20
years to mature and has dominion over all the rest on the
earth itself, and has today the power to destroy all life on
earth in a couple of hours. Only one is given the godlike
power to fashion its own life according to the images it holds
in its remarkable mind.
The human mind is the one thing that separates us from the
rest of the creatures on earth. Everything that means anything
to us comes to us through our minds, our love of our families,
our beliefs, all of our talents, knowledge, abilities.
Everything is reflected through our minds. Anything that comes
to us in the future will almost certainly come to us as a
result of the extent to which we use our minds.
And yet, it's the last place on earth the average person
will turn to for help. You know why? You know why people don't
automatically turn their own vast mental resources on when
faced with a problem? It's because they never learned how to
think. Most people will go to any length to avoid thinking
when they're faced with a problem. They will ask advice from
the most illogical people, usually people who don't know any
more than they do: next-door neighbors, members of their
families, and friends stuck in the same mental traps that they
are. Very few of them use the muscles of their mind to solve
their problems.
Yet living successfully, getting the things we want from
life, is a matter of solving the problems that stand between
where we are now and the point we wish to reach. No one is
without problems. They're part of living. But let me show you
how much time we waste in worrying about the wrong problems.
Here's a reliable estimate of the things people worry about:
Things that never happen: 40%. Things over and past that can
never be changed by all the worry in the world: 30%. Needless
worries about our health: 12%. Petty miscellaneous worries:
10%. Real legitimate worries: 8%.
In short, 92% of the average person's worries take up
valuable time, cause painful stress, even mental anguish, and
are absolutely unnecessary. And of the real legitimate
worries, there are two kinds. There are the problems we can
solve, and there are the problems beyond our ability to
personally solve. But most of our real problems usually fall
into the first group, the ones we can solve, if we'll learn
how.
The average working person has at his or her disposal an
enormous amount of free time. In fact, you'll see if you'll
total the hours in a year and subtract the sleeping hours: If
we sleep 8 hours every night, we have about 6,000 waking
hours, of which less than 2,000 are spent on the job. Now this
leaves 4,000 hours a year when a person is neither working nor
sleeping. These can be called discretionary hours with which
that person can do pretty much as he or she pleases.
So that you can see the amazing results in your own life, I
want to recommend that you take just one hour a day, five days
a week, and devote this hour to exercising your mind. You
don't even have to do it on weekends. Pick one hour a day on
which you can fairly regularly count. The best time for me is
an hour before the others are up in the morning. The mind's
clear, the house is quiet, and, if you like, with a fresh cup
of coffee, this is the time to start the mind going.
During this hour every day take a completely blank sheet of
paper. At the top of the page write your present primary goal
clearly, simply. Then, since our future depends on the way in
which we handle our work, write down as many ideas as you can
for improving that which you now do. Try to think of 20
possible ways in which the activity that fills your day can be
improved. You won't always get 20, but even one idea is good.
Now remember two important points with regard to this. One,
this is not particularly easy, and, two, most of your ideas
won't be any good. When I say it's not easy, I mean it's like
starting any new habit. At first you'll find your mind a
little reluctant to be hauled up out of that old familiar bed.
But as you think about your work and ways in which it might be
improved, write down every idea that pops into your head, no
matter how absurd it might seem.
The most important thing that this extra hour accomplishes
is that it deeply embeds your goal into your subconscious
mind, starts the whole vital machine reworking the first thing
every morning. And 20 ideas a day, if you can come up with
that many, total 100 a week, even skipping weekends.
An hour a day, five days a week, totals 260 hours a year
and still leaves you 3,740 hours of free leisure time. Now
this means you'll be thinking about your goal and ways of
improving your performance, increasing your service six full
extra working weeks a year, 61/2 40-hour weeks devoted to
thinking and planning. Can you see how easy it is to rise
above that so called competition? And it'll still leave you
with seven hours a day to spend as you please.
Starting each day thinking, you'll find that your mind will
continue to work all day long. And you'll find that at odd
moments, when you least expect it, really great ideas will
begin to bubble up from your subconscious. When they do, write
them down as soon as you can. Just one great idea can
completely revolutionize your work and, as a result, your
life.
Each time you write your goal at the top of the sheet of
paper, don't worry or become concerned about it. Think of it
as only waiting to be reached, a problem only waiting to be
solved. Face it with faith and bend all the great powers of
your mind toward solving it. And believe me, solve it you
will. This puts each of us in the driver's seat.
Each of us has a tendency to underestimate his or her own
abilities. We should realize that we have deep within
ourselves deep reservoirs of great ability, even genius that
can be tapped if we'll just dig deep enough. It's the miracle
of your mind.
Everything fashioned by human beings is a result of goal
setting. We reach our goals. That's how we know that the
diseases that plague us will be conquered. We've set goals to
eradicate every disease that plagues us and eradicate them we
will, one by one. We have never set a goal that we have not
reached or are now in the process of reaching.
Earl Nightingale co-founded Nightingale Conant the world
leader in personal development. Earl's audio programs are
available at nightingale.com. Other audio programs available
at Nightingale Conant include authors such as: Tony Robbins,
Brian Tracy,
David Bach (The Automatic Millionaire),
Dale Carnegie Organization (The 5 Essential People
Skills),
Jim Rohn, and many, many others.
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