7 Unusual Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs To Boost Daily Productivity

MARCH 3, 2015
STARTUPS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

7 Unusual Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs To Boost Daily Productivity

Entrepreneurship isn’t for the faint at heart. Founders must forge their own path, gather resources and take on huge financial risks – all in the hopes of avoiding the fate that 80 to 90 percent of startups suffer: failure.

So to be successful, entrepreneurs really have beaten the odds – especially young entrepreneurs. Starting with almost no wealth, network or business experience, many create more success in a few years than most people do in their entire lifetime.

To understand what they do differently, we interviewed several young entrepreneurs from this year’s Empact Showcase, an annual program highlighting the power these founders and their companies play in the community.

Rather than focus on generic insights or basic hacks, we looked at unique, concrete habits you can immediately adopt in your life and business that can have a game-changing impact.

1. Create A Regimented Schedule.
My overarching goal is to be consistent in my schedule, and as a result, I live a lifestyle that allows me to maximize the amount of work I get done. I believe this type of prioritization has made a huge impact on how quickly Fueled has grown.

My dinner ends at 11 p.m., and I always have a solid work session afterwards until 3:30 a.m. Setting aside a block of time in my schedule for uninterrupted productive creation is vital to my work process. It’s when I answer emails and do my thinking around bigger ideas without any distractions. Then I go to bed every day at exactly 4:00 a.m. and typically wake up without an alarm clock. Other people might want to focus on other areas, like family, but a consistent schedule is key.

2. Ask Yourself This Question Before Going To Bed.
Every night before bed, I think about this question: If I live every day the same way I did today, what kind of future would that create? It forces me to constantly evaluate whether or not my actions are lining up with my priorities. The future is shaped one day at a time, and it’s never as far away as we think.

3. Take An Adventure Walk Every Weekend To Connect The Dots.
Every weekend, I go on a long hike in a place that I’ve never been before. I do the research in advance and sometimes, I drive as far as an hour away. My hikes are anywhere between one and four hours long. I take an old-school composition notebook with me, and I let the thoughts come; I don’t force anything.

The habit helps to relieve stress and unpack the ideas from the week. It’s kind of like meditation. By constantly evaluating ideas and how they fit into your business, you can slowly render them into reality and watch your imagination unfold.

As an added benefit, research in the new field of inactivity studies shows that moving around daily is critical to health. In fact, sitting for an hour is worse than smoking two cigarettes, according to another study.

4. Take A Hot-Cold Contrast Shower Every Morning.
My most unique personal habit is the hot-cold contrast shower. I’ve done it every morning, no matter where I’ve lived or what hotel I’m staying in, for 14 years. By doing 30 seconds of ice cold water, followed by 30 seconds of hot, then 30 seconds of cold water (always ending with cold water), I gain the energy and clarity to start my day feeling refreshed.

To get started in this habit do a normal shower. Then crank the water as cold as it goes for 30 seconds. Then crank as hot as you can stand it for 30 seconds.Then ice cold for 30 seconds (this cold-hot-cold is one cycle).

I’d start with one cycle for the first time. If it’s too much, try it on the legs first. (That’s what my girlfriend does; she also thinks I’m crazy.)

5. Reflect On Critical Open Questions Through Different Lenses.
Most of the technologies we’ve ended up inventing and developing, and most of the strategies we’ve ended up pursuing, have been borne by a long cultivation of an open question, followed by the nurturing of a slow hunch. I am able to tolerate open questions for months, or years. Open questions could include queries about how to find a co-founder for your business idea when people have their own interests and projects to work on or how to sell your new product to an entity that is typically averse to risk (Answers: Work with them on their projects to show your worth and tempt them with interesting questions; show how to dramatically reduce a risk they already bear.)

Usually, the simple answers that come quickly do not satisfy me. But instead of giving up or forgetting it, I work at the problem each day from different angles, under different lenses — which can include but are not limited to: looking at extremes, considering what essential assumptions are and how to test them, and discovering how a different industry might solve a problem. Eventually I find some real traction with an idea that seems novel and has a good chance of working.

6. Set Three Specific Goals Weekly And Monthly — And Ignore Everything Else.
There are a million things you can do to improve your business. The problem is, if you try to fix or improve them all at once, you end up not making much progress in any of them.

You need to be relentless in following your goals. At least once a day, I find myself asking, “Is what I’m working on directly helping one of the three goals?” It’s easy to distract yourself with tasks that aren’t critical. You just need to stay on top of it. This helps us accomplish big things quickly.

To hold ourselves accountable and stay on the same page, we have weekly meeting on Fridays. During these meetings, our company sets the goals for the upcoming week and see where we are on the previous week’s goals. It’s a lot easier to say “what went wrong this week” then “what went wrong this quarter”

7. Make Lots Of Lists As Soon As You Get To The Office.
My habit is that I create lists for everything for one hour as soon as soon I get to the office every morning or the day before at the end of the day. I record these lists in Notes on my iPad, computer, and iPhone. I also use Gmail Tasks so I can link my lists to emails.

It forces me to think through my day, my week, my year, and my long term plan before beginning to execute. This improves my organization and clarity. In the past, I got caught up with the day-to-day details, and I took my mind off of the big goals.

Forming the right habits is critical to success as an entrepreneur. In fact, 40 percent of our daily behaviors happen automatically as a result of our habits according to researchers at Duke University. So, if you choose the right behaviors to turn into habits, you’ve just supercharged a large portion of your day.

What is the single biggest productivity habit that has created the most impact in your life? Answer in the comment section below.

Originally posted on www.entrepreneur.com

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9 Things that Productive People Refuse To Do

9 Things Really Productive People Refuse to Do

BY BILL MURPHY JR.  @BILLMURPHYJR

Being more productive isn't just about what you do--it's also about what you don't.

 
If you want to be more productive, don't start by taking on new habits and routines. Instead, do less. The most productive people know how to stay focused and how to say no--but most importantly, they know how to delegate and outsource.

To get a handle on the time-sucking, productivity-killing tasks you should always hand off to others, I reached out to a variety of sources, including the folks at Zirtual, an online virtual assistant service. Here are the top things you should avoid if you want to spend your time on what's really important:

1. Micromanaging your calendar

Yes, you need a calendar. No, you don't want to be the person spending hours trying to figure out what appointment goes where. Both Maren Kate, the founder of Zirtual, and her colleague Joanna Cohen, cited this as the biggest thing a virtual assistant can do for you.

Whether you need to remember to send a follow-up email, cancel a free trial, or put out the garbage on Tuesday night, "anything that needs to go on the calendar is fair game," Cohen said. "Doctors, dentists, hair, etc. It's a good thing if your assistant knows these contact details better than you do."

2. Buying stuff online

Just about any online-shopping task can be handed off--even if you're not comfortable turning over your credit cards to an assistant, you can at least ask him or her to narrow down your choices. The same thing applies to making travel arrangements.

"Getting in the habit of handing these off is huge," Cohen says. "Gifts, Amazon orders, clothes, tickets--anything that requires checkout, really. Decision fatigue is real."

3. Finding a house or apartment

Granted, you're probably not going to have an assistant buy a house for you, but that doesn't mean they can't handle many of the interim decisions. In fact, that's why we have real estate agents, right? It makes a lot of sense to rely on them to do research and compile properties to look at.

To add an extra level of hands-offedness, why not have a trusted assistant be your agent's primary point of contact? At the very least, that's who your agent should be dealing with to arrange appointments and funnel questions.

4. Initial research/inquiries

This can apply to many tasks, but outsourcing the first steps of research or outreach on any project is a great habit. Whether you need to buy a big-ticket item like a car, write a speech, or choose a restaurant for your next big date, let someone else do the legwork. (An added bonus is that having an assistant act as a gatekeeper like this can force competing vendors to make better offers than they might if they spoke to you directly.)

The main point here however is that you'll have more focus when you have to make a final decision. You'll be better able to make quick, solid choices if you haven't been the one spending hours assembling the information, and perhaps developing an undue emotional attachment to the search process.

5. Cleaning

As someone who doesn't particularly like cleaning--and frankly isn't very good at it--perhaps I'm biased on this one. Still, the time you spend on straightening your office or scrubbing the bathroom could likely be spent more productively on your business.

For that matter, most maintenance tasks, whether we're talking about fixing the kitchen sink or replacing a faulty printer, are prime opportunities to bring in someone who will likely do the work better than you would anyway. The key is to ensure that you're using that newly available time on other, more productive tasks.

6. Commuting and "taxiing"

If you think you're being productive during your commute, you're fooling yourself. Likewise, if you're spending hours behind the wheel, shuttling yourself or family members from one appointment to another, you might as well give up on the goal of being productive.

These can be harder tasks to outsource. Moreover, you may have other reasons actually to want to handle them. (Maybe driving your kids around accounts for a big part of the one-on-one time you have with them.) Fair enough, but time you spend behind the wheel or navigating public transportation is time you want to reclaim if you can.

7. Staying in touch with friends and family

Of course you want to spend time with friends and family, but do you really need to go back and forth nine times with Aunt Sally about who is going to bring the potato salad to the family reunion? For that matter, should you really slow down your work around the holidays to spend an afternoon (or more) addressing and mailing greeting cards?

Outsource these details to an assistant. Let him or her worry about the scheduling, and free yourself to live in the moment when you're actually with your loved ones.

8. Administrivia

Bureaucracy is a necessary evil, even if it's anathema to most entrepreneurs. Whether you're the boss running a huge organization or simply a person trying to be more productive while at the same time keeping up to date on your TPS reports, these are prime opportunities to hand off make-work to others.

"You wouldn't want to delegate [a] business proposal...but you definitely should delegate that expense report," Cohen says.

9. Anything you've procrastinated doing

This list is by nature incomplete, and I'm sure you can think of many other examples. One of the most revealing tests, however, is whether you've dreaded doing something or put off addressing it. Is it worth it to you to have someone else to do it, while you focus on more productive tasks? If so, hand it off. If not, maybe you can just cross if off your list anyway.

"Really productive people are great at outsourcing, to the point that they're doing only the stuff they love and excel at," Cohen says.

http://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/9-things-really-productive-people-refuse-to-do.html?cid=sf01002