Telephone Excellence by Mike Mitchell

Once a Day Self Improvement
By Mike Mitchell

We all have areas in our lives in which we want to improve. These may be small things that annoy and frustrate us about ourselves or major obstacles to overcome in our personal lives and professional careers. Can you identify a few of those in your life? What are you doing to make improvements?

The key to all improvement is taking a few simple steps: make a commitment, design a plan (divide major goals into smaller tasks), and allocate a few minutes a day to work toward your goals.

Self Improvement Goals:
Think of the novice high jumper on a track and field team. The athlete doesn't start by setting the bar at six feet or higher. As any coach knows, the bar must be set at the right height so that clearing the bar requires effort but is not impossible. As the jumper succeeds with the lower bars, he gains confidence to progress to more difficult heights.

Setting the bar at an unrealistic height initially would doom the beginner to failure and frustration. Like a young athlete, we must set self improvement goals that require effort but are attainable.

Some common target areas for improvement that I've observed are:
* Time management (making the best use of every moment)
* Organization of the environment (desk, office, home, etc.)
* Organization of the mind (making decisions, creating reports, delegating tasks, etc.)
* Public speaking (universally the biggest fear of almost everyone)
* Communication (with executives, peers, staff and customers)
* Procrastination (intentional delay of beginning or completing a task)

Create Your Action Plan:
We can all improve those negative characteristics or situations if we do a little improvement every day. For instance, if your cluttered desk and office creates a negative and unprofessional impression on your staff and visitors, create an action plan identifying daily tasks to improve the appearance and functionality.

Monday (30 min.) - clean out and organize top left desk drawer

Tuesday (45 min.) - sort magazines on credenza/cut out relevant articles/throw away others

Wednesday (30 min.) - clean and organize top right desk drawer

Thursday (30 min.) - sort and file paperwork on top of desk (in newly organized drawers!)

Friday (15 min.) dust desk, chairs, and picture frames

Easy Does It:
When one of your daily tasks has been completed, resist the urge to start the next one even if you have not used the full amount of time allocated. Since you have put a realistic daily plan in place, stick to it. If you start a new task and don't finish it, you could become frustrated. This is where your daily commitment is most important. The objective of Once a Day Self Improvement is to produce ongoing and observable results with minimal impact on your daily work schedule.

Pass It On:
Remember that a commitment, a plan, and a little time each day can produce real results more quickly than you might imagine. As you improve in one of your target areas, you will gain confidence and look forward to 'raising the bar' in other target areas. Once you've mastered this daily technique of self improvement in your target areas, share it with your staff or co-workers.

-Mike