A few days ago, I came across this great article by Andy Jenkins & Mike Filsaime. I wanted to share it with all of you because it brings up some insightful points that have an impact on families who are preparing for college and beyond.
Willpower, the ability to make smart decisions, and productivity affect ALL aspects of the College Planning/Funding process.
Enjoy ...
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THESIS:
We (Us Human Folk) only get a tiny bit of WILLPOWER each day. We then SPEND those bits of Willpower with EVERY decision we make.
What happens once we've spent all of our Willpower on making decisions?
Turns out that when we run out of Willpower, we FALL BACK on the last decision we made when we had Willpower.
How Bad Decisions Reinforce Themselves
So, if you decided to eat crap for breakfast, it's likely that when you're out of willpower, you will again decided to eat crap for lunch or dinner.
How Bad Habits Remove Intelligent Decision Capabilities
When you decide to check email first thing in the morning, you're spending Willpower even DECIDING what emails to read or not - and then you've got to decide how to respond. And then, YOU Agenda for the day has now been influenced by the decisions you've made because of your Inbox.
Why Interruptions and Multitasking is "Deadly"
When there is an interruption - you have to spend Willpower Points to deal with that Drama… and then spend MORE Willpower Points -- to get back on Track!
We Think Decisions Cost Nothing.
It's weird - right? I mean - we track our TIME. We track our physical resources, like currency, space, and even other's resources.
But we don't ever seems to track our CAPACITY to make intelligent decisions. And the danger is that capacity is not UNLIMITED.
And we've all probably been spending Willpower like teenager in a mall with a brand new credit card who hasn't considered that there WILL eventually be a PAYMENT required from that shopping spree.
Being INTENTIONALLY PRODUCTIVE.
Checking Email makes you feel Busy.
Posting to Facebook makes you feel Connected.
Instant Message makes you feel in Control.
Reading Industry News or Blog Posts makes you feel Informed.
But it's not Productive. It only FEELS that way - because you're DOING something, but...
...That SOMETHING may NOT being doing ANYTHING for you.
The KEY to Productivity
Spending your Limited Willpower on the Decisions that will have BIG RESULTS in your Business - and in your life.
Here's how:
Step 1 - You Set the Agenda for Every Day.
Don't do or look at anything that could influence you in the beginning of your day. Set your agenda with a full bank of Willpower.
Step 2 - So that you do NOT spend Willpower on the wrong decisions, develop HABITS to Deal with stuff you don't want to spend Willpower on.
Make your Check Lists. Make your Standard Operating Procedures. Create Your Process Trees - and practice them so you can do them WITHOUT Thinking - without making anything more than the most rudimentary decision.
You know that fun little rumor about Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein, even Mark Zuckerberg having a very limited wardrobe to choose from - so that they didn't waste brain power on making decisions that would help them achieve?
I wonder…if thats why….they did that?
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Remember, we at Ensphere can help YOU and your friends be more productive and achieve better College Planning/Funding results.
Mike Giffin, President
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