It’s been a few days since the Brian Tracy seminar. What seems to have stuck the most are the concepts of “relentless”, and “how”. It seems to be slowly making a difference in my internal mental chatter.

I’ve been using relentless in my mental chatter while thinking about what to do. For example, “Is this in line with a relentless pursuit of my weight loss goals?”, or “What can I do now to relentlessly pursue my web site goals?” This seems to have put a new twist to those types of thoughts.

I’ve been using the concept of “how” to adjust mental chatter mostly around my goals from the previously (stated it in the present) “I’ve lost 40 pounds…” to “How do I adjust my eating and exercise today to move me closer to losing 40 pounds”. The “how” gets me out of the future and into the present and now. It reminds me that there are things to do right now to bring me closer to my goals.

I like seeing how some simple concepts can make a difference. One of my friends was challenging me on my decision to attend another time management training. I’ll admit that I have been to quite a few and I do read a bunch on the topic of time management, goals, and success. However, I discovered that I’m still learning something new. I’m still making new distinctions, finding new ways to apply a tip or a trick. Sometimes, something makes more sense after that 10th time.

Being a parent, I know that I’m still trying to teach my kids the same thing that I’ve been trying to teach them for years. My kids must have heard some of my favorite nags 100 to 200 times by now.

I guess that’s just being relentless, and how.

I attended Brian Tracy’s “Performing at Your Best” seminar, yesterday. It was presented using Microsoft’s Live Meeting technology which allows you to call into a conference call and have a shared Powerpoint presentation displayed to you over the web with a few features for interactivity and feedback.

Brian Tracy is one of the big guns in the world of Time Management, Life management, and success. It was one of the larger audiences that I had seen at just under 600 participants. Brian discussed his approach to life and success in a common sense style that was rather effective. I particularly liked some of the goals that he suggests. Double your income and double your time off. Offering some key goals differs from other presenters that usually just discuss the importance of goals and the mechanics of how to create them. I plan to personalize these goals to fit with my life, but I liked the foundation for them.

Another key take-away was the need to get clarity. The ability to be clear on your goals, your priorities, and your plans, will allow you to apply effective time management skills to move you in the proper direction. It’s difficult to be effective without having a clear direction. At this point, he told us to write down 10 goals. Then pick the most important goal from that list of 10. And finally, focus our thoughts on how we are going to achieve that goal and take immediate action. The real secret of effectiveness is the ability to focus your thoughts and actions on that most important goal until you complete it.

Prior to this seminar I had a few goals defined. I had been reviewing my goals on a regular basis. I wasn’t seeing the results that I had hoped for. I would say that my missing link was the daily focus on how to achieve my most important goal and taking regular, relentless action towards it. I have always tried to be a bit more balanced, but I realize now that I should work on focusing that attention more and pursuing my goals with a more urgent, more relentless fashion. I need to put a bit more emotion into the equation as well.

Overall, I was happy with the information presented. I have a few take-aways. A few new things to work on. A new favorite word, “relentless”. If you want to review the recording of this seminar, Microsoft has an archive of previous Live Meeting Seminars. You’ll eventually see Brian Tracy’s seminar as well as seminars by other business leaders like Stephen Covey and even Donald Trump. And yes, it’s free. Microsoft is doing this to promote Live Meeting.

I have been very successful lately with my effort to keep my inbox empty. This effort started about a year ago with my first awareness of the term Getting things done and the book by David Allen.

The concept is to work your inbox efficiently until it is empty. This means deleting things that you don’t need (and deciding that quickly), filing items away as reference (if it is information that you may need later), doing the task that the item represents (request from someone) and then either filing it or deleting it, delegating it to someone to take care of (and filing it in a waiting for list), or deciding to work on it later (by creating a task or project for it in your tasks or projects list).

This does require that some other habits exist. You need to work your tasks and projects list. If you don’t work these lists and do the tasks and projects that are listed there, then adding an item to the list doesn’t help you. You also need to keep track of your delegated tasks to make sure they are done. Doing this will ensure that people that you delegate to know that you are serious about them completing the tasks.

That’s it. I try to not make it more complicated than that. What about priorities? What about goals? What about values? Yes, those things are important. They are part of the internal decision making process that helps me decide what to do on my lists. I do actively manage those, but not at the same day-to-day level as my inbox and tasks.

Get the book. One of the more powerful messages is that we don’t manage time, we manage what we do. Time management and goals management is all about deciding what to do, what actions to take. Taking my inbox to empty allows me to get the best picture of what I still need to do and then doing the best possible task next.