Discover The High Performance "Time" Secret That Will Change Your Life.

Why is it that so many of us have major ambitions for the future and yet - despite having an abundance of drive, motivation and inspiration – we look back in 12 months’ time and realise that we’re in almost exactly the position...

A whole year passes by and although working hard and putting in solid hours, we’ve moved not one inch closer to those goals and aspirations that we know deep down are surely within our grasp…

Without change, it’s not long before those months turn into years, years turn into decades and decades turn into, well – a life not lived to the fullest.

Which also begs the question, why is it that some of us DO go on to achieve our wildest ambitions, live the life we always dreamed of and seem to possess some sort of almost magical power or hidden secret that separates them from most everyone else?

In this article, I’ll share what I believe to be one of the most fundamental “secrets” that separates some of the most super-successful, high performance people on the planet from the rest of us – past, present and future – and how you can start taking advantage of it from today.

There are thousands of hours, perhaps millions, invested daily into browsing the internet looking for the magic bullet to a life of fast cars and luxury villas.

I for one hold my hands up and admit that over the years I’ve contributed my own fair share of hours researching.

And there are equally as many books, courses, seminars and videos that preach the keys to success – filled with neatly defined characteristics, strategies and attributes that if you adopt and commit to, guarantee you’ll find riches.

Sometimes, we’re so busy looking for the all illusive “silver bullet” that the most-simple of practices, concepts that have been known and practiced for thousands of years, pass us by totally unnoticed.

The concept I’d like to talk about today is……..time.

I know…

It’s nothing revolutionary, earth-shattering or something you probably didn’t already know.

These things rarely are.

But by the end of this article, you’ll realise that how you spend your time is perhaps one of the most important indicators of how far you’ll get.

After all, we all have the same 24 hours – Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos……the list goes on.

Every single one of us gets the same 24 hours every day, it’s the great equaliser that will always remain constant.

However, it’s how we spend those 24 hours that counts.

So let’s see if we can figure out where you should be spending more of yours.

The “Four Quadrants” system was popularised by Stephen Covey in his world-famous book on high performance, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, and I believe this to be a simple but extremely effective way of compartmentalising our daily activities and figuring just where we should be focusing more.

Here it is in all its glory:

The activities we’re partaking in every moment of every day fall into one of these four quadrants.

I’m not going to go in to too much detail about what’s involved in each one, in respect of your own time, I’ll get down to business and share the secret right here, right now.

Are you ready?

Spend as much time as possible in Quadrant……………………………

2.

That’s it - did you get it right?

That’s what the Elon Musks, Warren Buffets and Bill Gates of this world worked out a long time ago and that’s why they get so much more done.

It’s also known as the quadrant of “effectiveness”.

Unfortunately, unless we make a conscious decision not to, we almost all spend 99% of our time in the other 3 quadrants, never finding the time to dip our toes into Q2 and work on the things that REALLY matter.

Our lives are so busy and we’re so focused on getting lots of “stuff” done to appear productive that the activities, tasks and habits that we KNOW we should be doing get consistently pushed to the bottom of the pile until they become a distant memory.

I’m willing to bet that right now, there’s something you’ve been meaning to do for a long, long time that you know is good for you – but you just won’t (notice how I used “won’t” instead of “can’t”) find the time to do it.

Let me give you some examples.

Hitting ambitious goals and becoming successful is simple.

It’s not easy, but it’s simple.

I take my private clients through an extremely effective and powerful framework to get laser focused on where they’re heading with a solid blueprint to get them there - but in its’ simplest form, it goes like this;

1. First, you decide on your goal.

2. Then you reverse engineer it and break it down into bitesize actions.

3. You schedule the time to work the plan.

4. You execute on the plan.

5. You review progress and make any necessary adjustments.

All of these activities belong in Q2, and are just a small sample of what else goes on in there.

In fact, working out what your Q2 activities are is itself an exercise that belongs in there – it takes time, which can be painful in the short-term.

But over the long-term, the ROI is exponential.

These tasks and high performance activities aren’t “urgent” because they don’t HAVE to be done right this moment – we can always find something more pressing to take up our time and make us feel useful.

But they’re perhaps the most valuable investment of our time we can make.

So, let me ask you this…

When did you last spend any quality time working on any of those activities above?

Whether it’s career goals, financial goals, business goals, family goals, sports goals – anything that you want to achieve in life.

The answer for perhaps 95% of the population is, never.

And then we wonder why we end up so far off.

Now think about how much time you spend in Q1 – Important and Urgent.

Answering important phone calls, last minute preparations, firefighting, dealing with a crisis.

For busy business owners, entrepreneurs and CEOs - this is where most of us seem to spend a large proportion of our time.

What about Q3 – Not Important and Urgent.

Replying to emails, pointless meetings, distractions, interruptions.

Things that if left undone, would really make no difference to your business or success whatsoever. And yet we feel compelled to react as quickly as possible.

And then there’s Q4 – Not Important and Not Urgent.

How much time do you spend watching Netflix, surfing the internet, reading the news, scrolling through social media, gossiping and chatting – the things we like to do, but live in the quadrant of “waste”.

The solution here is simple.

High performance people spend more time in Quadrant 2.

It’s all very well understanding the concept, but how can you apply it?

Again, the answer is simple – but not easy.

You simply HAVE to make time.

That’s it.

That IS the silver bullet.

You have to make time in your schedule to spend as much of your day as possible in Quadrant 2.

Unless you’re able to add more hours into your day – this is the ONLY way.

I know what you’re thinking.

“I don’t have time”.

Same answer for everyone.

So, let me ask you another question.

If on Tuesday morning you had to deal with some sort of family or personal emergency and it meant you were a couple of hours late in to work – would you still get finished up on time?

If you’re honest with yourself, I’d hazard a guess that you probably would, or at least near enough.

Have you heard of “Parkinson’s Law”?

It states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.

Basically meaning, however much we have to do in a certain day, it will usually take us the whole day to do it.

I’d be willing to be that if you scheduled (so long as you have the authorisation to do so) a couple of hours each morning into your diary, or the time of day when you feel most energised and productive, to work on your main priority or goals - you’d still be able to get everything else done too.

And that’s when you really start to see the magic happen.

When you become disciplined enough to focus on your goals daily, you start to generate some incredible momentum that builds and builds and builds until it just becomes a part of who you are.

That’s when you start to see those goals becoming reality right in front of your eyes.

That’s when you know you’ve figured out what most people never do.  

It all starts with working out where you SHOULD be spending more time.

What are the Q2 activities you know will take you towards your goals and designing the life that you’ve known is out there for the taking?

Next, grab your diary or pull up your calendar on your phone and schedule in as much time as you can, daily.

Then commit to it, stay disciplined to it and during that time do not focus on anything else, because in the long run, it really won’t matter.

If you’re ambitious, driven and have some BIG goals to strive for – I can help.

Ambitious CEOs, Business Owners and Entrepreneurs hire me to help them become true high performers, achieve their major life and business goals and become the best versions of themselves

If any of what we’ve talked about today resonates with you, I invite you to get in touch to see if you qualify for a FREE, 2 hour High Performance Strategy Session.

It lands firmly in Quadrant 2 and I guarantee it will be two of the best hours you’ve invested in yourself and your future in a long time.

If you’re serious about high performance and know you’re capable of more – Q2 is where it starts.

You can do it.

Understand what it means for your future.

Understand what it will mean for those around you when you get there.

And just make it happen – make every moment count.

Stay energised, stay focused, get out there and take what you deserve!

To your continued success,

Benjamin