Time is like capital. You can't let someone steal your seed corn,
you can't let someone steal your capital, and you can't let someone steal your time.
So impose on yourself this self development of being in charge,
taking charge of your life and your health and your future
and your responsibilities and all the rest.
Reasonable time is enough time to achieve all of your goals,
just write that down, reasonable time is enough time.
Here's why, it's not the hours you put in, it's what you put in the hours.
If you start depositing greater ideas into the hours you've got later than now,
I'm telling you later you can't believe the productivity that will flow.
The ideas you can't think of now, a year from now they'll start to flow
and when you deposit those ideas in the hours you've got
productivity multiplies by two, three, five, ten.
And then do priorities on your goals, what's important this week, what's
important this month? Here's the next one.
Often review, just go over your goals to make sure that your list is working for you, it's got you
inspired, it's got you turned on. Here's another big one,
learn to say no. I'm telling you,
in such a social society we have now it's so easy to try to be a nice
person saying, “yes, yes, yes”, to everything, find yourself overloaded, now you got to call,
“well, gosh you know…”, all the time it takes to back out of something
that you said yes to too quickly. Here's what might be better,
“I don't think so, but if that changes I'll call you”.
Little things you can use not to overcommit yourself.
My friend Ron Reynolds says, “don't let your mouth overload your back”.
It's a good one. Now, here's a big one on time management.
When you work, work, when you play, play, don't mix the two.
Don't work at play, I used to take my family to the
beach and I would bring my briefcase. Here is what I learned to do,
at the beach, be at the beach, at the office, be at the office,
when you work, work, when you play, play, don't mix the two.
Don't work at play,
now here's one of the most important ones, don't play at work, work is too serious.
I'm telling you, you've got to be serious about work
because you're parting with a piece of your life for the work you do.
Your work cost you a piece of your life, here's what it's called, serious business.
Not grim, not unhappy, but serious. You got to work with all due conservative passion
because it's leading you to your future. Here's another key phrase, all work is good.
You may not like your job, but if it's the stepping stones
to get you to where you want to go you got to appreciate your job,
you don't have to have a passion for your job.
Here's the ultimate passion, the passion for incredible success
in every department of my life, that's the passion.
But don't look down on some menial job you have to do
to finally get you to where you want to go, no job is menial,
every job is noble. Training life
for pay, making a contribution to society.
Next, beware of the telephone and all other systems of communication,
especially the telephone at home and systems of communication at home.
And here's one of the best lines I've got for you for the weekend,
let all communication system serve you, but don't let them intrude.
When it comes time to have dinner with your family, you shut off all systems,
unless the ones that can take messages silently. Don't let the phone ring.
Don't let anybody intrude, come through the front door nor the back door,
nor through the telephone or any other device.
So you can't reach John and his family when he's having dinner,
the president of the United States couldn't get through,
if you develop that kind of reputation, father, mother.
When we have dinner, when we're visiting
and have this time with our family, nothing intrudes.
So don't let these clever little devices keep intruding.
You've got to have, a place that’s sacrosanct, that’s valuable,
you don't let anything in for that period of time. Now here's what's next.
Just be more alert to the things that might be stealing your time.
Here's why. Time is like capital.
You can't let someone steal your seed corn, you can't let someone steal your capital,
and you can't let someone steal your time. You must designate your time
and some of the time that you designate you must not let anyone steal.
Casual time, you might let someone intrude and steal a little bit
and take a little bit, but not serious time. Next, learn to think on paper.
Some ways to think on paper, one, we've covered one,
solving problems, take it out of your head and put it on paper.
Another one is setting goals, making these lists we've already started.
Here's another good way to think on paper, it's a projects book.
Each person you're working with and each project you're working on
get a loose leaf binder and a tab and some pieces of paper behind the tab
and do a little continual summary of how it's going between you and that person
and between you and that project. I call it a projects book, it is so useful to me.
But what's going on between you and this person? When you last got together what
did you talk about? And you got a few notes,
here's what we talked about the last time we got together.
Now, when you get together again you can review that
so you'll know better what to talk about.
When the president gets ready to travel and he's going to meet some important people,
guess what they bring him, all these briefing books.
If a person is important, it's worth a little running account.
You might even have a projects book for your children.
“Here's what's happening between me and my child, we've talked about this and
we've talked about this and we've talked about this”.
Next is a game plan. If you've got a house
and the insurance is going to come due and some other things are going to come due,
you just put it on a spreadsheet, make sure it's taken care of.
Key phrase, take things out of your head and put them on paper.
And the key is to just experiment with different ways that help you to do that.
Now, here's the last one on thinking on paper, and that's to keep a journal.
One of the things I'm known for around the world,
have been now for thirty nine forty years is keeping a journal.
But here's what primarily your journal is for, collecting good ideas.
A journal is to collect good ideas on your health, good ideas for your business,
good ideas for your future, good ideas for time management.
Because I used to take notes on pieces of paper and torn off corners and backs of old
envelopes and restaurant place mats, and I threw all this stuff in a drawer,
it did not serve me well, I finally learned to get a bound copy
and just keep a journal. If I was here, had my journal I'd
be taking notes these two days in my journal. Now, if you're caught without your journal,
you just take the notes, when you get back home
you put those notes in your journal, throw the paper away,
because we don't usually go through paper to review.
But see, my journals now make up a significant part of my own library,
my journals are all reserved privately for my children and my grandchildren,
can you imagine what I've collected over the years?
It’s unbelievable.
There are three treasures to leave behind, I think you've already got those notes right.
Here they are, number one, your pictures. Don't leave the event unrecorded,
it takes only a fraction of a second to say, “here's who I was with”.
A picture is worth a thousand words to describe the scene,
the emotion, what happened, say, ”wow, this was an extraordinary
day for me when I met these people, here's what they told me happened to them
when they went to my seminar 10 years ago”. The drama comes back if you've taken the pictures,
it's one of the treasures to leave behind when you go.
Remember the old photographs that we have now of one hundred years ago,
70, 80 years ago, just a few photographs, what would it be like if you had
thousands of photographs of the past, of your history, your mother, your father,
grandparents? So change all of that now for your children,
leave all your photographs as a record. Here's what's next
to leave behind, and that's your library. The books that changed your life,
the books that changed your health, the books that rescued you from oblivion,
the books that you passed on to other people they were so exciting for you,
the books that made you financially independent, the books that developed your leadership,
the books that gave you wisdom to ponder when things were tough,
the books that got you through the winter, the books that helped you to plant
in the spring and harvest in the fall. What a treasure to leave behind, if you do that,
here's what's for sure, your books will be more valuable than your furniture.
Now, the third treasure to leave behind is your journals.
The notes you took that helped you to live life as you lived it
long after you're gone, a treasure that children,
grandchildren and great grandchildren will find so fascinating,
they may use it to help guide their own life into their own future.