ScLoHo's Collective Wisdom

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Prepare, Limits, and Sleep

Ok, three different subjects that are related.

1. Prepare. Years ago, (around 20) when I was working in Detroit, I came across Harvey MacKay and a book he wrote about swimming with sharks. Get it, Read it, Use what you can out of it. For a sample of his material get a copy of his MacKay 66 off his site and use it.

2. Limits. Recently a co-worker came to me and confessed fellings of being overwhelmed by the number of meetings we have. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that feeling of "overwhelmedness" will occur, no matter how prepared any of us become. So the key is to know what limits you are going to set for yourself. All successful and unsuccessful people have the same 24 hours a day to spend. Some of us have more "free time" than others. But the time we don't have "free are due to choices that we have made. I have a Dale Carnegie class that takes 4 hours once a week, plus all the prep time. My employment keeps me busy anywhere from 50 to 70 hours weekly. Yet, I place limits on what I will do and try to make the best choices based on goals in my life and the lives of others.

3.Sleep. How much do you really need? Why? How much sleep do you get? Take a simple test that goes like this: Go to bed and wake up the next day on your own, without an alarm. Do not drink, or take anything that would cause the results to vary. Count the hours and minutes and that is your maximum sleep time. You can survive on less, much less. However, you need to also feel refreshed and recharged, so if 7 is your maximum, don't try and survive on 4. The most important point I want to make is don't use sleep as an excuse, instead know yourself and your bodies sleep requirement and then use that as a tool not as a limiting factor in your life.