The vital two rules to make your new self control much more smartly productive!

(To see the entire post, click on the title of the post.)

Here is a vital excerpt from The Self Control Book that I am in the process of writing (and growing from, while actually seeing what works).

The value of this key point is immense, if you heed it.  (Pass this post on to others that you think this would be of value for - see the little letter symbol right below this post.)

SELF-CONTROL AND THE PRODUCTIVITY RULES

As discussed, self control is the directing of the energy needed to get what is wanted (or needed).  And, of course, it is critical/vital/essential that you have clarity over where and how to direct the energy.  

The “where” is toward the thing wanted.  But the how matters incredibly.  I can go the effortful way or I can go the “least effortful for results” way.

Wouldn’t it be a waste to not direct one’s energy the best way to get more of what is wanted?  

Of course.

So…

Though many people have seen a demonstration of the idea that one must put into the time “jar” first the big rocks (high value things) and then, after that, put in the next biggest size rocks, and so on until the jar is filled up, they often do not run their lives that way - and thus they get far less value out of life - and I do mean “far, far, far less”.  

In terms of long term planning, most people “get the idea”, but it gets lost on a day to day basis.

And, yes, we do need some self control to follow the rules, but to not effectively direct our energy is belying our ultimate goal, of having our “energy” actually being applied effectively (see The Power Formulas To Have High Personal Power You Must Do These) to get the “effect” (result) that we want.  

So, your two key rules, though you should study Productivity much more (since that will get you more of what you want in life), are:

Rule #1.  Strictly, highly conscientiously start your day off with what has the highest payoff, and then the next highest payoff and then the next and so forth.  (See “Big Rocks and Parkinson’s Law” in Importance Versus Urgency and The Extraordinary Value Of Golden Time - use it wisely or the gold is lost forever!)

Then, and only then (!!!!), you look and see what time is left over for the small things. And you’ll notice alot of small thing go into oblivion, because they are simply not worth doing!  By the time you get through a good part of the day, it becomes clearer that you can’t do everything by the time you get to the little things - and then you learn that you must have originally been smoking marijuana in your thinking that you could ever do so many things “of interest”.   

Most people, however, use “the times when they have the highest ability to harvest results” for other lower value things and then they run out of time for what is important!  You must use your new self control to “strictly” follow this rule, with no interruptions (minimal), no distractions, no working on anything of less importance than the most impactful thing you can work on.  Note that this is also what the most successful people on the planet do - without it they could not possibly succeed anywhere close to where they are.  

Following this rule has a far greater effect than a very high IQ or even a high level of knowledge.  You cannot NOT FOLLOW this rule if you want to have the greatest life!!!!

Rule #2.  Make sure there is sufficient time for “good recovery” and that it is scheduled in and strictly adhered to.  It is, you must realize, absolutely essential for well functioning, which in turn is necessary for “well harvesting” and getting the results you want in life.   Because of this we classify it in the category of the highest importance in life.  Learn to optimally spread it out during the day for the maximum benefit.  (See Energy And Rest Cycles - Part Of Reality, To Be Honored and Energy Management.)

If you aren’t doing those two things, you are not smartly exercising your self control.  You must learn it to reach full adult power!!   

[For me, I had allowed the practice of using the morning for “creative exploring and thinking”, wherein I’d review, make notes on, etc., the ideas from the resources I received email from.  While this was “fun” to some extent, I was spending my gold on stuff that was easily doable with less energy later and doing it later helped me see that I simply wouldn’t have time for much of it, so I saved all that wasted time taking notes for follow up or making notes on stuff that I would never do. (I was buying, or creating, a “gold mine” of information, but never getting around to mine it… yikes!)  

Kind of a “Duh!” but it took me awhile to wrestle my lower self to the ground and to retrain that self.  When I did, I had approximately two more “gold” hours a day and I made alot more progress on my top projects!   Just staying present and focusing intentionally required little effort, once I got used to it, for enormous gains. (I had to stick  in my schedule, at the right time slot, “DO NOT WASTE THIS TIME!  NO EMAILS!!!!”, until it was no longer needed after I’d done it every day for a month! I even used a golden yellow color for the time slot, Google Calendar.)

Having done this regularly and reliably for a number of weeks, I found that I could be pretty relaxed about the rest of my day, as it didn’t need to be managed as astutely - I felt that I had already had a great day and accomplished 80-90% of the value for the day - by noon!]