Day 4 of my Thought Makeover could likely be one of the most significant pieces of advice anyone could receive to improve productivity and stay focused.

Dr. Schaefer bases his Five Things List on the wisdom of Earl Nightingale. Nightingale once provided an idea to a client that so impressed him, he subsequently sent him a $25,000 check! The idea — make a list of your highest priorities every day, and don’t stop until you’ve finished each item subsequently. Schaefer notes that by creating a list of your five most important priorities every morning you can stay focused and ready to produce your most efficient work.

This concept makes perfect sense, but is also going to be the most difficult for me. I’m a “fly by the seat of my pants” gal, and work the best (relatively speaking) when I have several things to work on at once. I’ve always been known to have at be working on at least 1/2 dozen projects at once. For most people this would drive them insane, but for me the variability is what keeps me focused.

However, there are so many things in my day that could be improved if I followed this simple rule. I’m certain my efficiency would go up 100 fold so I’m going to try to incorporate this into my schedule every day.

An now, only on day four, I’m beginning to realize that I need to track some of these things a bit more, so they all get incorporated. So I’ll add to this list each day to try to track them. Here’s what I have so far:

General Concepts:
1) Have positive, feel-good items around you each day

Daily Things to Do:
1) Listen to a learning CD each morning while you shower, and on your way to work (for me, these are both the same LOL)
2) Each night, develop a list of 5 high priority items and, starting from the top, work on each item until it is finished, then move to the next one. The next day, start from the top and don’t move to the next item until the first one is completed, and on down the list.

Now to comment on yesterday, I changed my audio selection. Instead of Tolle’s pick I chose to listen to 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself, by Steve Chandler. I will tell you this really works! I listened to the first CD several times first thing in the morning while I was working. The positive attitude was a welcome beginning to my day!

With that, here is today’s laugh pick: