How To Double Your Results And Actually Work LESS

A few weeks ago, the Tony Robbins’ team called me up to do a follow-up webinar for their elite New Money Masters clients.

(BRAG ALERT! Tony recently interviewed me as part of his DVD series on the world’s leading marketing and lifestyle experts. It was hands-down, one of the coolest experiences ever.)

Anyway, when I got the call from his team, I was in the midst of some back-to-back travel, retreat planning and about 5 other important projects.

But despite having a full plate, of course, I said “Heaallls yeah!” to Tony’s crew.

I spoke with Matt, Tony’s V.P of Sales to clarify objectives and confirm a time for the next day to review what I was going to present.

In my excitement, I didn’t realize my afternoon was already booked, which means I only had 4 hours the next morning to create my slide presentation before our appointment to review.

You see, I normally take a lot more time to produce webinar content. I’m a bit of a perfectionist so often I spend hours, over several days, refining my content before I feel it’s ready to present.

Well this time, I put myself in a pickle.

There was no “several days” to work on this content. I had to produce high-quality, high-value content, fast.

That next morning was intense. I planted my buns on the couch for 4 hours and did not move. Every cell of my body was focused and on task.

We had the review as planned and a few hours later, I delivered the live webinar to their top-tier clients.

The result? Matt told me it was one of the best webinars they’ve hosted and that I officially “raised the bar for delivering high-value and fun.”

Now before you think this is one big ‘look-at-how-awesome-I- am-fest’, here’s my point.

Most of us entrepreneurs have a habit of working on stuff way longer than we need to.

We can often spend days, weeks, and months slaving over our creations. Why?

Because we forget to about our trusty little friend, Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted.

Translation: You give yourself a week to make a video intro for your website, you’ll likely take a week, or 12, to do it.

Now imagine this. If Oprah called and said, “Hey! We just had a cancellation on this Friday’s show. But in order to book you, my producers need to see a 3 minute video within the hour.”

You think it would take you a week to shoot that video? Of course not! You’d whip out your little Flip Video so fast it would smoke and leave streaks.

If the Tony Robbin’s crew would have given me three weeks to create content for a webinar, I would’ve spent three weeks thinking about it, worrying about it, tweaking it and I’ll bet it wouldn’t have been nearly as good.

Here’s the deal. When you’re up against a wall to complete a task, your genius gets focused like a laser beam. All that juicy, delicious and magical creativity inside you funnels directly into the task at hand.

Bottom line?

We have the capacity to produce great work in so much less time than we think.

Take a look for yourself. I’ll bet you have tons of examples in your own business and life where you had to get something done – fast – and killed it.

The real trick is learning how to consciously and deliberately create this kind of focused momentum.  First, we need to get intimate with our little old friend Mr. Parkinson and remember that work does expand to the time allotted.

These next four steps take it from there.

1. Outside Accountability.

Most of us are way better at getting things done for others vs. doing things for ourselves. If that’s true for you, use that insight to your advantage. Promise someone. Pay someone. Go public with an announcement. Put some kind of real accountability in place so you have to get it done.

2. Clear Time Frames.

Have a clear, specific time and date by which you must deliver the goods AND have a set amount of time to do the work. “In a few weeks” or “It’ll take a couple of hours” doesn’t cut the mustard.

The more specific you are, the better your chances are of knocking it out quickly and on time.

3.  Zero Distractions.

This is HUGE. No distractions or interruptions allowed during creation time.  No texting, tweeting, emailing, phoning, surfing the interwebs or straying off task. Peeing is permitted. If you need to get outside help or research, keep it short and to the point. Stay uber focused.

4. No Fail Attitude.

This is actually the most important aspect of all: your belief in yourself. You really can do whatever you set your mind to. You’re a genius. A star. And way more capable than your chattering little mind likes to give you credit for.

Don’t give yourself any room to panic, complain or have a meltdown. No drama. No B.S. No cryin’ for mama. Just sit down and do the work.

When you follow these steps, you can easily double your results while working much less.

CONFESSION:  Now don’t get all crazy and think I bang stuff out like this everyday. I can’t be this hardcore all the time. I’d get totally fried. But I do my best to practice regularly. Kind of like a productivity workout to build my speed and stamina. And when loads of projects have to get done, this is how I roll.

Now take a look at your own business and life.

What’s one profitable task that’s been on your list for a while that you’re ready to tackle?

What’s ONE thing that you’d love to knock out fast? How can you proactively use these four steps to cut your task time in half or in a third?

Leave a comment and let me know. And if you have any good stories, tips or ideas to share on this topic, share them too.