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The Master guide to overcoming procrastination as an entrepreneur

The Master guide to overcoming procrastination as an entrepreneur

Written by Ben Ivey

overcome procrastination worksheet

This worksheet shares the 5 reasons why you’re still procrastinating and exactly what to do to overcome it. 

Download now to help you have the business success you desire



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Overcome procrastination as an entrepreneur with templates, videos and resources.
Procrastinating as an entrepreneur has a negative impact on your business in many ways. Perhaps you are not dealing with unproductive employees, avoiding challenging business decisions or even wasting hours distracting yourself from the business. Yet by overcoming this negative habit, you can build your business to higher levels of profitability, success and growth.

What is procrastination?

Why do entrepreneurs procrastinate?

6 Types of Procrastination for entrepreneurs

How to stop procrastinating (step-by-step Guide)

8 Proven methods to remove the habit of procrastination

What is procrastination?

For entrepreneurs, procrastination is avoiding doing a task that is important in your business.

Why is procrastination so important to overcome?

If you know what to do but you don’t follow through, you are stunting your business growth.. It doesn’t matter how driven, organised and motivated you are. If you don’t overcome procrastination, you will waste valuable time, distracting yourself and becoming frustrated you aren’t progressing in business.

The longer you wait to overcome procrastination the worse it can become. You don’t want to look back and think why your competitors have expanded so much faster than you. You don’t want to look back in 3 years time knowing you haven’t achieved your business objectives. You don’t want to not be able to provide for your family and those that you cherish. Procrastination is not an optional habit to overcome, it is a MUST to help you grow a successful sustainable business.



Download the procrastination worksheet to overcome procrastination in record time

Why do entrepreneurs procrastinate?

Negative associations

You may procrastinate because you don’t want to do the tasks in your business. For example, you don’t want to do your accounting. When you think of accounting and numbers it causes your brain to stress. You end up doing everything else possible as opposed to looking at your numbers. The negative association you have towards accounting, prevents you from following through.

Fear of failure

You’re scared of failing. You may believe you are productive distracting yourself with books, reading and courses. Perhaps you even distract yourself with youtube videos or Netflix series as opposed to working on your business. You say to yourself that you don’t know enough, you aren’t ready yet or that you need more time. Yet, the truth is that at your core, you have a fear of failure

Abstract Goals

You set goals in your business such as: make more money or gain more clients. But without an actionable plan these are very difficult to execute on. You spend time attempting to do work yet your mind wanders onto different subjects. Without a clear focus it is easy to fall off track, as you don’t have a clear action plan to execute. If you have this challenge, check out The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting

Lack motivation

You know what you want in the future but it seems so far away that you can’t bring yourself to take action right now. You can’t seem to fathom how you could build up a business that runs without you. You don’t see the steps you have to take now and it leaves you feeling uninspired. This leads you to distract yourself with tasks that make you feel you are progressing, but the truth is you are just keeping yourself busy.

Constant distractions

In the world we live in today, it is easy to procrastinate. Would you like to work on your business plan or quickly respond to a friend who sent you a message? You have employees knocking at your door wanting guidance and emails coming through every 5 minutes. It is easy to be distracted with so many notifications continuously throughout the day

Indecisive

You want to make sure that you make the best decisions for your company. But this often leads you to take a very long time to make important decisions. Your indecisiveness means that you can’t make hard decisions quickly. Instead you distract yourself with less important tasks. You are hoping that someday in the future you can be 100% sure of the decision you need to make.

Overwhelmed

You may have tasks that you feel are too big for you to tackle. This causes you to not even start the task, as you don’t even know where to start. This feeling of paralysis can go on for days or even weeks, where a task is too daunting to do. You may even attempt to do it once, but after realising all the factors involved you avoid it all costs.

Fear of negativity

You want to make sure that everything is right before you launch your product. You worry that if something goes wrong you will receive negative press. This causes you to revisit various elements of a product until you feel it is perfect. The fear of negative criticism causes you to delay on your tasks.



Still procrastinating? Download the procrastination worksheet

The 6 types of entrepreneur procrastinators

There are 6 types of entrepreneur procrastinators. By understanding which type you are, you can more clearly identify where you need to focus to overcome your procrastination

The Avoider

This type of procrastinator struggles to build a business due to avoiding important tasks. An example you may experience is becoming obsessed with content creation and procrastinating on marketing. The root cause of your issue can be Imposter Syndrome. You are afraid of being revealed as inferior so tend to procrastinate on tasks that aren’t necessary.

The Dreamer

You believe that you shouldn’t have to do anything to be successful. Since you are great at what you do, you should be paid well for your work. You feel frustrated and become bored when you don’t do tasks that relate to your calling.

The Perfectionist

You’re too obsessed with making everything perfect. This stops you from following through on business tasks, as you are in constant planning mode. This focus on planning and avoidance of execution stems from a core belief that if it isn’t perfect then you are a failure.

The Worrier

You worry that you can’t succeed. You believe you aren’t good enough, aren’t skilled enough or it’s not the right time. This fear of not succeeding, creates a cycle where it is better not to start the task. The constant focus on failing leads you down a destructive path of self-sabotage.

Novelty Explorer

You will find that you have too many projects and often feel overwhelmed with the amount of work that you have to do. You tend to have the Shinny Penny Syndrome. You keep switching projects believing that the new one will lead to more success. Fuelled by a rush of creating business, you forget to focus on the long-term value of each business project.

Crisis creator

You need pressure to start a task. Without urgency you tend to focus on other less important tasks. You believe that you have enough time, until you don’t. This causes you to move through cycles of overworking followed by lazy procrastination.



Overcome your type of entrepreneur procrastination

How to stop procrastinating (step-by-step Guide)

Here is a quick summary of the video above:



  • Identify your type of procrastination


  • Understand why you’re procrastinating


  • Interrupt the procrastination pattern (watch the video for 3 great tips on this)


  • Install empowering alternatives


  • Use the power of business identity

If you are struggling to change your mindset to overcome procrastination, it will be due to one of these 8 reasons.



Download the overcome procrastination worksheet to remove procrastination from your life!

8 Proven methods to remove the habit of procrastination

Focus on a clear goal

You must understand what your goal is. The reason you often procrastinate is that you don’t have a clear business objectives that you are working towards. Your mind becomes side tracked onto other more interesting tasks.

You need to create a clear outcome, break it down into smaller tasks and plan them out. This will help create clear deliverables and objectives to achieve during the day. Not only does this help keep you focused but it also helps you progress even faster towards your goals. For help creating clear goals check out the The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting

Know your why

If you don’t know the reasons for you doing a task then it is difficult for you to follow through. Using our previous example of accounting, you may avoid this for as long as possible. Yet if you clarify the reasons why you need to this it can help you follow through.

Perhaps you want to save money efficiently, avoid a big tax bill or become a smarter money manager. By becoming aware of your reasons, you will be more likely follow through on your tasks.

Change your environment

You want to make it hard to procrastinate. Put your TV in a box, lock it and put the key downstairs in a jar. Put your phone on airplane mode and leave it out of sight during the time you are focusing on tasks.

It may sound ridiculous, but these methods will help you overcome procrastination. You need to recreate your environment to help remove distractions. Think about what distracts you the most and remove it from your business hours.

Focus on the next step

You often become overwhelmed in business when you take too many projects on at once. You don’t know where to start and can’t focus on the tasks you need to do. You become stressed out and often avoid doing anything altogether.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! Yes this is absurd and of course I am not encouraging you to eat elephants. However, sometimes our projects feel so big that we don’t even start. Break them down into smaller pieces and you will find it easier to manage. If you feel stuck think about this question: what is my next step?

Take regular breaks

That’s right, you need to allow a break in the day to chill out. Planned relaxation is what you can call it. Here you aren’t procrastinating as you planned not to do anything. You can’t work all the time, every minute or every hour, for the rest of your life. You need to spend 5 minutes relaxing and then move back onto your tasks.

Make sure to not create a back-to-back schedule during the day. You also want to slightly overestimate how long it will take you to complete a task. By doing this, you can take the much needed breaks or planned relaxation which you deserve!

Tackle challenging tasks first

It is easy to put the hardest tasks at the end of the day, or even the end of the week. Yet by scheduling the hardest tasks first in the day you have a clear mind to tackle them. This will help enable you to utilise the energy you have in the morning to the best of your ability.

You can then use time in the afternoon for tasks that need less energy. You can also be more flexible in your schedule as you’ve completed your hardest task of the day. Make sure you give yourself more time than you think to ensure that you complete the task in time.

Make yourself accountable

You can set deadlines for other people, but you must also set deadlines for yourself. Make sure that you state when you are going to finish your tasks and make them public to the team. To further increase your accountability, share the aims you have on your social media.

This is not something that you do once. This needs to be a regular practice that you adopt so that you can keep pushing yourself. By using accountability, you can have a clear outcome to work towards. This will help keep you on track and inspire your team with your progress.

Use time management strategies

There are various time management strategies to use to best utilise your time. You could time block your day into 1 or 2 hour segments for a specific task. You could start using the Pomodoro Technique. You could do creative tasks in the morning and meetings in the afternoon.

The key here is to create a system that works for you. You don’t need to overcomplicate it. Test a strategy that you think will work best and then see what results you can generate.

Ready to take the next step?

If you haven’t already, make sure to download the procrastination worksheet here. You will learn the 5 reasons why you’re still procrastinating in business and how to overcome them.

You will want to have support on your journey to help you overcome procrastination even faster. If you haven’t already do check out the Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator. This program will help you overcome procrastination, improve your business growth and create the freedom you desire.



CHECK OUT THE ENTREPRENEUR LIFESTYLE ACCELERATOR

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April 17, 2020 by

Why entrepreneurs often feel overwhelmed in their lives?

The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting

Written by Ben Ivey

Feeling overwhelmed is very common for entrepreneurs.

It is no secret that entrepreneurs often work 60-hour weeks. This constant focus on the business with all the tasks at hand can often be stressful.

When you have to manage one business that is hard enough. Yet, many business owners I’ve worked with have many businesses in different markets.

It’s not hard to imagine the amount of sheer volume of work that can often be overwhelming to them. Yet despite this, there are some entrepreneurs who don’t struggle with overwhelm. What do they do different?

Below you will uncover a variety of factors causing your overwhelm and exactly what to do to overcome it.

1. Set too high expectations

Many entrepreneurs have high expectations of themselves and their teams. These expectations often cause overwhelm as you attempt to live up to them.

It is ironic that often this pressure you put on yourself is so high, that you end up procrastinating. The very expectations you set actually cause you to fear not being able to reach them.

If this resonates with you, then you most likely have a tendency to be a perfectionist. This is great in that you pay attention to detail, aim to get things right first time and never want to fail.

Yet, when it comes to your own expectations you will always fall short. No one can reach perfection.

The solution: Take steps to overcome perfectionism by watching : how to stop being a perfectionist:

This will give you the exact steps you need to take to overcome your tendency to want everything to be perfect.

2. Focusing on the fear

Fear of failure,
Fear of not being good enough
Fear of not being able to provide for your family

These are a few fears of many, that business owners I have worked with face. It’s this fear above all else that makes entrepreneurs feel stressed.

When you focus on the fear it often gets worse. This leads you down a negative spiral of emotions.

The hardest part about this, is that the very circumstances you fear often become a reality. The mind can’t tell the difference between imagination and reality. This is where self-sabotage kicks in.

For example, have you ever told an employee to not screw up a presentation. Then what happens? They completely mess up the presentation!

In their mind, they are thinking don’t screw up; don’t make a mistake. This fear when focused on too much actually creates the exact results that they fear most.

It’s no wonder that entrepreneurs focusing on their fears feel overwhelmed.

The solution: You must learn to direct your mind as opposed to allowing it to control you.

This is one of the key modules we cover in the Entrepreneur’s Lifestyle Accelerator.

3. Meeting the expectations of others.

It’s not your own expectations that causes overwhelm, but also the expectations of others. These can be from your investors, share holders, and employees, to name a few.

This becomes magnified into a feeling of overwhelm if you have a tendency to want to please other people. It is a great recipe for disaster.

People pleasing is a great skill when everyone agrees. But, often there are conflicts of interest in your business. If you please one side, it will disappoint another.

For a person that is a pleaser there is nothing more overwhelming in life than these double binds. You will often feel paralysed in your decision-making as you have no idea what to do.

You feel that you are letting people down. You are losing control of the business and you aren’t being the leader you want to be. This in turn can lead to even more unwanted negative emotions.

Solution: You must learn to let go of people pleasing

There are many struggles of being a people pleaser and some exact steps to take to overcome it. Learn about these steps in the 8 lifestyle blocks, preventing your business success.

4. You have no me time

If you are working on the business 24/7 then you won’t have time for yourself.

You don’t have time to unwind, distress and detach from the business. This is even more common now due to us being able to access one another in a click of a button.

When issues arise, people can immediately get hold of you. This can cause you to work over time, which causes a lot of imbalance in your life.

You are working on weekends, interrupted at dinners and leave activities early. You do all this, to deal with crisis in the business.

Although this can be a must on the odd occasion, in the long term it creates a much larger issue.

The business becomes dependent on you. This will cause you to burn out.

Solution: You must create your ideal entrepreneur lifestyle.

You need a clear vision for what you want your lifestyle to be like as you run the business in the future. This helps you maintain a profitable business, whilst also taking time off. For more resources on this check out the Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator

5. Health deteriorating

Have you chosen to prioritise your business over your health? If you are like thousands of other entrepreneur’s I have met, my guess is yes. You believe that you don’t have time to work out and prioritise health because you have a business to run!

You some exercise but you most of your time is working. You are in meetings, travelling and expanding the business. The issue that arises is this also leads to overwhelm.

If you do not prioritise your health, you will start to think slower. You will have a lower tolerance of stress, and be inefficient in your business.

I am guessing you want to create sustainable business success without burning out? Then your health MUST be a priority

If you could pay for your team to be 30% more productive how much would you pay? My guess is A LOT of money.

By starting to prioritise your health as a leader you will improve your business not 30% but much, much more.

The business will improve, you will be in a better mood and you’ll even have more sleep! Even more important, you’ll have less stress, anxiety and overwhelm.

Solution: Prioritise your health

Read more about prioritising health and maintaining energy throughout the day here: How to maintain energy throughout the day as an entrepreneur

6. No system to help organise yourself

If you don’t have a system, you will experience overwhelm as an entrepreneur.

You are living in reaction without a system to organise yourself. This means that day-to-day you spend time putting out fires in your business. You are responding, as opposed to working on long term business expansion.

There are so many different projects, ideas as well issues that occur when running a business. Yet most business owners store everything they need to do in their minds. Do you do the same thing?

You remember everything you need to do in your head. You write some items down but your list keeps changing. You feel like you never get a break to actually organise everything you need to.

You feel like you are being pulled in many directions.

You are not alone. 83% of business owners spend the majority of their time living in reaction too.

Yet, just because most business owners feel overwhelmed, doesn’t mean you have to be this way too.

Solution: Create a system that works for you.

Don’t attempt to use a system that you can’t adapt to your circumstances. For a system for entrepreneurs, check out the Ultimate Life Management System.

7. Feel you can do everything

Do you ever find that employees aren’t as efficient as you? You may have attempted to give them tasks but you realise it is easier to do it yourself.

If this relates to you, then I imagine you are doing all the most important tasks in your business. The truth is you are the business.

If you stopped working no money would come in. You are currently a business operator. A business operator works in the business. A business owner works on the business.

This is a very important distinction to make.

The truth is that at this point you are working in your business. You are self-employed by the business. How much time you have in the day limits you, which means you feel like you can’t get enough tasks done.

This often occurs when you are not able to trust people and want to always be in control. You doubt whether people can do the job you assigned them.

You either end up doing the tasks yourself or micromanaging your team. You may do this to such an extent, that you might as well never give them the task in the first place!

It is this feeling of wanting to be in control that will bring you waves of overwhelm. Especially when the world is changing so fast that it is hard to keep up.

Maybe you are wondering how to get out of this vicious cycle?

Solution: Learn to let go of control

Letting go of control is one of the most challenging parts of being an entrepreneur. You start to give control to other people who will represent your business. For help with this, visit our Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator. Here we take entrepreneurs through a step by step process to overcome the need to control.

In conclusion, there are many different reasons for feeling overwhelmed in business. Whatever is causing destructive overwhelm in your life, make sure to address it.

The key here is to overcome these issues step by step to create more freedom in your life. This helps expand the business, and allows you to live an extra-ordinary lifestyle.

To learn more about overcoming overwhelm, visit: The Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator

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March 17, 2020 by

How to maintain energy throughout the day as an entrepreneur?

The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting

Written by Ben Ivey

1. Make less decisions

You are constantly making decisions in the day; from the moment you get up to the moment you go to sleep. You want to make sure you don’t waste energy making decisions that don’t matter to your business.

Steve jobs as an example wore the same clothes each day so he didn’t have to think about what to wear. Something to think about! Where in your day do you currently waste time, energy and focus making decisions that don’t matter?

You can make less decisions on the smaller things in life. This gives you a greater capacity to deal with larger decisions in your organisation.

2. Drink more water

Dehydration by as little as 2% negatively affects you performance.
Water losses exceeding 5% of body weight can decrease the work capacity by about 30%! Something to think about for your team!

his means we must remain hydrated during the day to operate at optimal levels of energy.

Drink at least 1 litre for every 50 pounds you everyday. Thus if you are 150 pounds you need at least 3 litres of water a day.

You may feel like you need to go to the toilet more, but don’t worry your tolerance will increase over time! For now make sure you hit your daily intake to enable you to work at peak performance.

3. Exercise in the morning

You may believe that work is more important than exercise, if this is you then there may be something you don’t know…

Exercise stimulates different parts of your brain to give you more brainpower. It also gives you a boost of energy to complete your day more easily.

This exercise can be running, swimming or going to the gym. It can be any way in which you are moving your body as opposed to sitting all day.

If you want to maintain energy throughout the day. You want to do atleast 15 minutes of exercise, which will give you the energy boost you need.

You may believe you have no time for exercise as you are too busy. If you want to maintain energy in the day, exercising needs to become a priority in your life. We all have the same 24 hours in the day, it’s time to start prioritising yours.

4. Break your day into manageable pieces

You want to complete as many tasks as you can in the day. But, if you do tasks back to back throughout the day you will feel overwhelmed.

If you don’t give yourself time off, then you can’t react to new challenges. You won’t have the space to reset before taking on a new task.

It is important to space your day out to give yourself many breaks. Most entrepreneurs aim from 5 – 30 minute slots to give themselves the space they need.

This will help you focus more on the task you are doing. You will be more efficient by taking breaks, and complete tasks faster as a result.

5. Eat alkaline food (not the food you think is healthy)

You want to have 80% alkaline food and 20% acid food to keep your blood slightly alkaline.

This means you want to aim to have fruits and vegetables as 70% of your diet! Remember that these foods are alive as opposed to most dead food that you may often consume.

By having alkaline blood your cells will have much more energy as they aren’t clumping together.

Do you have headaches after eating food? Or you wonder why your energy dips in the afternoon? Paying attention to this will help you easily overcome these issues.

6. Remove body pain

To have energy throughout the day you MUST make sure you aren’t in body pain.

You may experience pain during the day due to lack of healthy living habits.

To remove this body pain, work with a specialist who can help you realign your body.

A misaligned business cannot function optimally. If you want to be optimal day to day, your body must be in alignment. This helps you focus on your own business without pain as a distraction.

7. Delegate energy draining tasks

There are some tasks that people love such as accounting. Yet, for some entrepreneurs this is their worst enemy. Even thinking about accounting causing them to feel overwhelmed.

Think about all the tasks that you do, that drain you of energy.
You want to delegate as many of these energy draining tasks as possible. Think who you could give that tasks to, who can still complete the tasks at a high level.

By freeing up your own time of these energy draining tasks. It allows you to focus on the tasks that make a bigger difference to your business.

You may have done this so far, but it doesn’t mean you have to continue to do it forever. Delegate those tasks today!

8. Efficient sleep

You don’t need to have 8-9 hours of sleep per night

What you do need is to have efficient sleep each night so you are working at an optimal level. It also allows you to be in a better mood and have a higher tolerance for issues that arise in the office.

Efficient sleep will do more for your health and energy than almost anything else.

The question is: how can you get more efficient sleep?

There are many keys to having better sleep. To learn more about your sleep we recommend buying a smart watch or oura ring. This will give you much more data to help you optimise your sleep over time.

If you enjoyed these tips, then you will love our Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator. Our 5th module helps you have an abundance of energy every single day! If you are curious to see how we help you do this, then check out: The Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator

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March 17, 2020 by

The secret no one told you to boost business success

The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting

Written by Ben Ivey

Have you ever wondered what differentiates an average entrepreneur from successful ones?

It is not luck, intelligence, industry or even location!

There is one clear distinction that differentiates these people and it is:

Their identity.

Now what on earth do I mean by this, well let’s break it down. When I ask the question who are you? How would you answer?

I challenge you to write down what comes to your mind right now.

After you have done this you may notice the following pattern.

Everything you have written down is what you are right now.

You have not written what you must become in the future to build the successful business you desire.

This is very common. Most entrepreneurs believe they must achieve success to be successful business owner.

You may say this is true, yet this is the biggest block that is preventing exponential success. You believe you have to do a certain thing, to be a certain way.

You need to achieve lots of profit then you are successful.

You need to hire lots of people then you are successful manager.

You need to have a million dollar net worth to be a millionaire.

Yet the entrepreneurs who have exponential success do something different.

What they do instead is define who they must become in the future, and then they become that person right now.

For example, to build a successful business. You may believe you must become focused, disciplined and an inspiring leader.

That is true, if you had a successful business I am sure you would be those things.

But, what would happen if you choose to be those things right now? You will operate at a whole different level. Your mindset as an entrepreneur will have shifted.

Once you make this shift, your business will move forward in a different way. This is the key principle that many entrepreneurs miss out on.

You may be wondering how to make the shift?

That is exactly what we do in the Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator.

In 6 months you learn to become an entrepreneur who can build a sustainable business. At the same time you live an extra-ordinary lifestyle.



FIND OUT MORE

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March 17, 2020 by

5 morning routines of successful entrepreneurs

The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting

Written by Ben Ivey

A morning routine is the foundation for your day as an entrepreneur. In this article, you will understand morning routines from a variety of entrepreneurs. I hope you can find some inspiration here to help you tailor your routine, to create an even better start to your day.

Hal Erod has a book on morning routines that I thought was helpful if you have never had a morning routine before. He has some interesting insights; the best of which is the 6 minute miracle morning. Remember even if you have a busy day, you MUST have time for at least 6 minutes to yourself!

Hal Erod – 6 Minute Miracle Morning



  • Minute 1 – Silence – meditate and observe your mind


  • Minute 2 – affirmations – remember to use energy when you say them


  • Minute 3. – visualisation – visualise what you want to create in the world


  • Minute 4. – scribing - pull out a journal and write down what you are grateful for, proud of and what you want to create in the day


  • Minute 5 – reading - read some self help books for some inspiration


  • Minute 6 – exercise – do as many press ups or jumping jacks that you can to increase your heart rate

Tim Ferris I is an entrepreneur most famously known for his 2 books. The 4 hour body and the 4 hour work week. Both of which I have used at different stages in my life. I have included his routine for you as it is simple, yet creates outstanding results. Do note I am sure this changes regularly as he experiments!

Tim Ferris: Author, Entrepreneur, and Public Speaker



  • Makes his bed


  • Meditates for 20 minutes


  • He drinks some strong loose tea


  • Journals for 5 to 10 minutes clearing thoughts from his head


  • Small breakfast


  • 20-90 minutes of exercise

Richard Branson is a business owner with over 400 companies under his brand Virgin. Not only is he an outstanding leader but he regularly shows how important it is to enjoy life too. His routine is very simple yet once again sets him up for an outstanding day.

Richard Branson – CEO of Virgin



  • 5 am wakes up


  • Charts his day


  • Meditates , reads and writes to channel his focus


  • Exercises


  • Time for family and breakfast

Leo Babauta has a blog called zenhabits. It’s sole purpose is to help you implement zen habits in daily life. His morning routine you would expect to be optimal given how much writing he has done on the subject. He manages to do a lot within his 2 hour morning routine and is certainly worth modelling.

Leo Babauta from ZenHabits



  • Wake at 4:30 a.m.


  • Drink water.


  • Set 3 Most Important Things (MITs) for today.


  • Fix lunches for kids and himself.


  • Eat breakfast and read.


  • Exercise (run, bike, swim, strength, or meditate.


  • Shower. 8. Wake wife & kids at 6:30 a.m.

Lastly let’s look at the CEO of Google. Here is a morning routine from a perspective of a CEO of a tech giant. How does he prime himself in the morning? As you will see this is a much more standard routine that most people stick to in life.

Sundar Pichai – CEO of Google



  • 6.30-7am wake up


  • Reads the physical wall street journal and check the new york times online


  • He then has an omelette with a cup of tea for breakfast

Where to start?

Very simple I want you to experiment. Use these routines as inspiration to start your own rock solid morning routine. Those in our Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator will include these fundamental habits. Gratitude, Super-hydration, visualisation, gratitude and condition their identity. These 5 combined have a powerful effect to wake you up, keep you healthy and in the right mindset for an awesome day.

A challenge I offer to you all, if you choose to take it, is to pick two routines, either from the list above or make two up. Then pick one to do for two weeks and then the second for the remaining two weeks of the month. You can see which one you prefer and then start editing and adding things accordingly.

Good luck and make it happen!

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March 17, 2020 by

Top 7 habits of productive entrepreneurs ( and 1 you don’t think you need)

The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting

Written by Ben Ivey

Habits can either break or make an entrepreneur’s success.

Productive entrepreneurs have more successful businesses. Note that I didn’t say busy entrepreneurs working very hard..

To help you be more productive, we listed out seven of the best habits to start.

1. Planning

Successful entrepreneurs plan their days in advance. They have a structure to help prioritise, be efficient and get more tasks done.

“Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent ROE (return on energy)!” Brian Tracy

Every 10 minutes you spend planning will save you 100 minutes in your day. Think about what you would pay to have an extra 100 minutes everyday!

You may think you don’t have time to plan. You may believe you are so busy that a plan is wasting time.

If this is you, remember the following. We all have 24 hours in the day. Whether you are Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Richard Branson, we all have the same 24 hours.

How you use those hours is of paramount importance. The most successful entrepreneurs are planning and executing on those plans.

If you want to have more success, planning is a MUST.

2. Systemise

Successful business owners must have systems to help their business stay on track. The better systems you have in place, the easier it will be for your business to run without you.

No two businesses are exactly the same, so there is no perfect system template that I can give you. Thus you need to create many systems in your organisation to help you be more efficient.

These include a system for communication with your team. Systems for managing the core functions of your business. A system to manage your own tasks, to name a few.

If we were to use a diet as an example system: generally speaking 95% of diets all work. Yet, the reason people don’t lose weight is because they don’t stick to it. Thus you must learn to be consistent with the systems you create.

3. Outsource

Did you know that entrepreneur’s should only do at most 7 tasks in their business? 7 at the most! Other employees, managers and freelancers should do everything else.

The key to business expansion is not what you should do more of, but instead what you need to stop doing. You mustn’t do anything that you aren’t qualified to do. Hire smart people to do the tasks that you don’t like to do and the tasks you aren’t specialised to do.

When you first start out, this doesn’t apply, as you may need to do everything. But, once you build your business up, you must start to delegate tasks to enable you to expand faster.

Learning to be an effective outsourcer of tasks can help you focus your own efforts. This helps to have a bigger impact on your business as a result.

4. Focus

Entrepreneurs all have a unique way to focus in their lives.

Some have 2-hour blocks with no interruptions. Others dedicate 1 hour to think and some choose to focus using masterminds.

There is no right or wrong way to do this. The key is for you to find a way to focus on one thing.

You will not see productive business owners distracted by messages, interruptions and emails. They will have a set time to do all these things; whilst at the same time dedicating time in the day for specific tasks.

One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that they don’t complete tasks 100%.

You may focus on a task and move onto something else before completing it or making a final decision. This is a recipe for disaster.

Make sure that you focus on a task, complete it 100% or dedicate more time elsewhere to completing it.

Only when it is complete, do they move on to something different. Make sure to avoid multi tasking on too many projects at the same time. You will waste time, energy and resources if you work this way.

This habit of focus is one of the best tools entrepreneurs have in their toolbox.

5. Morning routine

All entrepreneurs have a morning routine. This could be a routine setting you up for success in your day, or setting you up for stress.

You want to avoid feeling stressed, overwhelmed and anxious as an entrepreneur. So make sure to create a rock solid morning routine.

The key outcome for a morning routine is to help set you up for a great day.

You may want to focus on yourself in the morning. You may start the day by going to the gym, meditating, running, reading, reflecting, planning …etc.

Whatever it is you choose to do, make sure that it puts you in the right state to deal with the day ahead.
For some examples of morning routines that help set you up for success. Check out: 5 Morning Routines of Successful Entrepreneurs

6. Pareto Principle

Entrepreneur’s almost everyday should apply the 80 – 20 Pareto Principle.

An example of the Pareto Principle in business: 20% of your clients give you 80% of your income. 80% of your leads come from 20% of your marketing. 80% of your stress comes from 20% of your customers … etc.

You may be wondering how to apply this principle each day?

Simply put, you apply this principle to anything and everything.

For example, you want to aim to do the 20% of tasks that brings you 80% of your desired outcome. Spend time marketing to the 20% of clients that bring in the most revenue.

You want to make sure that you use this in you business to help you become more efficient.

What is great about this principle is that it combats perfectionism. You do the tasks that have the biggest impact on your business. In contrast to doing things 100% and wasting time on the last 20%.

It is important to spend time doing the tasks that move your business forward in the most efficient way.

This hand in hand with outsourcing, allows you to create much faster success.

7. Effective goal setting

Entrepreneurs must set goals to maintain a clear direction for their business. This keeps alignment within the organisation prioritising tasks towards a specific end goal.

If you do this, you will make much faster progress in a shorter period of time. Your resources are finally focused on obtaining one specific outcome.

Goal setting can be a challenging tasks for entrepreneurs. Especially when most information out there is not relevant for busy entrepreneurs.

If you want to get more clarity, direction and focus in your organisation. Check out: The Entrepreneur’s ultimate guide to goal setting

BONUS HABIT: Rest

The last and most important habit for entrepreneur’s is counter intuitive.

Rest.

Why is this habit more powerful than all the other habits mentioned above?

It is the habit most entrepreneurs want to avoid. Yet it actually is of paramount importance to recharge to enable you to have more success.

Many business owners come to me when they are burning out and their business is losing money each month. They are working constantly but are burning out in the process.

Perhaps this has happened to you before as well? Where you burn out and do nothing in your business for a few weeks.

Let’s approach rest in a different way.

When you charge your phone do you take it out when it only has 30% battery? You charge it all the way till 100% and if you are anything like my wife, it is painful to take it off charge at 97%!

We do this for many reasons, yet when it comes to ourselves often we don’t fully recharge.

I am sure if your employees were working at 50% capacity you would want them operating at 100% right?

Rest is key for recharging so you are performing at your best. It is also fundamental to allow you to have a more effective business.

By taking time off, you can look at your business issues with fresh eyes. You can think creatively and start to move away from working in your business.

Moreover, it enables you to have boarders as a business owner. This encourages your employees to become more self reliant. This is a necessary step forward to create the freedom you desire.

If you are unhappy with your current lifestyle as an entrepreneur. Check out: The Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator. This will help take you and your business to higher levels of success this year.

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March 17, 2020 by