Do you ever find yourself at the end of a long day of hard work only to feel like you haven't accomplished much? I'll climb out on a limb and guess that you occasionally have. Whenever I get that feeling I recall a story I read about Andrew Carnegie, who built the Carnegie Steel Company and amassed one of the largest fortunes ever in the United States.
The story goes that Andrew Carnegie was at a crossroads in his personal and business life when he met with a business consultant who had a system that he guaranteed would offer success to anyone who applied it consistently. Carnegie was skeptical of the claim, but the consultant pressured him into trying the system free for a year and if it was successful he would accept whatever fee Carnegie considered appropriate. Carnegie agreed and applied the system, enjoying exponential results in both his personal and business life. At year's end, Carnegie is said to have sent the consultant $20,000--a vast sum considering this would have been shortly after the end of the Civil War.
Upon hearing the story it's easy to assume the said system must be too complex for most people to implement in their own lives. On the contrary, the system is quite simple and you've likely heard it before. Carnegie was advised to: a) sit down each evening and list the activities to be done the next day which would move him toward his life goals; b) prioritize the activities in order of importance; c) begin the next day with the most important activity and stick with it until finished; and d) then move on to the next activity and repeat. This system, Carnegie was told, would allow him to focus on the most important activity and even if that was the only thing he worked on, his energies would be applied in the best direction.
Stories like this one get passed around for so long that it's easy to dismiss them as fiction. But the funny thing is this system works. (Ever heard of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the best-seller written by Steven Covey? Probably so, considering it has sold more than 15-million copies. When you get a chance take a look at Habit #3.) It works well enough for me that it's what I fall back on when I feel as though I'm spinning my wheels or when things are becoming disorganized in my life. I sit down, make a list and start working on the most important one. The way I see it, if it's good enough for Andrew Carnegie then it's good enough for me.
