I am wrapping up my four part series on personal productivity as modeled by the rainforest. In the previous three sessions, we discussed the importance of Eliminating the Unnecessary, Automating the Mundane and Delegating the Tactical. Now I want to get to your core competency as the CEO of your life. What are you the very best at? What gives you remarkable fulfillment? This is what you really want to do, free from the time wasters and time consumers that have plagued your life. It’s where you soar at the stratospheric level like an eagle overseeing the fields and forests, planning the next move from a place of strategic advantage.

In the rainforest, plants have certain designated responsibilities that only they can fulfill. They are wired or created to fulfill those roles and everything about their DNA beckons them to fulfill their primary purpose. The fourth law, therefore, is to Designate. By that I mean, designate your time, your resources, your heart, your mind, your strength to that thing you have burning in your heart, but as much as possible, do it at a strategic level.

Read the rest of this entry »

We have been talking about how the rainforest is so incredibly productive. How does it stay so focused on the most important tasks it has like breathing in CO2 and exhaling fresh Oxygen for us to breathe? For the last two weeks we talked about the first two laws… Eliminate the Unnecessary and Automate the Mundane. These two laws, when properly applied, will create a vacation for you in every working day! But there’s more…

Once you eliminate the unnecessary and automate the mundane, it’s time to Delegate the Tactical. Don’t make the mistake of delegating to others the things you should have eliminated or automated. If you do, you’re just wasting their time and indirectly, yours. In the rainforest, there are many pests that consume the productivity of plants. While many plants have devised their own way of dealing with those pests, on some occasions, plants actually delegate the defense of their leaves to others. They hire ants by paying them with nectar. The ants get hooked on the income (the nectar) and ward off all potential intruders like caterpillars, grasshoppers, grubs, etc.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles (schemes) of the devil.” The Greek word for wiles is “methodeia”, from which we get our English word, method. Understand this; the devil has a method for your madness. He has a method, a scheme… if you will - a system in place to trip you up and frustrate the purposes of God for your life. The devil uses “systems” to defeat you. That way, he doesn’t have to personally supervise you’re actions. He just sets the system in place, gets you deeply ingrained in the system and leaves you struggling the rest of your life with that system. It might be the way you interpret failure or silence or compliments. It could be the way you react to a wrong or a right, etc. The point is that he uses systems to defeat

Read the rest of this entry »

Getting too many interruptions? Not getting enough done? Is your time consumed by pests of one sort or another? You know… those pesky interruptions that try to look legitimate but in the end, they only consume your time. Well, here’s the third of seven rainforest strategies to protect your time and maximize your productivity. It’s called Synchronous Leaf Production. It’s where several species of trees all put new leaves out at the same time. The idea being that there are so many new leaves suddenly appearing in the rainforest, that no one tree or group of trees will be ravaged by hungry pests. It’s like spreading the risk around.

Read the rest of this entry »

As I write this blog entry, I am flying home from Seattle to Florida. It’s been a busy week with doing a Get Motivated event with Zig Ziglar on Tuesday, visiting family in Canada and staying on top of several business priorities. Did I mention this was a “red-eye” flight arriving home at 6:30 am? The good news is that flying is an excellent “no-pest zone” for me.

You see, in the rainforest, there are 7 strategies built into the ecosystem to help plant life erect a barrier to pests. The more effectively they keep pests at bay, the faster they grow and the more productive they are. The same is true for us. Trees are most vulnerable when their leaves are fresh and tender. (Our projects are most vulnerable when they are in the formative stages.) Some trees utilize a defense strategy called, Rapid Leaf Expansion where they shoot out their new leaves at a remarkably quick rate. By the time pests discover the new leaves, they are already grown and tough.

Read the rest of this entry »