Sunday, February 28, 2016

Organize Tomorrow Today - 8 Ways to Retrain Your Mind to Optimize Performance at Work and in Life


I recently finished reading Organize Tomorrow Today – 8 Ways to Retrain your Mind to Optimize Performance at Work and in Life by Dr. Jason Selk and Tom Bartow. This book couldn’t have come at a better time for me. My emails have been piling up at work. Projects keep coming with more and more detail. The demand of life feels overwhelming. I have been trying to find ways to organize my world and prioritize everything in both my professional and personal life. It’s not easy.

I loved Dr. Selk and Bartow’s advice. Their advice really hit home and was not overwhelming nor did I feel like I have to run out today and change everything that I am doing.  Organize Tomorrow Today is organized into 8 critical chapters each addressing a issue that holds us back from being our best. The authors recommend initially picking one key chapter to focus on at a time to help you organize and change. Doing this will allow you to practice a new technique without becoming overwhelmed or frustrated. Humans can only process 7 concepts at time but really only juggling 3. We all think that we can juggle everything but our brains just won’t let us.

Organize Tomorrow Today speaks to making decisions, establishing priorities, lighting your own motivation, and stop multitasking. This book urged me to keep turning the pages to better learn what I can focus on to make my life more productive and less stressful. I wanted to read the entire book first and then go back to see what one key chapter that I want to begin as my focus. Each chapter offers additional insight by spelling out “The Big Why” for each concept, “The Inversion Test” and an “Act Now” idea to spurn you to get going on each concept. They take it one step further by offering real life examples of what other professionals have committed to in this process.

Here are the 8 key concepts that Dr. Selk and Tom Bartow offer in order to help the reader become more effective:

·         Organize Tomorrow Today
·         Choose Wisely
·         Maximize Your Time
·         Win Your Fight-Thrus
·         Evaluate Correctly
·         Learn How to Talk to Yourself
·         Learn How to Talk to Yourself
·         Become Abnormal

If you study these concepts chapter by chapter and pick a focus one by one, you will grow and quickly learn that they work together as a strong performance improvement plan. The key to growing with this book is acknowledging that you can’t do everything at once. If you try to do too much too soon you will fail as with anything else. This book is one to keep by the bedside or on your desk to reference often. Jot notes in it as you continue on the self improvement journey chapter by chapter. Refer to it often and make it a part of your every day routine. That’s what I’m doing. I’m picking a key chapter, stretching myself, and committing to becoming a more productive and better version of myself.

Organize Tomorrow today is a methodology and a journey, not just a book. It’s a plan that you need to commit to and be accountable to every day. It will take patience and a true interest in your own development and lifelong learning. My first focus is coincidentally the very first chapter Organize Tomorrow Today. I know that I can’t get everything done in a day and I have to plan more. The day before the next I am identifying the 3 key things that I need to get done then choosing the number one item to accomplish. I want to prioritize, not react. Once I have retrained my brain I will move onto the next concept.

If you feel frustrated, overwhelmed, cheated out of time in your day, or unorganized, I urge you to pick up Organize Tomorrow Today. The ideas that Dr. Jason Selk and Tom Barlow offer in this gem really can change the course of your life if you commit to putting in the time and effort to invest in yourself and change. Are you ready?




1 comment:

  1. This book really made sense to me. Your review is excellent and you nailed it here. "It will take patience and a true interest in your own development and lifelong learning." I have always had my hands and my brain in too many places at once - accomplishing little, but realizing how much better it is to work on one improvement at a time is quite a relief.

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