Written by Wendy Hearn, Coach
www.Business-Personal-Coaching.com

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Hmmm, what an interesting week. On Monday, I felt a huge amount of gratitude. Gratitude for the way I live my life, the people I spend time with and the experiences that I have. This followed some recent conversations about the quality of our lives and people choosing to leave the corporate world to work the hours they want. I've noticed that more people and at a younger age are interested in the quality of their life and are willing to make the necessary changes.

What do you feel gratitude for today?

What is the quality of your life like?

Take the Quality of Life Test. 100 questions that indicate your quality of life.

Then yesterday afternoon I lost the plot completely. Rather than fighting the 'should' to carry on working, I let it all go and stepped back from work. At 4.15 this morning I was wide awake and feeling highly creative. There was no way I was going back to sleep and the words flowed easily onto the paper.

I often get asked how I got my website to no1. in Google and Yahoo for business coaching, personal coaching, business coach and personal coach, and with over 6000 subscribers to one of my newsletters. It took me a lot of time and learning. There's now an easier and quicker way for you to learn this! Take this free intensive 10-day course on building a Web site that attracts potential new clients. Read on for more info.

This weeks article is about being more effective. Enjoy!


Be effective

Wendy
Coach


Contents of this exciting issue:

1. New Article: Don't Strive For Efficiency At The Expense Of Effectiveness

2. Free intensive 10-day course on building a Web site that attracts potential new clients

3. Coaching Services


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1. New Article: Don't Strive For Efficiency At The Expense Of Effectiveness

What is your level of effectiveness? What difference would it make to your life and work if this level were raised? One of the first steps to achieve this is to understand what being effective really means. I've found that many people confuse effectiveness with efficiency. They struggle to improve their efficiency but their effectiveness doesn't always improve. Striving for efficiency is sometimes at the expense of effectiveness.

What's the difference between effectiveness and efficiency?

Being effective means producing powerful effects. Being efficient means producing results with little wasted effort. It's the ability to carry out actions quickly. However, by so doing, you may not necessarily be achieving effectiveness. Effectiveness allows you to accomplish the worthwhile goals you've chosen. The ones which support your vision and your mission.

For instance, you may be very efficient at working through your to-do list and completing a lot of it. However, when you shift to being effective, you may choose to delegate part of it, stop doing some of it and focus on one or two things which will allow you to achieve your goal. Perhaps you're efficient at sending follow up letters to potential clients but being effective may mean only following up certain key ones, yet doing so in a fuller, more complete way.

Where does your time go?

When your intention shifts to being more effective, you can achieve your worthwhile goals in much less time. You choose the things which will make you more effective instead of doing more and more to achieve efficiency.

Effectiveness comes from taking the time to stop and evaluate, rather than running faster and faster. Discovering for yourself what effectiveness means, and what it will take for you to achieve this, is an area in which a coach works, both with individuals and organisations. When I'm working with clients, we often focus on their effectiveness. The coaching session we conduct by telephone once a week gives them the opportunity to stop, look at where they are and where they want to be.

I believe that by taking time out, this allows you to increase your effectiveness. I'm also a great believer in taking this time at regular intervals during your day. So many people set out to work harder and harder, without really looking to see if they're being effective. I've found that what works best for me, and most of my clients use this, is to work for 15 minutes slots with breaks of a few minutes in between.

I strongly believe that if more people worked in this way, companies would be much stronger and more effective. For instance, lets say you're working on a proposal. You work on it for 15 minutes and then put it aside for the next few minutes. You can use this break to either stretch your legs, step outside for fresh air, enjoy a period of quiet reflection or to clear thoughts from your mind. You choose what would feel most useful.

When you return to your proposal for the next 15 minutes, you'll probably find that something occurs to you which you'd forgotten, or you didn't see as being very important. You may find you now have a different perspective on it or you now have a solution to something you were stuck on. It's increased your effectiveness. When you only have 15 minutes, you'll work more effectively to achieve more within this artificial deadline.

What I want is for you to be effective in achieving your goals and vision.


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'Commit to Action'
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What are you currently doing that would benefit from being more effective?

What is it costing you when you're not being effective?

What will it take to increase your effectiveness?


Be More Effective!
Do you want to be more effective;