And yet others take the book, regardless of their experience in the business, and take it to heart and are able to put it’s principals to work and achieve something fine, even great.  Years before Think And Grow Rich Hill had his beginnings writing for magazines, and eventually his own magazine: “Hill’s Golden Rule Magazine”  and “Napoleon Hill’s Magazine.”

Napoleon Hill on Concentrated Action

Some of Hill’s earliest writing in these magazines dealt with the lack of concentrated action, moving from one idea or job to the next without ever fully fleshing out the first.  Thus there is no concentrated effort, little action and no success.  Hill is a big proponent of finishing what you start.  Take your idea and stick with it – don’t jump from one thing to the next simply because the first does not pour out dollars when you first take it up.

“Nearly every man has intellegence enough to create ideas in his mind, but the trouble with most is that those ideas never find expression in action.  The finest locomotive on earth is not worth a shilling nor will it pull a single pound of weight, utill the stored up energy in the steam dome is released by the throttle.

You have energy in that head of yours — every human being does — but you are not releasing it at the throttle of action!  You are not applying it through the principal of concentration to the tasks which if completed, would place you on the list of those who are regarded as successes.”  –Napoleon Hill from  Napoleon Hill’s First Editions

This idea of concentrated action is why Hill and so many success authors talk about writing not only goals, but a short list of what you should do the next day.  It keeps you focused, it keeps you in a state of concentration on the ideas, on the goals, it also facilitates visualization which Napoleon Hill covers in detail in Chapters 3 and 4 of Think and Grow Rich.

Napoleon Hill on Persistence

From Chapter 9 of Think and Grow Rich:

PERSISTENCE is an essential factor in the procedure of transmuting DESIRE into its monetary equivalent. The basis of persistence is the POWER OF WILL.

Will-power and desire, when properly combined, make an irresistible pair. Men who accumulate great fortunes are generally known as cold-blooded, and sometimes ruthless. Often they are misunderstood. What they have is will-power, which they mix with persistence, and place back of their desires to insure the attainment of their objectives.

Henry Ford has been generally misunderstood to be ruthless and cold-blooded. This misconception grew out of Ford’s habit of following through in all of his plans with PERSISTENCE.

The majority of people are ready to throw their aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on DESPITE all opposition, until they attain their goal. These few are the Fords, Carnegies, Rockefellers, and Edisons.

Napoleon Hill and Others on Procrastination

This brings us to procrastination.  Procrastination is a form of fear.  Procrastination often results when there is anxiety over something you want to do or need to do.  Wikipedia has this to say:

The psychological causes of procrastination vary greatly, but generally surround issues of anxiety, low sense of self-worth, and a self-defeating mentality^[4]. Procrastinators are also thought to have a lower-than-normal level of conscientiousness, more based on the “dreams and wishes” of perfection or achievement in contrast to a realistic appreciation of their obligations and potential.

Napoleon Hill had this to say about procrastination:

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.

Persistent action carried out now.  These ideas are two of  the primary keys to success.  W. Clement Stone had a saying:

“Do it now.”

And why not, why not now?  Do we have genuine reasons or are they procrastination and hidden fear?

Napoleon Hill was writing about periodic self examination when he wrote the first quote above.  That if you are jumping around from one thing to the next then you will never put forth the concentrated effort that you need to really put the thing over.  And if you have a good idea and are not going forward with it – with persistence and with belief in it – then perhaps there is some hidden fear that you need to understand that is causing you to procrastinate.

Napoleon Hill’s writings are timeless and remain some of the foremost success liturature that we have.  That the unscrupulous would use it to manipulate those seeking to better their lives is unfortunate but that should not stop us from taking and using Hills literary works for our betterment.

Technorati Tags: Anxiety, concentration, Earth, Expression, Golden Rule, Heart, Hills Golden Rule Magazine, Job, Locomotive, Money Making Schemes, Napoleon, Napoleon Hill, Napoleon Hills magazine, Persistence, Principals, Procrastination, Proponent, Shilling, Steam, Success Hill, Successes, Think and Grow Rich, visualization, Writing For Magazines, Writing Magazines

Jan 27th 2009 Podcast

Time management has become a huge business these days. Franklin-Covey and many other companies offer great time management tools to manage your day and to make you more productive. Google returns 227,000,000 pages in response to a query on the subject of time management; now with this post: Google search result 227,000,001.

Whole books, seminars and courses have been made on time management – you can easily spend thousands of dollars on this topic trying to get the latest edge to learn the latest time management skills. I usually get a headache and my eyes glaze over when I dig into these things.

Much of this information and these time management systems are good but as Solomon said, in Ecclesiastes, about things of the world: everything is meaningless … they are vanity and vexation of the spirit. This is truly what time management systems can become. Our society is obsessed with the idea of wringing out the last ounce of time – to the point of it being counter-productive. Trying to wring productivity out of your time is an important aspiration, time is the one commodity in your life that you cannot add to, you can only make it’s use more efficient.

Many people who seek to maximize their time get planners, Palms or other electronic devices with planners built in and often – they wind up feeling like a slave to the systems they buy – these systems causing more stress instead of being the stress reliever they are intended to be. They wind up trying to schedule too much or perhaps an element of procrastination has crept in and items keep moving from one date to the next and stacking up. The planner becomes like an old friend they have made promises too and yet have not fulfilled them. After a while they begin to avoid the planner and it winds up in the drawer and they come back to a simple appointment calender.

My advice is to ease into time management. There are great dividends to be earned with your time management activities but putting one of the systems on. But putting the whole uniform on all at once and keeping the buttons polished when you are used to running free and naked (in a time sense) is likely to lead to your rebellion and casting it off within a few months.

Start off easily: Napoleon Hill writes of Ivy Lee, who is considered the father of modern public relations, Lee was doing some work for Charles Schwab the head of Bethlehem Steel. Schawb told Lee that the biggest problem he had was making his managers more effective – helping them better utilize their time. Lee handed Schwab a blank sheet of paper and told him that with in a few minutes he could give him the solution. Schwab agreed to try the system out for a few weeks and then send Lee a check for what he thought the idea was worth.

Lee advised Schwab to have his managers, at the end of the day, to list their top six priorities for tomorrow. Then they should number 1 to 6 according to how important that task was. On the next day take the tasks in the priority order, not proceeding until a task was completed. In a couple of weeks Schwab sent Lee a check for $25,000 as the value of the idea – and this was in the 1920’s.

This simple idea encapsulates all of the ideas within entire books and courses. Often these materials while presenting good distinctions and enhancements that are of value – tend to obscure the basic idea that Lee presented. The person studying the concepts get caught up with quadrants, matrix’s, and complicated prioritizing schemes – they miss the basics, the part that makes the whole thing of value to start with.

If you are new to time management or have a system that has overwhelmed you drop back to the basics and begin to draw your own distinctions, create your own rules.

Lee gave Schwab a blank sheet of paper and told him..

1. List the six most important things you have to do tomorrow.
2. number them in order of importance
3. Take the paper out tomorrow morning – start with 1 and stay with it until completed
4. Only then go to 2 and repeat until the end of day. If you don’t finish you probably wouldn’t have finished anyway – when you realize this you know when to say no to a new task or give it to someone else.

So there is your simple time management seminar that Schwab voluntarily paid what would be the equivalent of $250,000 for today. In essence it incorporates all the items that you can read entire chapters of time management books to understand. You will figure out the parts about avoiding interruptions and all the minutia.

If you are one of the people with more to do than you can accomplish you really need to read Napoleon Hill and take his messages to heart whether it be on time management or another topic. It is not some huge mass of rules and materials to memorize rather it is a belief system that harnesses your subconscious mind and causes you to reach out to others and form what Hill calls a “Master Mind.” The Master Mind is a team working together for a common purpose. Maybe it’s you and your spouse or a best friend to begin, maybe its a group at work. Each of you with six things to do tomorrow. Each of you helping the other see the important things – which on some days might be just to leave it and go refresh so you can be more effective when you come back to it.

That’s it for Google search result 227,000,001 Napoleon Hill and Ivy Lee’s time management tools.

Technorati Tags: Aspiration, Dividends, Ecclesiastes, Electronic Devices, Franklin Covey, Google, Google Returns, ivy lee, Michael Griffin, Napoleon Hill, Old Friend, Ounce, Procrastination, Stress Reliever, Thousands Of Dollars, time management, time management activities, time management skills, Time Management Systems, time management tools, Vanity And Vexation, Whole Books