Len,

I just had to change my schedule to call you tomorrow regarding my commitment to have completed the assignments. While I know that I am in chaos, I realize I will be in spin class at 9:00, acupuncture appt at 10:30 and an appt with my neighbor at noon to review a dinner party to be held this weekend. I hope to be available around 2:00, or so, and will try to call you then!

Tim

Tim,

It’s all about honoring one’s most important priorities, coupled with the self-recognition that resistance will always rear its head in the face of productivity, completion…and growth.

The “hope to be”, the “or so” and the “will try” are terms only used by those wherein there is an absence of commitment.

Len

The purpose of the ChaosOver Program is not really about being organized! You see, unto itself, organization has no intrinsic value whatsoever. While many consider organization to be an ‘end’, truth be told, organization is solely a ‘means’, a vehicle, to take us where “we say” we want to arrive in our careers; in our family lives; in our personal lives.

The idea of living one’s life with, at our mortal ending, having no regrets…aha, that is a life fulfilled.

This particular Blog is geared to our personal life, however it is an example that equally relates to our careers and our families. While the following, recently published newspaper article, does have to do with my own life, please understand that it is to support the “I say” that we want to accomplish in this lifetime of ours in order to truly experience fulfillment and joy.

How the Big Brother Magic Cuts Both Ways

Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Opinion Columnist

LEN MERSON paused thoughtfully when I asked what made him decide over forty years ago to become a Big Brother to a boy in need. “I can tell you,” piped up Allan Lewin, the self-described ‘Little Brother’. “A little kid is a great chick magnet.” “Yeah, it was either him or a puppy,” Merson laughingly agreed.

It’s a funny routine, one of a thousand things they have done together in a relationship that has lasted over four decades and has had a profound effect on both of their lives.

“Allan and my daughter, Jessica, are the two people that I trust most in the world,” Merson said.

“I remember writing a paper my first year in college about the people who influenced me,” Lewin said. “Len was one of the three who mattered most”.

Lewin and Merson are Exhibit A in the case Big Brothers/Big Sisters likes to make for mentoring. Lewin, who heads the Lee’s Hoagie House chain throughout the Philadelphia and surrounding areas,, and Merson, who runs an information-management business, with offices in California and Hawaii, both agree that neither would be who he is today without the other.
“Allan is a significant investor in my business,” Merson said.
“I go to him for business advice all the time,” Lewin said.

It was more than anyone imagined way back in 1967 when Lewin’s mother took him to Big Brothers/Big Sisters to see if they could find a man to hang out with him a couple of times a month.

“My parents were divorced,” Lewin recalled. “My mother was wise enough to know that I needed a male role model. “I just figured I’d meet someone who would take me places”.

That’s about all any young person fortunate enough to meet a mentor through the program expects. If it were nothing more than that, it would still serve a purpose for kids like Allan from single-parent homes.

Big Brothers/Big Sisters released a study last month that reveals a much more tangible benefit of their mentorship matches. According to results of the cross-sectional study by Harris Interactive:

-Adults who were mentored as children were seventy-five percent more likely to have graduated from college.
-Thirty-nine percent more likely to earn at least $75,000 a year than peers who had similar backgrounds.
-More than half the former “littles” who took part in the study grew up in single-parent homes with less than average incomes.
-About two-thirds reported that they had achieved greater success than children they grew up with who had no mentors.
-The study simply lays out in statistical terms what we know intuitively:
A child who has the benefit of a relationship with a responsible adult
is far more likely to succeed than if he didn’t have it.

Hundreds of children, particularly minority boys, can’t find ‘Big Brothers’. Many chapters had to stop taking applications last year despite a growing need.
NOTE: The ‘Big Sisters’ organization is in need of mentoring skills for many ‘Little Sisters’ in our communities as well.

Matches were easier to make when Len met Allan. Len felt the need as much as Allan did. “I had terrific expectations.” Len said. The results were even better. Allan was a great kid, mellow, insightful, interested in everything I showed him.”

What really made it work, they agree, was a third party, Len’s horse at the time, ‘Navajo’, an Appaloosa Quarter horse. “Allan got involved in everything. He cleaned the stables with me; we didn’t just ride”, Len stated.

But Allan didn’t realize how close they had become until he fell during a bicycle accident and broke his collar bone. “Len was at the hospital in minutes,” Allan said. “That was surprising”.

It all should have ended two years later when the company Len worked for transferred him to San Diego and then to Hawaii. But he and Allan spent summers together in San Diego and then Hawaii even after Len became a mentor to another Little Brother from the projects in Honolulu.

“I had this Jewish kid from an East Coast city and a Hawaiian boy from the projects,” Len said. “They got along great each summer. Both were great kids and are friends to this day”.

The three of them still get together a few times a year and speak to each other at least once a week.

The magic does indeed cut both ways.

Do you avoid completing certain projects until the last minute when your back is up against the wall? Do you keep seeing the same items turning up on your “To Do List” day after day after day?

Are you one of those people who insists you work better under pressure? Then you are probably one of the millions of people in this country who suffer from procrastination and I do mean “suffer”.

Procrastination has many negative side effects:

• It eats up valuable time
• It reduces productivity
• It sabotages others
• It lowers self-esteem
• It causes an enormous amount of stress…just to name a few.

Now you may be asking yourself, “If procrastination is so bad, why do so many people do it?”

Some of the reasons are:

• I don’t like doing that particular task
• I don’t know how to complete the task
• I don’t like the person who assigned me the task
• I don’t feel confident in my skill level at that particular task
• The task appears too large to tackle.
• There’s too much work involved
• ETC.etc.etc

Regardless of the reasons for procrastinating, the results are still the same. The task does not get completed in a timely fashion.

Our Information Management program at ChaosOver, Inc. is designed to facilitate you in eliminating FOREVER the habits and patterns that have not served you. Procrastination is one of those behaviors. So how do you eliminate it?

You do it by processing the tasks or projects you have been avoiding, one at a time. Let’s use an example to illustrate the process:

Let’s say you have to write a report on a topic that doesn’t particularly excite you and is going to involve a lot of research and a lot of your time. The report was assigned to you on March 1st and is to be completed by March 15th. Today is March 6th and you still haven’t started it. You know you are procrastinating.

First step in the process is to go through a series of questions:

• Do I still need to complete this task? If the answer is yes go to question 2. If it is no, toss it.
• Can this task be delegated to someone else? If the answer is yes, delegate it. If the answer is no, go to question 3.
• What are the benefits of completing this task? In our example above the benefits may be :
  • My boss will be happy with me
  • The client will be happy and we may get more business from them
  • Our company will make money on this
  • I may get a raise, promotion, accolades
  • I will get it off of my plate and stop stressing over it.

• What are the consequences of not doing it? Again using our example:
  • My boss will be very unhappy with me
  • I could get fired or, at least, reprimanded
  • I could miss out on a promotion
  • I could be sabotaging a co-worker
  • We could lose a client
  • Our company could lose money
  • I will continue to stress over it and feel badly

Now that you have answered these questions, the task has taken on some life, some emotion, and has the ability to motivate you to action. So what do you do next?

You break the task down into its various parts. In our example above that may look like:

• I do an outline of what the report is to cover
• I identify whether I have all the information needed
• I identify resources for obtaining the information I am missing
• I do my research
• I create a first draft with completed information
• I re-write until I am happy with the end report

Now determine how long it will take to complete the first step ONLY. Let’s say you decide it will take an hour. Go to your calendar, whether it be a paper organizer or a computer program such as Outlook, and book yourself an hour to complete this first step.

NOTE- You must treat this appointment as a sacred commitment the same as you would if it was an appointment with a client. (Knowing that you have a deadline for this project and it is going to take several hours to complete, be sure to book that hour as soon as you can into your schedule.)

When you have completed step one, do the same with the next step and so on until the task/project is completed.

If you use this process with ALL of the things where you would normally procrastinate over, whether they are business or personal, you will find yourself eliminating the problem of procrastination FOREVER as you create the new habit of getting things done in a timely fashion.

The result… you will be happy, productive, effective, self-confident, and far less stressed. So go get started….NOW!