“READY-FIRE-AIM” versus SELF-DELEGATION

So you find yourself sitting up at night writing out your infamous ‘To Do’ list. You jotted down twelve items that you want to knock out at work tomorrow. Now tell me, if this new day is a somewhat typical day, how many on your trusty ‘To Do’ list were actually accomplished…two, three, maybe four?

Not only does this lead to stress and frustration, it can be quite demoralizing. The truth be told, after a number of such experiences, it is not surprising that a person just stops making the lists altogether.

In its place we just go to work each day reciting the following mantra: “Dear Lord, please just get me through the day.” Not a very pro-active stance, is it?

The unproductive approach of “Ready-Fire-Aim” is demonstrated by sitting down at your desk and jumping into which brushfire or crisis is seeking you. This is akin to being awakened in the morning with an air raid siren blasted into your ear!

In the CHAOSOVER and LIVING CHAOS FREE programs we train you to begin each workday by employing the ‘First Five Morning Tasks’:

1. Check my calendar for today’s Pending’s (Follow-ups)
2. Invert my Turtle (Stack of prioritized work)
3. Clear my Virtual In-Tray (In-box)
4. Process all of my Voice-mails (Logging return calls)
5. Process all of my E-mails (Responding easily as there was ZERO when you left yesterday)

By completing steps 1 through 4, you have taken what I promise is no more than six minutes before responding to your e-mail.

You have taken a macro look of your new day. You estimate the time of the meetings set (in and out of the office), the phone appointments and follow-up calls scheduled. What this has accomplished is a “reality check” on how much time remaining that you have to work on your stack of prioritized work (Turtle).

NOTE-When you had initially placed each item of work in your Turtle stack, you had taken the sixty seconds (literally) to fill in three spaces:

Estimated Time to Complete ___
Completion Date ___
Start Date ___

By knowing how much time you had remaining in your day, after the meetings, phone calls and e-mails awaiting you, you are able to REALISTICALLY determine the amount of items in your Turtle stack which can, and cannot, be completed today.

This process of “Self-Delegation” truly supports you transforming your life from reactive to pro-active. It removes from your life that “Ready-Fire-Aim” approach that had caused you such frustration and stress.

Lastly, because my programs have, since 1973, been dedicated to the FAMILY, this will have you far more often sitting down at the dinner table, at dinner time, with your family.

Len Merson,
Founder, C.E.O.
Chaos Over, Inc.
1-88-VERY CALM (Toll Free line)
619.980.7372 (Direct line)
Lmerson@chaosover.com

THE 'ELECTRONIC' ASSUMPTION

I’m sure that you have heard the symbolic definition of the word ‘assumption’. This being-'Ass-u-me’ (deeper explanation hopefully not needed). Be that as it may, we have now moved into the era of the ‘Electronic’ assumption.

It seems that the world has taken on the belief that everyone now utilizes devices such as the “Crackberry”, oops, I mean “Blackberry". Well, that is not the case. I, for one, still use my trusty Franklin book organizer. The last time I checked, it does not have plug-in, synching or battery features.

Case in point: I recently drove out to see a client (not a short distance, I might add), only to find that my client was quite startled to see me. I asked him why he was surprised as we had set the date of this meeting a week ago. He indicated that he had an emergency come up and that he had sent me an e-mail an hour prior asking for a re-schedule. As I was not anywhere near my computer prior to my departure, the message never reached me.

He thought that for sure I should have seen his e-mail on my PDA. (WHAT PDA!!!) I simply pointed to my aged organizer book. He was incredulous that I was still using “such an ancient system”.

First of all, I do believe that I am not the last person on this Earth to use this form of organization (which does, believe it or not, have a calendaring section). Should anyone bother to note the volume of such systems sold at places like Franklin-Covey stores, Staples, Office Depot, etcetera, it would be revealed to them that while I seem to be a member of a decreasing population, there are still millions of us around the world still utilizing such a medium.

Second of all, I see that more and more people have grown a certain disdain for that instrument invented by one, Alexander Graham Bell. This is especially prevalent in the Generation ‘X’ or Generation ‘Y’ (or whatever alphabetical moniker is assigned to those “younger folks”), who text, instant message or, in only the remotest of circumstances use e-mail. But NEVER seem to think of using a tele-phone!

God forbid someone should pick up a phone and actually have a voice-to-voice conversation with another of the same species. NOTE-yes, I have a cell phone, however it is just a cell phone. I did not opt for the features that would have me find my car in a parking lot or know where the closest Proctologist is located in my geographical area.

The world needs to be a bit more respectful to those of us who have elected to not have a ’24-7’ device grafted to our hip. Isn’t a cell phone’s accessibility pervasive enough?

Len Merson,
Founder, C.E.O.
Chaos Over, Inc.
1-88-VERY CALM (Toll Free line)
619.980.7372 (Direct line)
Lmerson@chaosover.com

WHAT DO I DO WITH ALL OF MY FOLLOW-UPS THAT SEEM TO BE FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS?

Calendaring your Pendings*
*Waiting for someone to get back to me; Awaiting a deadline to occur; Awaiting an event to take place

Picture this – you have just sent me an e-mail requesting something of me that you require. Now this is work for me to do (what we refer to as a ‘Turtle’), and what is it for you? If you said “Pending”, you got it.

Your having hit the ‘Send’ button (and being a diligent follower of the CHAOSOVER system), you immediately went to your ‘Sent’ file and, lo and behold, there at the top of your ‘Sent’ file (actually, according to our program, this should be the ONLY item in your ‘Sent’ file), is the e-mail requesting information from me.

Now for those of you using Outlook (this will also work with many other systems), you now drag this e-mail down to your ‘Calendar’ bar, let go, and voila, the body of your e-mail appears in your calendar for the day.

Why is this so terrific? Because…ALL PENDINGS HAVE TO BE CALENDARED. Now all that you need to do is the following:
-Change the date from today’s date (unless today is actually the day you intend to follow-up with me).
-Log the of time of day you wish to contact me.
-On ‘Subject’ you log: (PE) Len re: Acme Freight proposal (The symbol ‘PE’ denotes the location being in your
E-mail’s ‘Pending’ file.)
-Lastly, now drag the e-mail sitting in your ‘Sent’ file into your ‘PENDING’ (PE) file.

CONGRATULATIONS, AS YOU NOW HAVE…
"THE PLEASURE TO FORGET"

Len Merson,
Founder, C.E.O.
Chaos Over, Inc.
1-88-VERY CALM (Toll Free line)
619.980.7372 (Direct line)
619.291.1709 (Facsimile line)
Lmerson@chaosover.com

"What if...?"; "If only..."; I wish I had..."; "I shoulda..."; One of these days I'm gonna'..."

The phrases above are intentionally unfinished because they are many times uttered either in a person’s last breath or certainly many times prior. The justifications are rampant having to do with such excuses as time, energy, time, focus, time, money, lest we forget-time.

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.

With great respect,
Len

Len Merson,
Founder, C.E.O.
Chaos Over, Inc.

1-88-VERY CALM (Toll Free line)
619.980.7372 (Direct line)
619.291.1709 (Facsimile line)
Lmerson@chaosover.com

DEALING WITH THE SECOND AND THIRD GENERATIONS OF STRESS

Let’s face it, there has always been stress associated with our lives. Yet, it is important to acknowledge that there are basically two forms of stress. We are all too familiar with the negative kind, however let us acknowledge that there is the positive variety as well. For example, remember the moment that you fell in love (interesting how we use the term “fell” to describe this feeling). Anyway, that was a stressful experience, albeit a positive one.

The very derivation of the word ‘disease’ is understood by simply placing a hyphen between the first ‘s’ and ‘e’, thus creating the term: ‘Dis-Ease’.

Insurance companies, health benefit consultants, major corporations, the medical community have now recognized that stress (negative) is the leading cause of illnesses and the astronomical cost of health care in our nation today.

Cardiologists, emergency room physicians and nurses will tell you that most heart attacks take place late Sunday night/the early morning hours of Monday. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. The worry, concern and stress begin building up for most by Sunday afternoon.

Stress in our family life and our personal life notwithstanding, we spend a majority of our waking life at our workplace. This has within it, the 'First Generation of Stress'. Couple this with the fact that our incomes, which support our personal and family lives, are derived from our work. I refer to this as the ‘First Generation of Stress’.

Due to our country’s current economic condition there is, what I describe as, the ‘Second and Third Generations of Stress’.

This ‘Second Generation’ emanates from those many businesses that have had to downsize. One of my clients recently told me that, due to the slowing of his construction company’s business, he had to lay off two tenured staff members.

Even with business at this slower pace, the staff still had to pick up the responsibilities, duties…and knowledge…from these two ex-staff members. In my interviewing the remaining staff, each one told me how this has increased their stress levels greatly.

As if this wasn’t enough, the ‘Third Generation of Stress’ is the most damning. This is due to our nation’s employed getting up to go to work each day with their very first thought, “Is today the day that I am going to lose my job?”

In dealing with the ‘Second and Third Generations of Stress’, pep talks, platitudes and affirmations such as “This too shall pass”, “Worry is an insult to God”, while not to be discounted, do in fact require a great deal of faith and trust. It would be foolish to forget, especially at this particular time, that we do control our thoughts.

NOTE-This would be a good time to read (or re-read) my blog entitled ‘THE POWER OF INTENTION’.

It is essential to remember just how many times, in each of our lives, we have looked into the face of impending doom only to discover that we did, in fact, make it through.

I fervently believe that this current economic situation we are all facing will ebb. Yet, we will still be left with the ‘First Generation of Stress’.

The ChaosOver “Live” Program, as well as the LIVING CHAOS FREE E-Learning Platform, are each dedicated to PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENT (measurable) and STRESS REDUCTION (affecting our personal and family lives as well). Ironically these two results- the heightening of productivity and the lessening of stress- have been, for the past thirty-six years, my personal mission with well over 77,000 people around the world.


Len Merson,
Founder, C.E.O.
Chaos Over, Inc. & Productivity Concepts, Inc.

1-88-VERY CALM (Toll Free line)
619.980.7372 (Direct line)
Lmerson@chaosover.com

LIFE'S FULL CIRCLE

How often have how we heard the expressions of “What comes around goes around”; You reap what you sow”; “One good turn deserves another”? Yet, what meaning that does truly hold for any of us on a day-to-day basis?

While most people believe in coincidence, happenstance and such, I believe in the Karmic aspect of life. A goodly number of people believe that to mean, for example, by making a contribution to a worthy cause or individual, I expect to be somehow personally rewarded in some fashion. Does this really make it an unconditional gesture?

In other words, many people believe that we are rewarded BECAUSE we did a goodly deed. However, contrary to popular belief, that is not the way it appears to work. Perhaps the accurate, and karmic, perspective is that we do a goodly deed AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS that we are rewarded. (Please do not misinterpret this as simply semantics.)

Do you see the difference? A majority of the “good” that people do has within it the ulterior motive of a reward forthcoming. There are, however, those who do goodly deeds without any true expectation or anticipation of some form of reward coming their way. This is the truest form of contribution.

The ancient Hebrew philosophy describes the act of “Tzedakah”. Tzedakah is based on a root meaning justice. Tzedakah refers to performing charity, and philanthropic acts, which Judaism emphasizes are important parts of living a spiritual life; Jewish tradition points out that the highest form of tzedakah is to anonymously give donations to unknown recipients. In other words, neither the giver nor the recipient knows of one another. Unlike philanthropy, which is where the giver, much of the time, has an underlying, albeit sub-conscious, ego-driven motive and the recipient is made humbled by the gift…true tzedakah, on the other hand, is seen as a deed, which should be performed regardless of financial standing or acknowledgment, and the sole reward is between the giver and his/her Maker.

This creates a situation where in the deed is not conceived with the ulterior motive of doing this BECAUSE you expect to be rewarded; the deed is made AND IT JUST SO HAPPENS that you are rewarded.

In the latter 1970’s, I was conducting a seminar with over 300 attendees. At the two-thirds point in the program I offered to the participants the opportunity to ask, and receive, a full refund of their monies if the experience of my program appeared to offer no lasting benefits.

A gentleman did indeed ask for his refund. End of story…or so I thought.

Fast forward to the year 2009. More than thirty years have passed. I receive a phone call from this same individual. His name is Don. He found me via ‘Google’. Don tells me that it took years for him to recognize that he did indeed find great and lasting value in my work with him. He goes on to ask if he can do something for me as an act of Tzedakah to compensate for the refund he received. It so happens that Don has vast experience in an arena that I have been seeking help in launching a program that would enable hundreds of thousands of folks, world-wide, to benefit from my life’s work.

Don appeared in my life as an Angel, a miracle, at the precise moment that I was in futility in making my vision a reality. Suffice it to say that, with the expertise offered to me by this man, my vision, my mission, my dream, is about to be launched.

What goes around does, in fact, come around. In ways that I would never, in my wildest dreams, have expected. I fervently believe that I did a goodly and ethical deed, expecting nothing in return...AND IT JUST SO HAPPENED that I was incredibly rewarded.

This, to me, is how life’s full circle operates for all of us.

With great respect,
Len

Len Merson,
Founder, C.E.O.
Chaos Over, Inc.

1-88-VERY CALM (Toll Free line)
619.980.7372 (Direct line)
619.291.1709 (Facsimile line)
Lmerson@chaosover.com

ELIMINATE PROCRASTINATION FOREVER

Are you one of those people who continually shift your tasks around doing the things you enjoy most first and putting off the ones you don’t enjoy until later…much later?

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 :
o My boss will be happy with me
o The client will be happy and we may get more business from them
o Our company will make money on this
o I may get a raise, promotion, accolades
o 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:

o My boss will be very unhappy with me
o I could get fired or, at least, reprimanded
o I could miss out on a promotion
o I could be sabotaging a co-worker
o We could lose a client
o Our company could lose money
o 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!

Len Merson,
Founder, C.E.O.
Chaos Over, Inc.

1-88-VERY CALM (Toll Free line)
619.980.7372 (Direct line)
Lmerson@chaosover.com