Stever Robbins - Get-It-Done Guys 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More

Advance Praise for
Get-It-Done Guys 9 Steps to Work Less and Do More

If youre serious about becoming successful, you not only need clarity around your long-term purpose, vision, and goals, you need to organize your time, space, and attention to make success possible. This book will show you how to make sure all your efforts count, so every moment you choose to work brings you closer to your dreams. Stevers unique style makes this book both highly practical and a fun, engaging read.

Jack Canfield, coauthor of The Success Principles and Chicken Soup for the Soul series

Whether youre a C-suite executive or just starting your career, you need to be able to produce results fast. Stever gives simple, practical advice for eliminating distractions, honing in on whats most important, and reaching your goals faster and with more fun. Put his advice into action and increase your impact!

Keith Ferrazzi, New York Times #1 bestselling author of Whos Got Your Back and Never Eat Alone

Building your mojo in work and life means doing what makes you happy and gives you meaning. This books nuts-and-bolts advice will help you concentrate your efforts on what matters most to you and to find ways to achieve it simply and quickly.

Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times and Wall Street Journal #1 bestselling author of What Got You Here Wont Get You There and MOJO: How to Get It, How to Keep It, and How to Get It Back When You Lose It!

Stever Robbins has taken a practical, useful topichow to get more doneand applied it to getting more done at work, and more done in building a meaningful life. The book is packed with tips you can use immediately, and its humor, style, and irreverence make it an easy, fun read.

Marci Shimoff, New York Times bestselling author of Happy for No Reason and Chicken Soup for the Womans Soul

For years, Stever Robbins has been giving me advice. His podcast and now his book are an important source of advice for me. What are you waiting for? You have to pick this up.

Chris Brogan, New York Times bestselling author of Trust Agents and Social Media 101

Wisdom plus tools to make you a heck of a lot more productive! A big payoff for a small book!

Leonard Schlesinger, president, Babson College; former vice chairman and COO, Limited Brands

Some paths to a better life involve twelve steps. Robbins saves you three. His nine steps help me, and I know they will help you live better and get more done by working more efficiently and effectively. Even if you love your work, his advice helps!

Howard Stevenson, chairman, National Public Radio; Sarofim-Rock Baker Foundation Professor, Harvard Business School

The Get-it-Done Guy provides a wealth of smart, useful ways to save time, conveyed with a delightful sense of humor and fun. This book isnt just about doing things better and faster; its about how to build an aligned life and career, focused on your highest goals and values.

Frances Hesselbein, Distinguished Chair of Leadership, U.S. Military Academy; former CEO, Girl Scouts of America; awarded U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom

Get-It-Done Guys

STEVER ROBBINS

ST. MARTINS GRIFFIN NEW YORK

GET-IT-DONE GUYS 9 STEPS TO WORK LESS AND DO MORE. Copyright 2010 by Stever Robbins. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Kelly S. Too

ISBN 978-0-312-66261-5

First Edition: September 2010

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To people who have made a big difference in my life,
knowingly or not, and what they taught me:

QTheres always a better way;

Len SchlesingerFundamentally, there are just three things you need to know;

Michael NeillSettle for nothing less than passion, it will find you;

Richard BandlerIts all in your mind;

Apurva PatelYou are who you decide you are;

Jamie KentYou can be laid back and still change the world;

Tamin PechetDream big then take a first step;

Matt DoyleThe job is auditioning, performing is the bonus.

GET-IT-DONE GUYS
9 STEPS TO WORK LESS AND DO MORE

Once upon a time, they promised us paradise. We invented machines and discovered electricity. We could make clothes, build houses, and do stuff better than we ever could before. Where this was leading was obvious: a world where we spend all our time living for our passion. We become artists and philosophers, dress in flowing, comfortable clothes, and use our matter duplicators to provide for our daily needs. Right.

It didnt work out that way. Instead, those of us who are employed work longer hours than ever. We all work way harder than our hunter-gatherer ancestors ever worked. Our lifespan is about three times what theirs was, too. Thats the good news. The bad news is that we spend so much of that working, we probably end up with less actual fun during our lifetime.

Ive never liked hard work. At age twelve, I discovered computers. What wonderful devices! Figure out a solution to a problem, program it in, and the computer will solve it for you again and again. It was a lazy middle-schoolers dream; I had discovered my first tool to work less. I could solve problems once, and spend all that free time eating Cheetos and playing Pong (if youre under thirty-five, think of Pong as Halo III with a one-pixel screen). While I was blissfully munching Cheetos, the business world also discovered how to work less with computers, Day-Timers, and calculators. As they happily prioritized tasks, they never talked about working less and doing more. Instead, they used the impressive-sounding word productivity. Suddenly, it was all the buzz. By the late eighties, productivity had become entrenched as our national religion. Want to win an argument? Just say, My idea will make us more productive. The Holy Grail of productivity is so deeply ingrained that your opponents will lay down their swords, bow their heads, and defer. After all, what could be better than an idea that will make us more productive? No one even bothers to ask. And thats a real shame. Because if you look closely, youll notice that being more productive isnt doing much for us individually.

Part of the problem is structural: The benefits of productivity dont get spread evenly. So if you want to get stuff done faster and actually have it improve your life by allowing you to work less, you have to do things that will help you work less and do more in all areas of your life.

Thats where I come in. A career in startups and ten years coaching entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and students has given me ample opportunity to help people in all walks of life get their chaos under control so they can start working less, doing more, and having the life of their dreamseven if that just means eight hours of sleep each night! On top of this, Im an organization geek myself. On a bright, sunny afternoon, my idea of a good time is visiting a stationery store to buy new pens and then organizing all my pens based on which ink flows best on the beautiful sixty-pound satin-finish notebook paper I also just bought. Yes, Im pasty white. And what might once have been a therapy-inducing obsession has given me the ability to help people with tans get organized. Life works in mysterious ways.