Your ability to manage your time, to focus and channel your energies on your highest value tasks, will determine your rewards and your level of accomplishment in life more than any other factor.
Your mind is your most precious asset. You must be continually working to increase the quality of your thinking. One of the best ways to do this is to turn driving time and travelling time into learning time. Listen to educational CDs or audio cassettes in your car or on the train or bus. The average driver, according to the Automobile Association, drives 12,000 to 25,000 miles each year, that's 500 to 1000 hours time spent each year in your car.
Commuters often spend 4 hours a day, five day a week on trains or buses. That is also about 1000 hours a year.
This driving/travelling time is the equivalent of 12 ½ to 25 forty-hour weeks. Incredible to think how much time is spent driving or commuting.
This amount of time is the same as two full university terms each year and you spend it behind the wheel of a car or sitting on a train or bus.
If you did nothing but use that travelling time as learning time, this decision alone could make you one of the most highly educated people of your generation. Many people have gone from rags to riches simply by listening to audio programs as they drive to and from work.
In addition, for personal and professional development, try to attend every seminar you can. You can often save yourself 100's of hours of reading and researching by attending a seminar given by an authority in his or her field. You can learn ideas, techniques and methods that can save you hours, days, even months of hard work and research on your own.
Remember, to earn more, you must learn more. Your outer world of results will always correspond to your inner world of preparation. Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.
Now, here are two things you can do to put these ideas to work in your life immediately.
Firstly, purchase an audio program that can help you to be happier and more effective today. Begin listening to it immediately. Resolve never to listen to music in your car or on your ipod when you can turn driving or travelling time into learning time.
Secondly, seek out seminars and training programs given by experts in their field. Sit close to the front, take careful notes, and apply the best ideas that you learn immediately. Not all of it will be relevant, but there are always gems to be learned at any seminar. And when you put all those gems together you will have some very sparkly knowledge that you can use to your advantage.