Thursday, February 2, 2012

What if Every Day was Groundhog Day?

What if your personal productivity could be taken to a new level?  Is it possible to accomplish more than you ever thought?   I have to take a short break from the marketing side to share with you a little creative challenge to your idea of personal productivity.

imageBack in 1993 a great little movie came out that had people talking.  Groundhog Day starred Bill Murray and Andie McDowell.  In the movie, Phil (Bill Murray), a weather man, is made to cover the yearly story of the famous Pennsylvania groundhog that is know throughout the world with its ability to forecast the weather.   Upon awakening the following day, he finds that he is forced to live the entire day over again and meet all the same people in just the same order. This repeats itself until he realizes that this sorry predicament will be his eternal fate. 

Out of sheer boredom, each day, Phil makes a small change to outcome of his day.  Until one day, his imageday is so carefully crafted and his life so much more improved, that his impact on those around him turns his world upside down,  and of course his greatest achievement is in convincing his crush Rita that he really loves her and is deserving of her.

WHAT IF… every day could be as productive as that  last day.  If you could have rehearsed today over and over and over, and made it perfect, what would it be like?  How would it be different?  What great things would you have accomplished merely by perfecting productivity.  Likely just by this moment in your day, you might have reached out, started that new business, have had a dozen deals underway, called your mom again, made a child feel they could take on the world, etc.  And it might only be lunch time.  One day, practiced until perfect, what would that day be like?

We all have the chance to improve one little bit every day.  Over the weeks and months those changes account for huge improvements in personal productivity.  Living every day like it is a new day is certainly nice, but if that day is unplanned, without a thousand small learnings from the trial and error of the days before built in, then it is bound to let the rich rewards slip away.

Live that day rather than the day we all live.

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