Pay for Your Vacation Now, Says Yes Slowly and More Business Tips for March-April

PLANNING Pay Now, Enjoy Later

To get the most out of yourself in 2024, you need breaks. And to get the most out of your breaks, book them way in advance, like right now! You’ll enjoy it more because of the distance between the pain of paying and the actual experience of the holiday, and you won’t spend all your time thinking, “Am I getting my money’s worth?” Make it all-inclusive, and it will just be a great, relaxing break, says behavioral economist Dan Ariely in his book, Dollars And Sense.

TIME MANAGEMENT Don’t Say “Yes” Quickly

Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, has a rule where he never says yes to anything immediately. According to the Brain Food Newsletter, people-pleasing had him making too many commitments, so now he says something to the effect of: “Thanks for the invite. I don’t say yes to anything on the spot, but I’ll let you know if I’m interested.” Turning the choice into a rule lowers the pain of rejection for others and makes the decision easy for you as well.
 

HEALTH Go Out in the Cold

To be sure, there’s nothing quite as nice as that first spring morning to inspire you to get and enjoy the glory of the outdoors — or even just a walk around the block. But, according to recent studies, there are benefits to be had from heading outdoors even when it’s not so balmy. A brisk walk in the cold, it turns out, is akin to taking a bracing cold shower that raises alertness and stimulates thinking, according to INC magazine.

FINANCES The Rule of Three Digits

If you’re prone to overthinking spending decisions, apply this rule of thumb: The only three digits of your net worth that matter are the left three, so if you have $3,649,855, the $9,855 doesn’t move the needle. Which means you can spend anything to the right (i.e., up to $9,999) without thinking too much. Of course, this is a general conceptual rule — spend $10K on dinner every night for a few months, and soon those three digits to the left will be two. The bigger point, says Khe Hy, a former Wall Street banker who now runs a productivity startup, is that where your attention goes, your energy goes. It helps to be aware when you’re sweating the small stuff.
 

MANAGEMENT No Regrets

How to reframe a bad decision? You were given incomplete information. The future was unknowable. What is there to regret? And if you can view such “mistakes” as chances to learn and grow you’ll be even better off, says Dan Pink in his latest book, The Power of Regret.
 

OPERATIONS Run Better Meetings

One of the best ways to improve meetings is to get everyone on the same page, literally. Before your scheduled get-together, write up a Google Doc (or even an email will do) for participants to read. According to syndicated columnist Marcel Schwantes, this sets the agenda, gets brains thinking about what is to be discussed and “creates a sort of ‘team’ feeling among co-workers that allows you to get to critical thinking faster.”
 

PRODUCTIVITY Speed Read

Consume content at 1.5 times speed. “Studies show that retention rate doesn’t start to drop until around 2X speed,” says productivity blogger Colby Kultgen. “It takes about five minutes to get used to, and then you’ll never want to go back,” This doesn’t apply just to reading. In fact, it’s probably best for listening to podcasts and audiobooks — you’ll get through a lot more useful, inspiring or just fun material.
 

PRODUCTIVITY Prep an Easy Work File

As busy as most business owners are, there are also frequent periods of forced downtime, as you wait for someone to get back to you with a quote, for the lunchtime rush of customers, for a seasonal project to be implemented. For such times, Greg Rudolph, founder and CEO of Board Blazers, recommends keeping an “easy work” file on your desktop. “This includes simple tasks that might require lots of time but can be easily interrupted, such as data entry, reading, or small unfinished items from the day before. That way, you have a simple task ready to go whenever you find yourself with a few free minutes in your day,” he tells INC.

SUCCESS Focus on Anti-Signals

Success breeds success, but it sometimes helps to keep a focus on your failures as well, says entrepreneur writer Jakob Greenfeld, especially if you’ve slipped into a comfort zone of just doing the same thing “that works” week after week. “Unless I’m launching an experiment that fails completely every month, unless I’m offending at least one person with my self-promotion every week, unless I’m getting rejected at least once every day, I’m not pushing things hard enough,” Greenfeld says. To put this thought into action, he recommends the old salesperson’s trick of assigning a number to rejections: “Here’s another useful way to frame this idea: I’m 100 rejections, 100 mean comments, 100 failed experiments away from reaching my goals. And it’s entirely up to me how fast I get through them.”