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Has this ever happened to you? You are sitting at your desk – either at home or at work – and the telephone rings. The caller asks you to write down his number. You apologise : “Just a minute while I find something to write with” Searching for a pencil, you start rotating stacks of junk around your desk… piles of medical receipts, airline tickets, insurance policies, pizza cartoons, nose drops, coffee cups and old newspapers. “Sorry to keep you waiting, there’s a pencil here somewhere…”

You plough into the drawers amongst torch batteries, tooth picks, golf tees, weight loss brochures, wedding photos, loose change from Hong Kong, a kid’s crayon. A crayon! You scribble the number in lemon yellow and hang up.
You think to yourself : “now that I’ve found those insurance policies, I’ll put them into a folder.” Then you file the airline tickets under “travel” and the coffee cups in the dishwasher. Before you know it, you’re on a roll… erasers into the top drawer, telephone books onto the shelf, pizza cartoons into the bin. You even wipe the chocolate caramel off the telephone.

Suddenly you have a vision... “I could have a tidy office.” You feel a surge in your chest and you begin to plan : “I’m going to make fresh files with color coded labels, I’ll have a special jar for ball-points. I’ll even empty my waste basket every week!” now you’re in a mission that’s bigger than writing utensils. You’re creating the world’s cleanest workspace! By midnight you’re found a dozen pencils, but does it matter? No! you’re having to much fun with the vacuum cleaner.

This is the office cleaning principle, and it applies to writing reports, digging ditches, doing your tax, washing the car. You get excited about doing things after you start. You take the plunge, and then you feel the energy and excitement.

We often make mistake by saying : “when I got energy, I’ll begin jogging every morning!” No! you start first. “When I’ll feel more enthusiastic, I’ll do my homework.” Wrong!. “When I get energy, I’ll start my own little business!”
No!.

You get the energy and enthusiasm for the job AFTER you begin. You get the energy as a RESULT of your involvement. The secret is to make a start.
Another thing about starting things… you will never ever be absolutely ready for anything!. For example, a public speech? Are you ever one hundred percent prepared for a speech? No. No matter how many times you rewrite it, no matter how long you spend learning it, you will be telling yourself: “if I had a little more time…”
You prepare as best you can, and then you take a deep breath and jump it.

“You get motivated by doing things, not thinking about them. Action gets you excited and action reveals opportunity. Take the plunge!”