Give me 5

When you feel like stopping - give me 5 more. 5 more minutes, 5 more kilos, 5 more push ups, 5 more phone calls.

5 more is easy and those 5 can be the difference between growing, stagnating or going backwards. It can be the difference between your company making a few extra dollars, or lots of extra money.

• Our muscles need an extra push now and then.
• Our minds get lazy, we can talk ourself into, or as is usually the case "out of" everything.

But if we choose to take a look at everything we do and say - no I'm not stopping now I'm going to do another 5. If it's exercise - then count them down. It's only 5, you can do 5. If it's work on a project, then give me 5 extra minutes, push yourself a litle harder, don't give in to the lazy mind syndrome.

I do know it can be hard to start something when we feel we are not in the mood. All I ask is you give me 5 minutes. Once you get beyond the 5 the rest is easy. Your mind says "I can do 5 minutes" I'll work on this piece for 5 minutes, I'll brainstorm some ideas, maybe write a paragraph in 5 minutes. You can by the way write approximately 2/3 of a page (a4) in 5 minutes. Try it ...and I'll make it easy for you to have a go.

Choose 3 words from a dictionary at random, or use these

Time, Blue, Tent

The piece has to start with one of the 3 words and the others have to appear in the first paragraph. Set your timer for 5 minutes and start writing. Oh and you can use plurals of the word if you need to.

If you are struggling to write a paper, get into the habit of breaking down your work into sections. Choose 3 appropriate words for each section and start writing. By using a noun at the beginning of a sentence, you will also find your writing is tighter, and because you write quickly there will be less editing needed at the end. By the time you have completed a few of the sections, all you need to do to complete the piece is to make sure the writing flows. Sometimes you will need a joining sentence to get from one section to another, but as you read each bit back to yourself you will easily spot the places where they are needed.

People often ask me how I can write so much every day - and the answer lies in the above. I give myself 5 minutes of thinking time, I mull a few ideas over in my head, choose a couple of appropriate words that cover the topic or subject area and then write. And because I write quickly, there is little or no editing required.

So, give me 5 - you know you can.

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We have added a new section to the website for cards and journals. I'm always disappointed by the ones I see in the shop (especially cards) so i've decided to create a range of my own. It's still in its infancy - but there are a range of photographic cards and note packs available - and more will be added in the not too distant future. There is also the procrastinators range ....)

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Comments

[Ralph Lovuolo]

In any referral based marketing initiative, if a salesperson has "5" reliable referral sources, they WILL be successful.
If a salesperson will see 5 good referral sources a day they Will be successful.
As I have been saying for many years, if you make your number "5", you cannot fail.

[Elle]

Awesome comment, thank you Ralph....
gimme 5
Elle