Uncover your Keys to Success in 6 Simple Steps!

Unlock your Potential with your Unique Operating System!

You are hard-wired for success! Each of us is born with what we need to achieve, your own natural Success System I call your “Unique Operating System”, or (UOS). It’s your key to success!

Your UOS is what comes natural to you. It’s what comes easiest to you. Your UOS comprises your unique talents, strengths and ways of doing things. It includes how you process information naturally, and how you organize things naturally, and more. It’s unique. It’s yours alone.

Simplistically, these are some of the basic components of your Unique Operating System:

• Processing Style: How you learn and process information naturally. (Visual, Verbal/Aural, Kinesthetic, etc.)
• Organizational Style: How you organize information and physical objects and space naturally. (Are you a pile-maker? Are you a clusterer? Do you like to spread out?)
• Interests: What stimulates you. What gets your motor running.
• Habits: What you already do regularly. What is consistent for you. What already works.
• Energy Flow: The times of day you are most clear, focused and productive, and the times when you’re most sluggish (cognitively and physically).
• Beliefs & Values. How you see yourself, the world, right and wrong.

Many of us (people like you and me who have busy, creative brains) struggle to stay organized, focused and productive are less than effective because we’re working against our strengths, rather than with our strengths. We try hard every day, but feel like we’re coming up short of our potential because we can’t seem to stay in front of our to-dos, calendars and responsibilities consistently.

And it’s not a coincidence that most of us who feel like we are under-performing are trying to plug ourselves into someone else’s way of doing things—someone else’s systems and tools. Once in a while, we might get lucky and find something that sticks for a while. But most of the time, those changes are short-lived. You might do well in the beginning when you’re full of excitement and hope, but you can’t sustain the required effort for the long haul. Most of the time, those changes don’t last in any meaningful way that you can rely on.

So you try another system. Another gadget. Another gizmo. Another app. And you start from scratch over and over and over again. Hoping to find “The One”! Like a hopeless romantic waiting for Prince (or Princess) Charming to save the day and, with that magical glass slipper in hand, find your fits-like-a-glove productivity system.

Eventually, hope and promise evaporate, and you feel like a failure, yet again. Sound familiar? If you’re still reading, I’ll bet it does. But…

You’re not alone!

Many of my clients consider themselves “GTD® Dropouts”, “Covey Failures”, or “Bullet Journal Bombs.” Most of my clients are extremely well-versed in productivity and organizational methods and theory. They’re well read, and they’re well-practiced. And most of them have bought into far more than their share of gadgets, gizmos, and gurus with very little lasting change to show for it. They’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and money trying to plug themselves into someone else’s “operating system.” Like trying to run a Windows^© program on a Mac^©, and vice versa, it just doesn’t work!

Why? Because the solutions that work best for you are not in an app or a book or a planner.

The Solutions that Work Best for You are in your Unique Operating System!

What comes naturally is what’s easiest for you. What is easiest for you requires less effort for positive payback. And when we find the right balance between effort and payback, motivation becomes a non-issue.

When you’re using your natural strengths, talents and inclinations, it’s easier to be consistent and stick with what you’re doing which, in turns, makes it more likely that you’ll follow through. And consistency and follow-through are fundamental to making lasting change!

Here are 6 Simple Steps you can take Today to start to Tap Into Your own Unique Operating System:

1. Uncover your Processing Style. How do you remember things most easily? Do you repeat them to yourself, picture them in your mind, touch them, or something else? There are lots of exercises you can do to help you uncover how you naturally process information. Most of us have a combination of processing styles that are most natural to us. When we work with our natural style, life is easier!
2. Identify your organizational style. Are you a pile-maker? Do you tend to cluster like things together? Do you need certain areas clear and uncluttered to function well, while other areas can be a mess without impacting you much? Creating systems and tools that work with your natural rather than against it can make it easier to be consistent, and improve performance.
3. Take Note of your Energy Flow. Each of us has a natural rhythm to our energy throughout the day. There are peaks and valleys in clarity, focus and processing power that ebb and flow throughout each day. Pay attention to your “high spots” and your low spots and plan your activities correspondingly. For those “low spots”, play with what might help them be a little less low (eating a snack, moving your body, doing a high-interest activity at the beginning to give yourself a boost of dopamine, etc.)
4. Find What Already Works. What are you already doing that works? For example, what are the things that you never (or very rarely) misplace? (And don’t tell me there aren’t any, because I guarantee you that I could help you find them!) For a hint, look at your favorite activities, hobbies, pastimes, etc. Very few avid golfers misplace their favorite shoes and very few devoted fisherman misplace their favorite rods. I promise you there’s something if you look! Ask yourself: what are you doing with those things or how are you thinking about those things that is different from the things you frequently search for? Building on what works rather than trying re-invent the wheel all the time is a faster path to success!
5. Identify your Most Solid Habits. What habits do you have that are almost as sure at the rising and setting sun? What are the common threads among those habits? What about those habits is easy for you? What’s the payback for those habits? Those habits are the cornerstone of your natural foundation of structure.
6. Get clear on your Strengths! What are your good at? What do you do so easily that you’ve forgotten that others may struggle with it? What do people often come to you for help with? What is second nature for you that the people around you often lean on? This one is hard for most of my clients, but an important one to look at for uncovering natural strengths! When you can learn your strengths (and appreciate them) you can apply them to your areas of struggle and compensate more easily for the things you’re not great at!

You have the keys to your own success inside of you! Uncovering your Unique Operating System is essential to making the most of your time, energy and abilities. Working with your natural strengths tendencies and talents (your UOS) is the Key to Unlocking Your Potential!

It’s really fundamental to the work I do with my clients in developing the systems, tools and solutions they need to bring their performance up to the level of their abilities. It’s how I help them get their Performance in Sync with their Potentials so that they can go from Stuck to Unstoppable!

I hope I gave you some ideas or at least got you thinking! Questions? Comments?

I’m here to help if you need me…

As always, thanks for reading!

Lynne Edris, ACG
Productivity & ADHD Coach
www.CoachingADDvantages.com