After she breaks into the domicile of the Three Bears, Goldilocks makes herself at home. She eats their food, yummy porridge. More precisely, she eats some of it.

One bowl is too hot. Goldilocks passes on that one, along with the one where the porridge is “too cold.” Luckily for her, though not the bears, one bowl’s temperature is “just right.”

I’m betting that my wife would have been just fine with the “too hot” bowl. I probably would have been OK with the one that Goldilocks thought was “too cold.” At least that’s how we are with coffee.

We’re different in the way we work, too. I’m pretty much a “plan your work and work your plan” person. My wife is a true “go with the flow” person.

One of life’s arts is finding out what a “just right” level of discipline or structure is for you. If there’s too much structure, you’ll be frustrated and you won’t be creative. If there’s too little, you won’t be very productive.

As you go through your life and career, learn what’s right for you. In the meantime there are some things you should know.

You only have a limited capacity for self-discipline. Dr. Roy F. Baumeister of Florida State University found that “people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task.”

You can develop your capacity for self-discipline. No matter what level of structure is right for you, having more self-discipline when you need it will help you succeed.

Start your day with your most important task. That uses your self-discipline where it has the most effect.

Find simple ways to practice self-discipline throughout your day. You’ll be developing your self-discipline muscles.

Look for simple tools like checklists and automatic reminders that can lift the load of remembering from your brain. That way you save self-discipline for more important things.

Learning your “just right” level of structure will help you work more effectively. Increasing your self-discipline capacity will give you the discipline you need for times when you just have to buckle down and get the job done.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 9:06 am and is filed under Tools and Strategies for Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.