1. You will never be penalized for being done or ready early. If something is due at 11:00 am on Tuesday, have it done by at least 8:00am Monday. If you have a test on Tuesday at 11:00 am, be ready on Monday at 11:00 a.m. Corollary: You will never be penalized for doing more than is required.

2. After you get it done early, review what you've done for any mistakes or omissions. Fix the mistakes or omissions.

3. If you don't know something, ask someone who does.

4. If you don't know something and you wait to the last minute, it may be hard to find someone who knows what you need to know.

5. Learning is hard work, sometimes no fun, and takes at least twice as long as you thought it would.

6. Your teacher, your boss, and your spouse will not always give you every detail of what they want done--but you had better figure it out.

7. The smarter student, employee, and spouse will be willing to work harder and ask the right questions to find out what will more than satisfy their requirements. The weaker student, employee, and spouse will do whatever they feel like doing and hope that they can get by. Always do your very best, so that you have no regrets.

8. Follow instructions. Double-check everything. Make task checklists when busy (or buy a PDA). "I forgot" or "I didn't know that" are not acceptable excuses.

9. If you have to tell someone else that you are great, then you aren't. Excellent workers, players, spouses and students never have to tell someone that they are hard workers, great scorers, faithful husbands, or A-students. They just are.

10. Recognize that when you are late (arriving, turning in an assignment, etc.) you are implicitly telling them that whatever else you were doing was more important than what you are late for. You decided to do something else that was more important to you.