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Practical Tips for Productive Living

Archives for February 2012

12 Things To Start Caring About Today

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12 Things To Start Caring About Today

Life is all about taking chances.  It’s about doing something you initially thought you could never do.  It’s about being a little crazy, following your heart, and not worrying about every detail of what everyone else thinks.  And above all, it’s about learning to love who you are and what you have.

Here are twelve things to start caring about on your journey forward.

  1. Start caring about your own happiness. – It’s important to make people happy, but you have to start with yourself.  Your needs matter.  Sometimes we get lost trying to live our lives for someone else, trying to meet their expectations, or trying to do things just to impress others.  But you’ve got to live, do and love so that YOU are happy.  Because when it comes down to it, relationships can end in an instant, but you will live with yourself for the rest of your life.  Remember, it is possible to take care of your own needs while simultaneously caring for those around you.  And once your needs are met, you will likely be far more capable of helping those who need you most.  Read Stumbling on Happiness.
  2. Start caring about your goals and dreams. – If you want to know where your heart is, look where your mind goes when it wanders.  As Steve Jobs once said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.  Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary.”
  3. Start caring about how you invest your time every day. – There might not be a tomorrow, not for everyone.  Right now, someone on Earth is planning something for tomorrow without realizing they’re going to die today.  This is sad but true.  So spend your time wisely and pause long enough to appreciate it.  Remember, what you do every day matters more than what you do every once in awhile.  Use a time management system to control events, rather than have events controlling you.  It may take little time to get where you want to be, but if you think for a moment, you will realize that you are no longer where you once were.  Do not stop – keep going.  You’re getting closer every day.
  4. Start caring about how you think and what you think about. – In your quiet moments, what do you think about?  How far you’ve come, or [Read more…]

12 Things Highly Productive People Do Differently

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12 Things Highly Productive People Do Differently

“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless,
add what is specifically your own.”
– Bruce Lee

Being highly productive is not an innate talent; it’s simply a matter of organizing your life so that you can efficiently get the right things done.

So, what behaviors define highly productive people?  What habits and strategies make them consistently more productive than others?  And what can you do to increase your own productivity?

Here are some ideas to get you started…

  1. Create and observe a TO-DON’T list. – A ‘TO-DON’T list’ is a list of things not to do.  It might seem amusing, but it’s an incredibly useful tool for keeping track of unproductive habits, like checking Facebook and Twitter, randomly browsing news websites, etc.  Create one and post it up in your workspace where you can see it.
  2. Organize your space and data. – Highly productive people have systems in place to help them find what they need when they need it – they can quickly locate the information required to support their activities.  When you’re disorganized, that extra time spent looking for a phone number, email address or a certain file forces you to drop your focus.  Once it’s gone, it takes a while to get it back – and that’s where the real time is wasted.  Keeping both your living and working spaces organized is crucial.  Read Getting Things Done.
  3. Ruthlessly eliminate distractions while you work. – Eliminating all distractions for a set time while you work is one of the most effective ways to get things done.  So, lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your [Read more…]

10 Good Reminders for Stressful Times

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10 Helpful Reminders for Stressful Times

“Fall seven times, stand up eight!”

Just a few things to think about when life delivers a dose of difficulty and stress…

  1. Happiness is never constant, and it’s not supposed to be. – You have to fight through some bad days to earn the best days of your life.  To believe that you can reach a state of happiness and stay there forever, is like the tide believing she can reach for the shoreline and remain there forever; or like a fruit tree believing that if she only holds on tighter, she can keep her fruit from dropping to the ground.  Happiness is simply a series of moments that come and go and add sweetness to our lives.  Learn to accept this, and the more happy moments you will have.  Read The Happiness Project.
  2. Failures are temporary situations that teach us necessary lessons. – Life’s best lessons are usually learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes.  So yes, you will fail sometimes.  The faster you accept this, the faster you can get on with being brilliant. You’ll never be 100% sure it will work, but you can always be 100% sure doing nothing won’t work.  Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing.  So get out there and try!  Either you succeed or you learn a vital lesson.  Win – Win.
  3. Even if you can’t see it now, you are making progress. – You may not be where you want to be yet, but if you think about it, you’re no longer where you once were either.  You have good reason to believe that you can trust yourself going forward.  Not because you’ve always made the right choices, but because you survived the bad ones, and taken small steps in the right direction.  So cry for a moment if you have to, and get it out of your system.  Crying doesn’t indicate that you’re weak; since birth, it has always been a sign that you’re alive and full of potential.  Once you’re done, keep going!  You’re undoubtedly getting closer to where you want to be.
  4. How you feel when you’re stressed is not a true measure of reality. – Just because you’re afraid, doesn’t mean you’re in danger.  Just because you feel alone, doesn’t mean nobody loves you.  Just because you [Read more…]

18 Ways To Inspire Everyone Around You

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18 Ways To Inspire Everyone Around You

Live by choice, not by chance.  Make changes, not excuses.  Be motivated, not manipulated.  Work to excel, not compete.  Listen to your own inner voice, not the jumbled opinions of everyone else.

This is the way to inspire people!  This is how you can grow into the best version of YOU!

Here are a few more ideas to get you started with inspiring everyone around you:

  1. Be authentic and true to yourself. – In this crazy world that’s trying to make you like everyone else, find the courage to keep being your awesome self.  Embrace that individual inside you that has ideas, strengths and beauty like no one else.  Be the person you know yourself to be – the best version of you – on your terms.  Above all, be true to YOU, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.  No it won’t always be easy; because when it comes to living as a compassionate, non-judgmental human being, the only challenge greater than learning to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, is learning to walk a lifetime, comfortably in your own.
  2. Stick with what you love. – Take part in something you believe in.  This could be anything.  Some people take an active role in their local city council, some find refuge in religious faith, some join social clubs supporting causes they believe in, and others find passion in their work.  In each case the psychological outcome is the same.  They engage themselves in something they strongly believe in.  This engagement brings happiness and meaning into their lives.  It’s hard not to be inspired by someone who’s passionate about what they’re doing.
  3. Express your enthusiasm. – Passion is something you must be willing to express if you want to inspire others.  You can gain a lot of influence just by publicly expressing that you are excited and passionate about a topic.  Expressive passion is contagious because of the curiosity it stirs in others.  You’ll get people wondering why you love what you love so much.  Naturally, some of them will take the time necessary to understand what it is about the topic that moves you.  (Read How To Win Friends and Influence People.)
  4. Excel at what you do. – People watch what you do more than they listen to what you say.  Be someone worth emulating.  Most people are [Read more…]

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