Only Do Three Things per Day
Most of us have too much to do. We are overwhelmed at work and overwhelmed at home. And guess what? Most people are even more overwhelmed when they start making to-do lists. Why? Because they write down dozens of items and can see that the list will eventually have hundreds of items. Most people aren’t […]
Are You Doing “Second Half of Life” Things Yet?
I just finished an excellent book entitled Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr. He starts out by examining Carl Jung’s work on the two halves of human growth or the two halves of life. “The first half of life is spent building our sense of identity, importance, and security—what […]
Do You Need to Be Done?
I realized a while back that I no longer strive to be “done” with a lot of things. Some things need to be done, of course. But others are never done. When I’m writing a book or putting together a new presentation, I love the feeling of making progress. I track it on Excel spreadsheets. […]
Your “Before” Picture
Here’s a quick exercise for you. Take a selfie with your cell phone and label it “Before.” How do I know that this is your “before” picture? Because change is coming in your life. You might know what’s coming. It could be the book you’re writing, the goal you’re working toward at work, the new […]
Priming Your Brain – Part 3
In my last two blog posts (Part 1 and Part 2), I introduced the reticular activating system (RAS) and talked a bit about how you can “prime” it to focus on your goals. In this blog post, I want to touch on what happens when you don’t focus your attention. If you study a lot […]
“I’m Going Home for the Day”
One of the hardest things to do these days is to unplug. Technology keeps us so connected all the time that we never feel like we’re off work. This is particularly true with people who are self employed. And with people who work in big companies. And everybody else, too. 🙂 We have email on […]
How to Disappear and Get a Bunch of Work Done without Anyone Noticing
I am a firm believer that you must control your schedule, your availability, and your communication. These things are absolutely essential to your productivity and success. If you don’t control these things, someone else will. Guaranteed! The two most common questions I get are some variation of the following: 1) How do you accomplish so […]
Be Great Where You Can!
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins starts with the premise that Good is the enemy of Great. The argument is that it takes a lot of hard work and organization to create a good company, hire good employees, have good policies, etc. And once all that hard work is done, people have a […]
Stop Wasting Your Life with Distractions!
I was reading a very old book by Seneca the Younger called On the Shortness of Life. Although it was written almost 2,000 years ago, it reads like a message for today. Seneca talks about people spending all their time in foolish activities rather than leading their lives. When we look at our lives today […]
The Twelve City Project
I had a strange idea a few years ago. And slowly, I realize it is coming true. It happened when I was traveling a lot and figuring out ways to be just as productive on the road. When I’m in the U.S., this is generally not a problem. Most decent hotels have decent Internet and […]
