Category: Productivity

Think Negative Not Positive

We’ve always been told about the Power of Postive Thinking. Well, the Wall Street Journal tells us a counterintuitive approach may be better. It seems that thinking about what the worst could be can help you stop actually worrying about it. Do you fear embarrassment? It’s OK, so do most of us. Try this then…

To overcome a fear of embarrassment, Ellis told me, he advised his clients to travel on the New York subway, speaking the names of stations out loud as they passed. I’m an easily embarrassed person, so in the interest of journalistic research, I took his advice, on the Central Line of the London Underground. It was agonizing. But my overblown fears were cut down to size: I wasn’t verbally harangued or physically attacked. A few people looked at me strangely.

Check out the whole article and let me know your thoughts on the approach. From The Power of Negative Thinking – WSJ.co

 

How to Develop Discipline

Always a problem… especially around the new year with all the resolutions! One of my favourite bloggers offers some good advice in a podcast:

Over the years, I have found that I can become disciplined in any area of my life by taking five specific steps. Whether it is trying to get in shape, maintain a blog, or develop a great marriage, the psychology is the same.

  1. Determine your goal.Your goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. This is an acronym that provides a checklist for making sure that what you have is indeed a goal and not merely an aspiration. It stands for:
    • Smart
    • Measurable
    • Actionable
    • Realistic
    • Time-bound
  2. List your reasons
  3. Identify likely obstacles.
  4. Develop new behaviors.
  5. Stay focused.

  From How to Develop More Discipline [Podcast] | Michael Hyatt

 

Don’t be Perfect from the Start

Jason Fried says

There’s a lot of talk about how important details are. But what’s often left out of the discussion is timing. Details and timing are intimately related.

I wholeheartedly agree. All too often we try to get things absolutely right but sometimes we need to just blat out what we’re doing and worry about the details later. When it comes to writing posts I’m a real idiot sometimes. I have so many half written posts that never got sent because I was trying to get my thoughts perfect from the start. Better to just write it and then give myself time to worry about the details. What about you? What do you not get done because you’re too worried about being perfect from the start? From Ignore details early on by Jason Fried of 37signals

 

Productivity and Technology

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One of the topics of these ramblings will be productivity.  Or more specifically how technology can be used to actually help and not hinder!

The term “Productivity” flies around the internet with gay abandon, (now there’s an “old fashioned” usage of that term, maybe I’m showing my age…), but how often do we see it, (Productivity), actually defined?

Are we all talking about the same thing?  Probably not so I thought I’d try and define it, at least for the purpose of this blog.  So here goes…

Productivity is the art/science of doing the doing the right things at the right time as efficiently as possible.  The two purposes of “productivity” are:

  1. The achievement of your purpose in life, while

  2. Maintaining balance in life (work/spiritual/family/rest/recreation).

Now this definition is a work in progress so I’d love all the help you can give me.  Please, please add your thoughts by way of comment.

Thanks for your help.