Everything Has Its Place

I’ve always known that it’s best if important things have their own place; passports, tools and so on. What I’ve only recently realized is that really everything should have an exact place, I mean not just on a particular shelf but a precise spot on that shelf. It may seem rather boorish to be so clinical but the alternative is wasted time searching with complete frustration. You have probably wasted months of your life looking for keys, socks, flashlights, and documents. Even worse, you have probably abandoned projects or ventures simply because you couldn’t find vital elements of the project.

Can you pass the following test? Can you get up now and find your keys, wallet, camera, flashlight and passport with your eyes SHUT?

The other advantage of things having their own exact place is that you will realize much more quickly that an item has gone missing.

I pray that this article empowers you to "Get A L.I.F.E."

Get In The Flow

It sure is easy to recognize when you aren’t in the zone, but how to recognize when you are?


1) You open a letter, deal with it and file it all in one go.

2) You complete one of the “hard things” on your to-do list

3) You need a document that’s stored in the box, no problem you go off to get it.

4) You see a problem you fix it, your internal procrastinator doesn’t get a look in.

5) The more jobs you check off the more energized you feel.

6) Work doesn’t feel like work any more.

Definition of in the flow

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.

2. Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).

3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.

4. Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered.

5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).

6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).

7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.

8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

9. A lack of awareness of bodily needs (to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it)

10. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

A person cannot force himself or herself to enter flow or even predict when he or she is going to enter flow. It just happens. A flow state can be entered while performing any activity, although it is most likely to occur when one is wholeheartedly performing a task or activity for intrinsic purposes.

Catch22:  I have to succeed at something to enter the zone, complete a difficult task, understand something inspirational, or find a remarkable solution.

I pray that this article empowers you to "Get A L.I.F.E."

The 5 Minute Rule

When you are about to abandon a task because you’ve had enough or feel you aren’t getting anywhere or are just bored then try applying the “5 minute Rule”. Say to yourself I will stick at it for just 5 minutes more and then I can give up or take a break.

At the worst you get 5 minutes work done and at the best you will have found a second wind, got focused and become productive.

Remember the other 5 minute rule that we often want to give up a task after 5 minutes; 5 minutes into writing an essay or starting a run that’s the danger time before we’ve warmed to the task before we see any progress, you can use the five-minute rule to help you through this discouraging phase.

I pray that this article empowers you to "Get A L.I.F.E."

How to Motivate Yourself

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents. - Andrew Carnegie

If you want to excel in life, self motivation is essential. You must know how to motivate yourself. You must be able to keep your spirit high no matter how discouraging a situation is. That’s the only way to get the power you need to overcome difficulties. Those who are discouraged in difficult times are certain to lose even before the battle is over.

The question is: how do you motivate yourself? Here are several tips I’ve found to be effective to build self motivation:

1. Have a cause

I can’t think of a more powerful source of motivation than a cause you care about. Such cause can inspire you to give your best even in the face of difficulties. It can make you do seemingly impossible things.

While other causes could inspire you temporarily, a cause that matters to you can inspire you indefinitely. It’s a spring of motivation that will never dry. Whenever you think that you run out of motivation, you can always come to your cause to get a fresh dose of motivation.

2. Have a dream. A big dream.

Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be. - Karen Ravn

Your cause is a powerful source of motivation but it’s still abstract in nature. You need to make it concrete in the form of a dream. Imagine how the world will be in the future. Imagine how people will live and work.

Having a dream is important because it’s difficult to be motivated if you don’t have anything to shoot for. Just think about people who play basketball. Will they be motivated to play if there is no basket to aim at? I don’t think so. They need a goal. You need a goal. That’s what your dream is for.

But just having a dream is insufficient. Your dream must be big enough to inspire you. It must be realistic but challenging. It must stretch your ability beyond your comfort zone.

3. Be hungry

Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way. - Les Brown

To be truly motivated, you need to have hunger and not just desire. Having mere desire won’t take you through difficult times since you don’t want things badly enough. In many cases, hunger makes the difference between the best performers and the mediocre ones.

How can you have hunger? Your cause and your dream play a big role here. If you have a cause you care about and a big dream related to it, you should have the hunger inside of you. If you think that you are losing hunger, all you need to do is to connect again to your cause and dream. Let them inspire you and bring the hunger back.

4. Run your own race

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself. - Mikhail Baryshnikov

Comparing yourself with others is an effective way to de-motivate yourself. Even if you start with enthusiasm, you will soon lose your energy when you compare yourself with others.

Don’t let that happen to you. You have your own race so how other people perform is irrelevant. Comparing yourself with others is like comparing the performance of a swimmer with a runner using the same time standard. They are different so how can you compare one with the other?

The only competitor you have is yourself. The only one you need to beat is you. Have you become the best you can be?

5. Take one more step

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. - Winston Churchill

When you meet obstacles along the way, there could be the tendency to quit. You may think that it’s too difficult to move on. You may think that your dream is impossible to achieve. But this is where you can see the difference between winners and losers. Though both of them face the same difficulties, there is one thing that makes the winners different: the courage to continue.

In difficult situations, just focus on taking one more step forward. Don’t think about how to complete the race. Don’t think about how many more obstacles are waiting for you. Just focus on taking the next step.

6. Let go of the past

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Believe it or not, one of the best de-motivators is your past. Your past can drag you down before you realize it. Your past can give you a heavy burden on your shoulders.

The good news is it’s a burden you don’t have to carry. Take it off your shoulder and leave it. You might make mistakes in the past. You might disappoint others with what you did. But it’s over. It’s already in the past and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Today is a new day and you have the chance to start again. No matter how bad your past might be, you still have a bright future ahead waiting for you. Just don’t let the burden of the past stop you.

Apply these tips and motivate yourself. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Let your self motivation take you to excellence.

I pray that this article empowers you to "Get A L.I.F.E."

Macro vs. Micro

I would call the two perspectives macro and micro which also reflect two levels of productivity. The macro level aims to make our life as a whole productive. It sees productivity from higher altitude. On the other hand, the micro level aims to make one day productive.

If we focus only on the micro level, then we may feel productive in our days only to find that we have done the wrong things at the end. On the other hand, if we focus only on the macro level, we may have a clear direction for our life but not be able to accomplish much in a day. Only by having both of them can we do a lot in a day while at the same time be sure that we have done the right things.

The Macro Level

The essential productivity tip in the macro level is follow your purpose. In essence, following your purpose helps you ensure that you do the right things and do them with passion. Since you love doing it, you will be motivated to achieve more and therefore produce more.

Your life as a whole can be more productive this way. Besides giving you the direction and the motivation, following your purpose also helps you have a balanced life. Following our mind tends to make we focus more on one side (e.g. financial aspect) while ignoring the others, (e.g. relationships). But, if we follow our purpose, we will keep all aspects in balance.

The Micro Level

The essential productivity tip in the micro level is focus in uninterrupted block of time.

1. Block of time

First of all, if we want to accomplish much then we must allocate a long enough block of time. As its name implies, block of time means it must be continuous. It should not be spread throughout the day.

2. Uninterrupted

Second, the block of time must be uninterrupted. We should prevent interruption as much as we can. Close the door, unplug the Internet, turn off the cell phone, and tell your co-workers not to disturb you. Do whatever it takes to prevent interruptions.

3. Focus

Focus means we should do only one task at a time. If we try to multitask then we won’t get optimal results. We should focus on just one task, and move to other task only after we finish it.

These three conditions help us enter the state of flow, the state where we are so absorbed by the task that we no longer realize the passage of time. Like sun’s rays focused through magnifying glass can burn paper, mind focused in the state of flow can accomplish whatever task you face.

Conclusion

Combining these two tips will give you the best results. Make sure that you follow your purpose and do what matters to you. But then, make sure that you accomplish your tasks with focus in uninterrupted block of time. This way, you will have very productive days and very productive life.

I pray that this article empowers you to "Get A L.I.F.E."

A Tip to Be Productive

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by a task or project? Perhaps you need to write a report that requires a lot of effort to prepare. Or you need to do something you don’t like that seems big and difficult.

In such situations, there are two responses you might take. The first one is procrastinating. Procrastinating is a way to temporarily relieve the pain associated with being overwhelmed. When you procrastinate, you choose to delay doing the task so that you don’t have to deal with it. The second response is doing the task despite being stressed. You still do what you need to do, but you have many things in your mind that drain your mental energy.

If you want to be more productive, you should focus exclusively on the next thing to do. Don’t think about what you did or what to do later. Just focus on the one thing that you need to do next. Doing this simplifies the situation since you don’t have many things in your mind. Instead of having your energy distracted by the past and the future, you focus your energy on the task that you need to do now.

What if you still feel overwhelmed? Then make it simpler. Break the task to even simpler tasks.

I pray that this article empowers you to "Get A L.I.F.E."

Recover Your New Year’s Resolutions

Statistically most people who start new year’s resolutions drop them by the third week. Regardless of whether it’s because they take on too much or go into them with good intentions but little knowledge of how to achieve them, people need not abandon their resolutions so easily at the first obstacle. Below are suggestions on how to turn things around and restart those resolutions.

Decide on just one resolution

It’s common practice for people to come up with a large collection of resolutions. Big mistake! You simply can’t give 100% commitment to your efforts if it is all spread out between a number of goals. Furthermore, as soon as you hit a rough patch with one resolution (and you surely will), the resulting drop in focus and motivation will have a knock-on effect on your other resolutions. So determine which resolution is most important to you and will make the largest difference to your life, then concentrate purely on that one.

Work out why you failed

Why did you drop your resolutions? What got in the way? There is no point starting up your efforts again if you don’t deal with the immediate obstacles in your way. It could be something as simple as having taken on too many goals (as discussed above), a lack of understanding of effective habit building practices, or it could be something much deeper. For instance, you may be trying to quit smoking yet you are surrounded by fellow smokers all day. Alternatively, you may want to lose weight but you still have a fridge full of burgers and chips.

Break down the resolution into small chunks

View your new year’s resolution with a different perspective. Consider it as a project and break it down into appropriate next actions. That way you will have a much more clear idea of what you are trying to achieve and by having the resolution broken down into manageable chunks you only need to take on as much as you can manage. Break the timescale down too. Just because it’s a new year’s resolution, doesn’t mean you have to think in yearly terms. If you have a resolution to regularly go to the gym, think about what a reasonable target would be weekly. For instance you could start off aiming to just go to the gym once a week and then when you are settled with that, expand to two days a week.

Accept that you will stumble along the way

Resolutions aren’t an all-or-nothing situation. However, because they are viewed as a once a year deal and get covered so often in the media around the holiday season, they can get built up in people’s heads leading to overly optimistic expectations. It’s important to be realistic about your resolutions and realize that you will come across hurdles along the way. Effective new year’s resolutions aren’t about trying to stay on the bike, it’s about climbing back on again after each fall.

I pray that this article empowers you to "Get A L.I.F.E."

7 Ways to Defeat Procrastination

Many people have the classic problem of ‘thinking about being productive, but not putting it into action’.

Here are 7 habits to implement to counter the procrastination habit.

1. Process without exception: As things come into your life, we collect them and at some point make decisions about what to do with them. Here’s the problem: Often the decision itself is put off to be made at a later time. The Solution: Make it a habit to process your inbox or pending items completely. This would be processing your in-basket until it is empty. Give yourself a feeling of uneasiness when you see an inbox that isn’t empty. Even if you decide to do something later, decide. Don’t defer the decision.

2. Love your calendar: Many task-management systems depend strongly upon to-do lists of actions that need to get done “as soon as possible”. Here’s the problem: If you need to decide on the spot whether to surf blogs or finish that Excel spreadsheet, the decision will probably go the wrong direction. The solution: Take your tasks for the next day, or week (I plan on a 3-day-in-advance basis, or at least the night before) and put them in your calendar right away, setting aside the time to do them.This is a long-term solution, as you will learn how much time you really need for tasks (they totally didn’t match up for me in the beginning) and where your time gets spent. Quick Tip: Start collecting tasks you like to do – right now you’re reading a blog post, so collect that – “reading blogs”. Then set aside some time to do these as well.

3. Reward yourself: Sprouting from the previous habit, you should not only budget work into your calendar, but fun as well. Balance these out, and you’ll get a good overview of how you’re work-life-balance is going once you’ve entered them side-by-side. Here’s the problem: Time is limited, and we usually go straying off, losing our perception of time. The solution: Get a timer. You learn an incredbile amount of things about how time passes, how much time something requires and you’ll be surprised at how long (or short!) those “15 minutes of coffee break” actually are.

4. Clarify outcomes crystal-clearly: One thing people often do wrong when defining projects or setting goals is the clarification of outcomes. Projects should be defined as the best possible outcome for that project, and so a moment of thinking on your part is required. Here’s the problem: People often clarify outcomes, but not clearly enough. The solution: Use S.M.A.R.T. goals. Goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. I don’t use many of these concepts, as they seem more of a hype, but this one makes a lot of sense to me and keeps me on track when defining outcomes.

5. Stay motivated: Unless you’re motivated to do something, you won’t. Rational people think about what utility an action brings to them. If you decide to watch LOST, the utility might be 42 minutes of thrilling entertainment. The problem: In the context of work and tasks, we often don’t see the utility of doing them. The solution: Just like clearly defining goals, we can clearly define our long-term goals, which will explain anything we’re doing today. If I have to write a term paper, my long-term utility of doing it well is a good career and an 8-figure income. Create incentives for yourself by picturing these long-term effects. Quick tip: Visualize! Putting these goals visually often helps to give yourself a motivational boost. Here’s the deal: This weekend, write a motivational mission statement for one of your life goals.

6. Eliminate the unnecessary: Often people suffer from anxiety because of too many tasks and areas of responsibility in their lives. Here’s the problem: We often don’t know what to eliminate, or we just can’t get rid of it. The solution: Rethink your life. While this may be asking a lot, sit back and think – do you really have to be president of every club? What’s it’s utility? If so, where else can you cut back?I think everyone should have around 5 areas of responsibility in life – God, family, friends, and two things that make you really unique. For me, it’s my ministry and career. Blogging is about to become one (that depends on you, reader!)

7. Have a super-simple system: I’ve experimented with a slew of tools to help me implement efficient task management, and finally ended up with a select few that I’ve been using for weeks now. Here’s the problem: I’m sure you’ve found yourself endlessly fiddling around with tools and blog ideas (just like this one) without ever settling for one system. The solution: I settled for the most simple system: A planner, mircrosoft outlook on my laptop, and outlook on my phone. The combination of the three keep me organized.

Those are just a few points where you can start remedying your procrastination habit. There’s a slew of problems that can cause task deferral, and I hope to have addressed a few here. Happy tasking!

I pray that this article empowers you to "Get A L.I.F.E."