Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.
Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Personal. Show all posts
Monday, December 9, 2013
Monday, September 2, 2013
How to Stop Being a Victim and Imagining the Worst (and Take Back your Personal Power).
Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Personal Development: 5 Playfully Crazy Tips That Can Unleash Your Creative Potential and Boost Your Creativity
Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Grab the Recruiter’s Attention with a Personal Branding Statement
Obtaining a job or career of your dreams requires the ability to appeal to potential employers by making your professional experience stand out among other candidates. When you are seeking new career opportunities, it is important to consider how you want to present yourself when building or updating your current resume. Adding a personal branding statement to your resume is a way to eliminate the need for traditional objectives, giving you the chance to appeal to more employers while also allowing you to share how much value you have to bring to the position you desire.
A personal branding statement is similar to traditional resume objectives, but with a more personal touch that helps to share your own skills, experience and the value you will add to a company if you are hired in. This statement helps you to express yourself without sounding too generic and without the classic lines of why you want the position yourself. When you use a personal branding statement, you will not only stand out against other potential candidates, but you have the ability to build a more positive reputation for yourself.
Using a personal branding statement on your resume is a way for you to stray away from classic lines used in traditional objective statements, as these messages can be highly personalized to fit each position that you are applying for individually, giving you an advantage over other candidates who are not using them, but generic objectives instead.
Once you begin brainstorming to create the right resume objective statement, it’s important to consider the position you are interested in and the value you will bring to the company if you are selected for an interview or hired in.
Creating a personal brand for yourself is a key factor to having success when you are developing your resume: It is important to consider specific words that represent your personality, and will appeal to employers based on the position you are applying for and the responsibilities associated with the job. Using words such as courageous, resilient, robust, intuitive, communicative and even persuasive is a way to appeal to employers while allowing them to gain insight into your own personality and what you have to offer.
Understanding the type of leadership style you have and how you communicate can also help you with forming the right objective statement that will work for you. If you are experienced in specific subjects and industries, consider using words that are more likely to appeal to your future employers because they’re relevant to the work you plan to do.
Write down personal traits that are useful for the positions you desire to get an idea of the type of personal branding statement you want to implement in your resume before applying for any position. If you have natural gifts and talents, be sure to create a list of your skills, ranging from problem-solving to speaking multiple languages or understanding how to program. The more you have to offer and share with potential employers, the easier it is for them to determine whether you are the right fit for the job.
Once you have a list of skills and positive traits about you that are useful for the position you are interested in, you can then select one skill from each list that fits you best. It is also important to research each company you want to work for individually to ensure that you are utilizing the proper wording, and appealing to companies based on their needs and the company’s work environment. Including the number of years of experience you have is also highly recommended, especially when you have been working in the same field or industry for years and want to showcase that you are familiar with all aspects of the position you desire.
Classic resume objectives are generally simple, short and sweet, which can often appear as “too generic” to potential employers, who receive hundreds of applications on a regular basis. Rather than creating a resume with a typical resume objective that says something like, “To secure a position as an employee and to work hard for a growing business”, opting for a bigger introduction that is more detailed and relevant to your specific skills, interest and experience is such more effective. Sharing the skills you have with descriptive adjectives and the value you have to offer to the companies you want to work with will allow you to gain an advantage regardless of how in-demand your desired position is.
Best Practices for Professional Branding: 7 Personal Branding Strategies That Will Advance Your Career
Featured photo credit: stack of colorful books on the table via ShutterstockMonday, February 4, 2013
Friday, February 1, 2013
New playlists: “Close up and personal,” “The global power shift” and “Climate change: Oh, it’s real.”
Global Issues TED Talks
TED playlists are collections of talks around a topic, built for you in a thoughtful sequence to illuminate ideas in context. This weekend, three new playlists are available: “Close up and personal,” “The global power shift” and “Climate change: Oh, it’s real.”
Close up and personal
Talks from seven photographers, with stunning images from the world’s dark and marginalized corners.
Climate change: Oh, it’s real.
We still have a lot to learn about climate change’s causes and implications. But make no doubt about it: It’s real, alright. Stay informed with these eight talks on this essential topic that affects us all.
The global power shift
Economic power is shifting across the world, and we’re moving away from a mono-polar model to a multi-polar one. These 9 talks from economists, politicians and activists look at the big picture.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Use iOS 6 as Your Entire Personal Productivity System
The newest iteration of Apple’s iOS brings the user some more features like Do Not Disturb, VIP notifications and email handling, Passbook, Maps, and more. Apple has also made many enhancements to other stock iOS apps to make them easier to use as well as more powerful.
As iOS matures and more and more apps are added to the stock experience, could iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch) be the only device you need to create a fully functional productivity system?
When Apple first announced the Reminders app I was quick to judge; “It will never be as powerful and functional as ‘’.” But, I simply missed the point and the much larger market of people that don’t need (or want) all the bells and whistles of a tool like OmniFocus, Toodledo, Remember the Milk, etc.
Reminders lets you make simple lists of tasks that can repeat, have reminder dates, associated locations, contain notes and even links. For a simple task manager, Reminders is actually quite powerful and useful. There is also a new Reminders interface at iCloud.com.
Most people can be very productive with a simple list of items that need done. In fact, I challenge you to give Reminders a try as the only tool you use to keep track of projects and tasks and see how much you can get done. Sometimes simplified tools are just the tools that we need to do our best work.
The iOS Mail.app is not something I would deem as ideal, but it’s definitely usable and one can be productive with it. It supports pretty much any email account you can throw at it, rich text, attachments, conversation view, and now the new VIP feature. VIP is a way to have Mail notify you of email from people who you have recognized as VIPs. You can then set up VIP notifications in Notification Center. I turn off all email notifications except for my VIP contacts.
If you have an iCloud email account you can access your email through iCloud.com and on your device making your email accessible almost anywhere you can think of.
The Calendar app on iOS 6 hasn’t changed too much from iOS 5. Calendar supports calendars from Google calendar, iCloud, Exchange, gives you agenda, day, and month views, allows you to handle calendar invites, supports multiple calendars and more. The Calendar app on iOS is the one stock application that hasn’t left my home screen. It’s
Notes may be one of the stock applications on iOS that I have used the least, but I’m surprised at how many “normal” iOS users use it every single day.
I work in a company where I iOS devices are becoming the norm, and most people rather than use Evernote or the billion different plain-text/Dropbox syncing applications stick with Apple’s Notes app. It’s fast, simple, and gets the job done. Not to mention you can add things to it via Siri.
The simple Notes app on iOS lets you add any number notes, search all notes, send your notes via email or SMS, and even print the note to a recognized AirPrint device. For people who want to jot down a quick note and stay productive, Notes may be just the app that they need to not get bogged down in additional features.
At Lifehack, we have touted that it doesn’t necessarily matter what tools you use to get stuff done; it’s more about the process and steps you take to become and stay productive. Therefore, you should be able to use any device/system that has the necessary tools that allow you to be productive. Apple has made a strong attempt at creating a device/OS that has all of those productivity tools that anyone wishing to get things done would need. But, is it enough to become your entire personal productivity system?
CM Smith is a technologist, writer, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State. CM is also interested in personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done. Check out his writing at devburner.net or follow him on Twitter. Thursday, December 15, 2011
To Automate or not to Automate Your Personal Productivity System
Robot photo via ShutterstockThis system can be just about anything that helps you get through your mountain of projects or tasks, and helps you get closer to your goals in life. Whether it’s paper or pixels, it doesn’t really matter. But, since you are reading Lifehack I have to assume that pixels and technological devices are an important part of your workflow.
A personal productivity system (at least the definition that this article will use) is a set of workflows and tools that allow an individual to optimally get their work done.
Workflows can be how you import and handle your photos from your camera, how you write and create blog posts, how you deploy compiled code to a server, etc.
Tools are the things like planners, todo managers, calendars, development environments, applications, etc.
You may be thinking that the more that we automate our systems, the more we will get done. This is mostly the case, but there is one very big “gotcha” when it comes to automation of anything.
Automation is a bad thing for your personal productivity system when you don’t inherently understand the process of something.
Let’s take paying your bills for example. This may seem very obvious, but if you can’t stick to a monthly budget and have trouble finding the money to make payments on time, then automating your bill payment every month is completely useless and can be dangerous for your personal finances.
Another example is using a productivity tool to “tell you” what tasks are important and what to do next. If you haven’t taken a step back and figured out just how your productivity systems should work together, this type of automation will likely keep you from getting things done.
You can only automate something in your personal productivity system that have managed for a while. If you try to automate things that aren’t managed well already, you will probably feel a bit out of control and have a greater sense of overwhelm.
Another thing to remember is that some things should always be done by yourself, like responding to important emails and communicating with others. Automating these things can show your coworkers and colleagues that you don’t care enough to communicate yourself.
On the other hand, automation is a great thing for your personal productivity system when you understand the process of something and can then automatically get the steps done. When you know how to manage something effectively and understand the step-by-step process of a portion of your system, it’s probably a great time to automate it.
I have several workflows that I have introduced in the last year that takes some of the “mindless” work from me so I can be more creative and not have to worry about the details of something.
On my Mac I use a combination of Automator workflows, TextExpander snippets, and now Keyboard Maestro shortcuts to do things like automatically touch-up photos imported from my iPhone 4S or open all the apps and websites needed for a weekly meeting to the forefront of my desktop by typing a few keys. Once you open yourself up to automating a few of your processes, you start to see other pieces of your system that can benefit from automation.
Once again; none of this works unless you understand your processes and know what tools you can use to get them done automatically.
If your workflow passes these three steps, then automate away, baby:
You can do this process in your sleep and it doesn’t require your full, if any form of attention. It can (and has been) managed in some form prior to automating it.The process is time consuming.The process doesn’t require “human finesse” (ie. communicating and responding to something personally)Automating your personal productivity systems can be a great for you in the long run if you are careful and mindful of what you are doing. You first need to understand the processes that you are trying to automate before automating them though. Don’t get stuck in thinking that anything and everything should be automated in your life, because it probably shouldn’t.
Pick and choose these processes wisely and you’ll find the ones that take up most of your time to be the best ones to automate. What have you automated in your personal productivity system?
Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity, creativity and how to use technology to get things done. Check out his writing at devburner.net or follow him on Twitter.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Why It’s So Important to Know the Difference Between Self-Help and Personal Growth
Photo credit: Jesper Sachmann (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)To many of us the terms “self-help” and “personal growth” are interchangeable. But while they may give the external appearance of having twin meanings, in the external perception they are more akin to those tiny figures that we would see perched on the shoulders of a character on television. If you can, visualize the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other and you’ll get my meaning.
One is a near obsession with fixing some innate flaws, either real or imagined, which are a blemish on our existence. We just know that if we could fix ourselves, life would be pure bliss. Or would it?
The other is based on the belief that we are fine the way we are, though not perfect, we are good enough already. But that we are a work in progress and there is a desire to expand in some way, through gaining knowledge, through improving our skill or through cultivating healthier or more positive behaviors.
Though I may be splitting hairs over textbook definitions, the true difference is in how the perception of the journey affects both our attitude and our actions. We resist change when we feel bad about ourselves; condemned, criticized and judged (usually we are the ones offering up our own judgment.) We embrace change when it elicits happy feelings of fulfillment and accomplishment.
A few examples to illustrate my theory…
Self-Help Perspective: I can’t fit into my jeans. I need to lose 20…30…50 pounds, then I’ll be happier. What is wrong with me? I’ve tried so many diets. I just need to exercise more. Ugh
Personal Growth Perspective: I want to be healthy and have more energy to allow me to live the life I love. This is the only body I have and I choose to nurture it by making healthier food choices and moving to keep my heart and muscles strong and fit.
Self-Help Perspective: I have got to get it together. My house (car, office) is always a mess. I can’t find anything. I never seem to get anything done. I just need to find the right system. Or maybe I could hire someone to come in and clean it all up.
Personal Growth Perspective: I set my priorities. I won’t accumulate things I don’t need. I’ll ask for help from someone who can offer effective strategies on how to better manage my life, my home or my work. I acknowledge that external disorganization is a symptom of lack of internal focus. I need to be clear about what I want.
Self-Help Perspective: I need a better “get out of debt” plan. But the book said if I just followed the guidelines, I could be a millionaire…I need a job that pays more money.
Personal Growth Perspective: I work toward my debt and savings goals consistently. I understand that it can be a slow process. I treat money with respect and gratitude. I am grateful to have a job. I invest in myself and my career by improving my marketable skills.
You get the idea. Though this may be an exaggeration to illustrate a point, I think the difference in perception and attitude is readily apparent. And while the actions taken may actually be the same, the results will differ greatly, because the intention is different.
We instinctively push back against the idea that we are lacking and “should” fix ourselves. We are drawn to the idea that we are wonderful and getting better all the time.
Which way of thinking sounds more enticing to you? Which strategy do you think has better long term results? Which perception do you think contributes more to your happiness in life?
Royale Scuderi is a writer, life and business coach who empowers individuals and businesses to achieve higher productivity, growth, business success and work - life balance. She offers wisdom, insight and ideas to help you get the most out of your life at Productive Life Concepts.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Being Productive With Siri, Your New Personal Assistant
Siri is very much a beta product, but can give the user some handy ways to do things quickly while not interrupting their workflow. First we will outline some of the quick things that you can do with Siri to get things done.
“Here is your messages to Rutherford. It says, “I will be late for the party”. Ready to send it?”
From here you can do a number of things. You can respond by saying “modify it” or “change it” to wipe out the message portion and start over. You can say “no” or “cancel” to cancel the message entirely. Or you can simply reply “yes”, “send it”, or “confirm” to send the message.
To call a business or place that isn’t in your address book simply say, “Call Bid Daddy’s Steak House.” Siri will respond, “I don’t see Big Daddy’s steak house in your address book. Should I look for businesses by that name?”
Respond “yes” or “no”. If Siri finds it she will ask you if she should call the business. Simply respond “yes” or “no”.
You can also find businesses and places in different towns or cities (only in the US for now) by saying, “Call ‘some business name’ in Houston, Texas.”
Calling a number is as simple as dialing it out loud. “Call 8675309.”
To make a note with Siri simply say, “Note, this is a really important note!” A note will be created with that said text. To create a note with a “title” say, “Create a ‘inbox items’ note”. Siri will know that this is the “inbox items” note and then you can use that name to add to it with “Add, think about what to buy mom for her birthday to my ‘inbox items’ note”.
Siri will “tend to” add this to your note that has already been started. I’ve had trouble with this one but when it does work (I’d say 8 times out of 10) it is extremely useful.
If you have noticed yet, I love just how conversational Siri can be. With that, setting appointments, timers, alarms, and reminders is one of the easiest things you can do with Siri. In fact, you may not even need to know the exact “syntax” to these things as just saying something like, “set a timer for 4 minutes” will produce a running timer.
Say, “Set up an appointment (or meeting) at 6pm next Monday with my wife.” You can even say something like, “set up a meeting with Mike Vardy every Friday at 3:00am”. This will make a recurring appointment in your calendar as well as invite Mike Vardy (as long as he is in your address book) to the meeting when you confirm it.
I use these all the time at work because they are so easy to do. Say, “setup a timer for 25 minutes”. Done.
For alarms say, “set an alarm for tomorrow at 4:45AM”. You can even say something like “set an alarm for every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6AM”.
We covered reminders in the last iOS 5 guide, and even though that Apple’s implementation of tasks is pretty great for a first stab, Reminders won’t be replacing my GTD system of choice any time soon. But, reminders gets much, much more useful now that I can create them with Siri.
Setting up reminders for when I leave my house or when I arrive at work feels like I’m living in the 2000’s finally.
To setup a reminder say something like, “set a reminder for when I leave home to remember to grag the TPS reports.” Or “set a reminder for 6PM tonight to stop and get my wife roses.”
OK, so all of the cool things you can do with Siri are awesome. But what about some things that aren’t supported out of the box? Take a look below for some of our favorites.
There are a bunch of web services that allow you to add items over email or even text message. Some of the ones that come to mind are Twitter, Toodledo, Evernote, OmniFocus, Remember the Milk, Springpad, etc.
Let’s take Evernote for example:
To send a note to Evernote from Siri setup a contact in your iPhone’s address book called Evernote. An even better thing to do is to setup two contacts. One with the First Name ‘Evernote’ and another with the first name ‘Ever’ and the last name ‘Note’. This will ensure that Siri won’t screw up recognizing when you say “Evernote”. Next, put your “send to Evernote” email into your Evernote’s contact info.
After this activate Siri and say “Tell Evernote that I have to rethink the way that we are going to launch the site”. Siri will read it back to you and then you can confirm the send.
This proves to be one of the most powerful things that I can get my iPhone 4S to do.
Bad Siri.
But there is a way to get around this. Make a contact called “Twitter” in your address book with the standard SMS number of ‘40404’. Also, you have to setup Tweeting by SMS on Twitter.com or over your phone by sending your password. After the initial setup, say, “tell Twitter that sending messages from Siri is awesome”. Siri should reply with her familiar “Here’s your message to Twitter. Ready to send it?”
Next, set up an OmniFocus contact like I outlined above for Evernote. For your email address, use one that is set up in your Mail.app but instead of the regular email address, add ‘+omnifocus’ before the ‘@’ symbol. For example:
Your email is “my_email@example.com”. Use the email “my_email+omnifocus@example.com” for your OmniFocus contact info.
Now use Siri by saying “tell OminFocus that I need to grab some coffee when I go to the store”. The next time you sync with your OF database you should see your new inbox item.
Since we have only had a limited time with Siri, there will of course be more and more neat tricks uncovered as time goes on. But, I can already tell just how important this way of interacting with your iPhone will change productivity in the coming years.
I had a huge realization the other day when I had my earbuds in listening to music and programming. Something came to mind that was totally unrelated. I always have paper next to me to jot quick notes and reminders down and then come back to them to process. Instead, I long held my headset button and said, “tell OmniFocus ‘such and such that I needed to remember’”. Then I went back to listening to music and working. Later, when I was processing my inbox I realized that I captured something into my system with the least amount of resistance that I have ever experienced.
Now, I’m not saying that Siri is perfect. Not by any means. I’m also not saying that Apple has invented voice recognition and we should blindly follow and worship them. What I am saying is that Apple has provided consumers with the first accessible voice recognition and, dare I say, artificial intelligence that normal people can use. There can be a bit of a learning curve to get Siri to do exactly what you want it to do, but for the most part it is intuitive and extremely useful.
Good productivity tools are the ones that are useful and can stay out of your way. Siri accomplishes this task and I can’t wait to use it more and more in my everyday workflows.
Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity and creativity and how to utilize technology to get more things done. Check out his tech writing at androinica.com where he writes about Android.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
When Watching Television can Enhance Personal Growth
Television. It isn't ALL bad.Many education and personal development experts claim that people watch way too much television these days.
As a result of having our eyes glued to the television for hours each day, we waste our valuable time watching all the latest reality shows and sitcoms when we could be using that time to do something more constructive with our lives.
I would tend to agree that the average person should cut down on the number of hours, but I think some TV is actually okay if utilized well.
Since we all need breaks in the form of entertainment, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to watch a few regular shows each week. But of course, many people are watching much more than just a few shows on a weekly basis.
Where I think television can actually be beneficial for us is in programming that is educational and thought-provoking. Programs like the ones on the outdoors, on history — as well as the Discovery Channel, of course — educate us on nature, technology and culture. These can help broaden our horizons.
Cultural shows in particular can help us learn more about each other so that we, as people, can become more tolerant of each others’ differences. This will help to reduce the level of racism and conflicts we still have in the world.
Other programs (especially those highlighting nature and travel) help us build appreciation of our precious planet. I know that in my case that as a result of watching travel shows, I have been influenced to book trips to certain different destinations around the world…all because of the initial exposure on television.
It was programs about our planet’s marine life underwater showing colorful coral reefs with tropical fish that got me interested to go snorkeling and then eventually become a certified scuba diver. I saw on TV just how beautiful the underwater world was and I wanted to be in that environment so I could experience it for myself.
Rather than just watching the coral reef marine life on a television screen in my living room, I wanted to be there in the real actual environment. Even a giant IMAX theatre could not duplicate the real thing when you have gorgeous tropical fish swimming all around you in a 360-degree zone.
Television in the form of historical documentaries or even re-enactments of past events in time can also have quite an impact. I always knew about the Great Pyramids in Egypt but when I finally saw more in-depth footage of various ancient Egyptian ruins on TV, I knew that I just had to travel there to see them in real life.
I actually did go on a trip to Egypt one year — and there is really nothing quite like standing in front of colorful murals that are still vivid on the walls of ancient tombs in the Valley of the Kings after thousands of years. These breathtaking experiences I had were a result of initially being exposed to these ancient antiquities on television.
The combination of the initial television exposure and real life visits have made me appreciate mankind’s history much more. I get a better sense of where we have been and perhaps what we still have to do to make our society better.
Although we can all still learn from great people through their writings, attending a live talk where they are speakers would definitely be even better. However, since many of these great people are no longer with us, watching their stories on TV with either actual footage of them or through movie portrayals are the next best thing.
I learned about people like Gandhi and Malcolm X through movie portrayals on television, which prompted me to do a bit more research on them. Their wisdom has made me a better person, again thanks to the initial exposure on TV.
So if you are already involved in activities that contribute to your personal growth, don’t write off television completely. Use it as one of the tools that you can use to get some exposure to events, people and places that can broaden your horizons further.
Clint Cora is a motivational speaker, author & Karate World Champion based near Toronto, Canada. Get his FREE 3-part Personal Development Video Series on how to expand your comfort zone and finally conquer even your most daunting goals in life.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Jack Canfield - Peak Performance Principles - How to Boost Your Self-Esteem and Discover Your Purpose - Personal Development DVD Training Video
Based on Jack Canfield's best selling book The Success Principles, this powerful seminar is loaded with life-changing ideas. Jack will show you how to build your self-esteem, take responsibility for everything that happens, clarify your vision, gain greater balance, find your purpose, and live a more fulfilling life. You'll hear several true stories that will touch your heart and shift your consciousness to an even more positive place. As Jack demonstrates throughout this seminar, success leaves clues. So if you want to reach a new level of success in your life, it takes nothing more than following a proven recipe, and that is exactly what this program delivers. Discover your greatness and take your life to the next level with this exceptional seminar, facilitated by one of the best success speakers in North America. - BUILD YOUR SELF-ESTEEM HIGHER THAN EVER
- CHANGE YOUR RESPONSES TO CHANGE YOUR OUTCOMES
- TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES
- CREATE A VISION AND FIND YOUR PURPOSE
- CREATE MORE BALANCE & LIVE A MORE FULFILLING LIFE ...
Seminars on DVD producer Michael Jeffreys has created dozens of powerful training videos covering a variety of topics, all delivered by America's top speakers. To find the entire list of available programs, search in the Tags section below for products tagged with the following text: seminarsondvd
Price: $89.95
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Personal Productivity Book Review: “Creating Flow With OmniFocus” by Kourosh Dini
Disclaimer: I am a Getting Things Done geek which is a productivity system creating by David Allen. This article assumes that you have a clue of what Getting Things Done is. If you don’t, check out David Allen’s site for more information.
One of the main reasons that I have decided to use OmniFocus as my personal productivity tool is that it does a great job of automating my projects and next actions for me. To get this type of automation OmniFocus is a little difficult to setup and because of that it is hard to explain just how to do it. This is where the new e-book “Creating Flow With OmniFocus” by Kourosh Dini comes in.
I first heard ramblings of “Creating Flow With OmniFocus” on the Mac Power Users podcasts as well as a few others and was intrigued to find out what it was about. The cost of the book is a hefty $30 but after reading some of Mr. Dini’s articles about implementing OmniFocus, I had a good idea that it was well worth the money.
The book is huge. Coming in at 551 pages in the PDF version. It is stuffed full of tutorials and screenshots to show you just how to implement some of Dini’s techniques. The book is typeset beautifully and is extremely well written.
When I bought the book I was thinking that it was going to be all about implementation because of what Mr. Dini explains on his sales page. But after getting into it I found that this book was about the practical and even spiritual side of the Getting Things Done method. This was something that was welcomed and a bit of a surprise to me.
Like I said before this book is full of useful examples and information and Mr. Dini delivers a “full spectrum” solution to implement your productivity system in OmniFocus. Here are just some of the things that you would find inside:
Understanding basic principles like project and task handling, certain view modes, hiding tasks, filters and the Inspector, contexts, and the inbox.More advanced project stuff like focusing, outlining projects, quick entry, creating templates, and using repeats and time information.Setting up a “routine maintenance” plan and strategy, creating basic and advance perspectives, and using multiple clients (iPhone and iPad).Advanced principles like implementing a “Core Design”, handling tasks done today, calendar review, dealing with calls and agendas, and even email workflow.More advanced stuff like prioritization, GTD’s “Horizons of Focus”, attention and time.20 awesome pages that tie up all the loose ends of the system that is implemented throughout the book.Yep. There is a ton of stuff in this book and it took me about a week to get through it all. There was a lot of the basic stuff about OmniFocus that I already knew, but going back and looking at it even for the useful keyboard shortcuts was worth the time.
If you are looking for a simplified approach to using OminFocus this book may not be the best choice. There is a lot to setting up the system that Mr. Dini entails and if you are happy with using simple projects and context of OmniFocus, the manual that ships with OmniFocus coupled with Don McCallister’s excellent tutorial videos from ScreenCasts Online will do the trick.
In one word?
Absolutely.
This is by far the greatest tutorial on a piece of productivity software that I have ever laid eyes on. It’s concise and straightforward and it shows you just how to make OmniFocus become the most powerful GTD client on any operating system.
After applying just 10% of what this book offers you will gain a much better understanding of how OmniFocus can support a variety of productivity system implementations and can help you automate your next actions on projects more effectively.
Not only do you get practical advice in this book about setting up OmniFocus, Mr. Dini offers some excellent advice about productivity and creativity as well. In fact, some of his writings on the understanding of what David Allen means by a “trusted system” and making time for creative actions is the best that I have read.
So, if you are an OmniFocus user and you have a portion of uber-geek in you, I highly suggest picking up “Creating Flow With OmniFocus” by Kourosh Dini.
Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He studies MIS and Computer Science at Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity and creativity and how to utilize technology to get more things done. Check out his tech writing at androinica.com where he writes about Android.
Monday, May 30, 2011
How to Use Philosophy as a Personal Operating System: From Seneca to Musashi
(Photo credit: Graphistolage)
The following interview is a slightly modified version of an interview that just appeared on BoingBoing.
It explores philosophical systems as personal operating systems (for better decision-making), the value of college and MBAs, and the bridge between business and military strategy, among other things.
Avi first reached out to discuss my practical obsession with the philosopher Lucius Seneca, so that’s where we start…
Avi Solomon: How did you get to Seneca?
Tim Ferriss: I came to Seneca by looking at military strategies. A lot of military writing is based on Stoic philosophical principles. The three cited sources are — first — Marcus Aurelius and his book Meditations, which was effectively a war campaign journal. The second is Epictetus and his handbook Enchiridion, which I find difficult to read. The last is Seneca and, because Seneca was translated from Latin to English as opposed to from Greek to English, and also because he was a very accomplished writer and a playwright, I find his readings to be more memorable and actionable.
So, Seneca came to me through a number of different vehicles. First, through the study of war and war strategy. Second was through philosophers like Thoreau and Emerson who were also fans of Seneca. Thirdly, was when I was really embracing minimalism and trying to eliminate the trivial many, both materially and otherwise. From a business standpoint, Seneca is constantly cited by people in the “less is more” camp of philosophical thought.
Part of what appealed to me about Seneca was the similarity I found between his brand of stoic thought and the brands of Buddhism and Zen Buddhism that were practiced by people like Musashi Miyamoto. He wrote The Book of Five Rings and is also the most famous Japanese swordsman in history.
Avi: Did you also read James Stockdale?
Tim: Absolutely. You said James Stockdale, right? He was in a POW camp.
Avi: Yeah, in Vietnam.
Tim: Yeah, absolutely. He would be one of dozens of military leaders who have embraced Stoicism to survive and to win in combat.
Avi: Do you have a favorite letter of Seneca?
Tim: Offhand, it would be hard for me to choose a single one. The first that comes to mind is “On the Shortness of Life,” which is more of an essay. I’ve read Letters from a Stoic at least 50 times and I tend to find different letters appropriate and helpful at different times.
Avi: There’s a difference between reading and doing. How do you apply this in your daily life?
Tim: It’s really, for me, the base foundation of an operating system for decision making, and I’ll explain what I mean by that. I don’t view philosophy as an idle form of intellectual masturbation. I really view good philosophy as a set of rules that allows you to make better decisions. What Stoicism helps you to develop is a value system that allows you to take calculated risks, which I think is very effective for entrepreneurs.
So, in very simple terms, stoicism and, by extension, Seneca teaches you to value only those things that cannot be taken away, meaning you would actively practice poverty, for example, subsisting on the meagerest of food and clothing for, let’s just say, one week every two months. The way Seneca would phrase it is all the while asking yourself, “Is this the condition I so feared?”
That type of practice – and I do view it as a practice, just like you view meditation as a practice and I don’t think it’s entirely coincidence that Marcus Aurelius’ book is called Meditations – helps you to live life offensively as opposed to defensively. So, I would say that on a daily basis I revert to some of the basic principles of stoicism to make decisions about where to invest my time, which relationships to cultivate, which relationships to sever so forth and so on.
Avi: And it’s also making you comfortable with failure. The essence of entrepreneurship is being OK with failure and with having fears.
Tim: Yes, absolutely. It also helps condition you so that you don’t have emotional overreactions to things that you can’t control and I think that’s very, very helpful. Critical even, not only for competitive advantage but for quality of life.
Avi: Do you have a generic method for hacking some advanced skill set. You seem to have hacked so many advanced topics that you must have a method to your madness!
Tim: Well, I do have a method and it’s really a series of questions more than anything else. It’s almost a Socratic process but I would say that, first and foremost, I have to have a very clear, measurable objective, whether that’s in language acquisition or in power lifting.
The common element is measurement, so you need to know when you have succeeded and how to measure progress to that success point, whether that’s a 500 pound dead lift or a 50 kilometer ultra marathon or getting to the point where you can do, let’s say, a single lap in an Olympic pool with 15 or fewer strokes. These are all real examples. The number of footfalls, meaning stride rate, per minute in endurance training and how long I can sustain that for say with a goal of 20 minutes at a time. Or a 95 percent fluency in conversational German as measured through different metrics. Again, all real examples.
So the first is measurement. I have a clear idea of what success looks like and how to measure it.
Secondly, I will look at the most common approaches, which are, oftentimes, the lowest common denominator but have some thread of efficacy. I will ask, “What if I did the opposite?” I’ll look at the established common practices, the established dogma, and ask myself what if I did the opposite.
If it’s endurance training, let’s look at Iron Man training, and the average is 20-30 hours of training per week for people in the upper quartile. What if I limited that to five or fewer hours per week? What would I have to do? How could I make this type of training work, or perhaps be more effective, if I had to focus on low volume instead of high volume? The same could be said of weight training. The same could be said of language learning.
If someone says it takes a lifetime to learn a language or it should take 10 years, what if I had to compress that into 10 weeks? I know it’s “impossible,” but what if? And if they say that vocabulary comes first because we should learn as we did when we were a child, which I completely disagree with – it’s entirely unfounded – what if you were to start with a radicals (Japanese/Chinese) or grammar instead?
So, flipping things on their heads and looking at opposites can provide some very surprising discoveries and shortcuts.
Thirdly, I look for anomalies. For any given skill, there’s going to be an archetype of someone should be successful at that skill. If it’s swimming, for example, it would be someone with the build of Michael Phelps. They would have a long wingspan, relatively tall, big hands, big feet and large lung capacity. So, if I can find someone who defies those anatomical proportions — say, someone who’s 5' 5?, extremely heavily muscled, like 250, who is still an effective swimmer — I want to study what the anomalies practice because attributes can compensate for poor training. I want to find someone who lacks the attributes that can allow them to compensate for poor training.
Typically, you find much more refined approaches when you look at the anomalies. That’s true for any skill I have looked at, whether that’s programming or otherwise. So, let’s just take computer programming. If the common belief is that someone should start with language A, then progress to framework B and then progress to language C, if I can find someone who skipped those first two steps and is regarded as one of the best programmers in language C, I’m going to look closely at how they developed that skill set. In some cases, it correlates to their use of analogies and background from music or natural languages (for example, Derek Sivers or Chad Fowler)
Then I would say, lastly, is a set of questions related to rate of progress. So I don’t just look at the best people in the world; I look at people who have improved upon their base condition in the shortest period of time possible.
Let’s say I’m looking at muscular gain. I would certainly interview the person who’s, let’s say, 300 pounds and 7% body fat, but there’s a very good chance that I’ll learn more from the person who’s put on 50 pounds for the first time in their life in the last 12 months. So, I always try to establish the rate of progress and, when that person has plateaued at different points, for what duration. I find that exceptionally helpful also for finding non-obvious solutions to problems.
Avi: Thanks, I would call that a meta-hack! It might take a while to digest but it could drive a lot of things in many different domains.
Tim: Oh, sure. That’s the framework that I overlay on any skill I’m looking to analyze and hack.
Avi: So like in language learning, you have one critical sentence I think.
Tim: Right. Each of these different skill sets will have certain domain-specific approaches, but in the case of languages, a big part of learning language quickly is teaching native speakers to deconstruct their own language for you. You only do that through very refined questioning, because they’re not going to be able to explain to you the difference between abstract concepts.
If you say, “What’s the difference between ‘anything’ and ‘something’?” the average native English speaker’s not going to give you a good answer, but if you know how to ask them for comparisons properly and you can simply ask them to, perhaps, provide five or six examples of various types then you can get your answer [so, focusing on deductive learning vs. inductive]. You can essentially use a lateral approach to get your answers. So, in my particular case, it had determined that we had eight to twenty sentences of various types, if you have them translated effectively. Fortunately for native English speakers most of the world is forced to study English or chooses to study English.
If you translate those 8 to 20 sentences, you’ll have a very good grasp of auxiliary verbs, sentence structure, like subject-object-verb versus subject-verb-object, how indirect objects, direct objects are treated, how personal pronouns are treated, etc., and it only takes 8-20 sentences to get all of that onto one sheet of paper. So, it’s entirely possible to become fluent in almost any language. Conversationally fluent – there’s a problem with definition there – so that’s a longer conversation, but effectively what most people would consider conversationally fluent in 8-12 weeks.
Avi: So again, there’s also the traces of Pareto’s law there.
Tim: Without a doubt. The material you choose is oftentimes more important than the method you use, so it’s important to have an understanding of high frequency versus rote memorization from a textbook that doesn’t do any kind of analysis of frequency of occurrence, for example.
Avi: Food, for example, you boil it down to eggs and spinach first thing in the morning.
Tim: Exactly. In behavioral change related to diet, small changes are more effective than big changes. The abandonment rate is less, so I would say give someone a very simple prescription, like 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up, and that could take the form of a few hard boiled eggs and spinach, a few hard boiled eggs and lentils, it could be scrambled, certainly, or you could simply have them consume 30 grams of unflavored whey protein with cold water. I think that in the world of behavioral change, simple works.
Avi: I remember you saying that access to rich experiences doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Can you expand on that?
Tim: The perception is…let me first take a step back: Most people have a number, a fairly arbitrary number, usually influenced by their peer group, which is a financial target, typically an amount of money in liquid assets like a checking account. So that could be “once I have a million dollars, I won’t have to worry about anything.” “Once I have five million dollars, I won’t have to worry about anything.” “Once I make 250,000 dollars a year, I won’t have to worry about anything.”
That number is typically arrived at with no calculation of what their ideal lifestyle actually costs and the question I like to pose is if you had 20 million dollars, 50 million, 100 million in the bank, after the first month or two of going crazy of buying all the toys and doing all the ridiculous girls gone wild stuff, what would you actually spend your time on a daily basis, monthly, weekly, and what would you like to do and what would you like to have? And then you can sit down and cost those things out and for most people it very seldom costs more than, let’s say, 150,000 dollars a year. [Here is an ideal lifestyle calculator to test this for yourself.]
And what we find is even to privately charter a private airplane in Patagonia, which I did or in my particular case also in the wine county in Argentina, it cost me, I think it was, less than 300 dollars for effectively a half day and that included gasoline costs, or to live on a private island in Panama, especially a research island, to go snorkeling and scuba diving every day, that cost similarly less than 500 dollars.
And what you find is that the deferred-life plan which is based on retirement and redeeming these experiences, that are most valuable in your peak physical years, is a false paradigm. It’s a very Faustian bargain and bad bet. So when I say that having incredible experiences, once in a lifetime experiences, is generally less expensive than people think, it simply results from sitting down and costing those out. So if you want an Aston Martin DB9, there are definitely ways you can do that for 1,500 dollars a month, even if you purchase. And to postpone all of these bucket list experiences until 50, 60 years old or beyond is, I think, a very bad wager.
Avi: So that kind of leads me to the other question I have, which is about college or MBAs. Is college a scam in terms of lost opportunity cost or investment? If you’d rather invest the money, like 40,000 a year, with the added advantage of not being in debt?
Tim: So I’m going to leave aside the debt question, as that’s a very personal question. I have different views of, let’s say, a liberal arts undergraduate degree versus an MBA. I don’t think the objective of a liberal arts education is to train you for a single profession. I view the value of a liberal arts education as making you a well rounded human being, and to that extent I think it’s a very worthwhile investment. The real world doesn’t go away once you enter it, so I don’t see any particular rush in jumping into income generation if you have the option of cultivating yourself through a good liberal arts program. I don’t regret having gone to college at all and I would recommend it to most people who can afford it or find a way to afford it, even if that puts them into debt for limited amount of time.
When you start looking at professional programs like law school or MBAs, then I have a less favorable opinion simply because they’re so specific, and they’re designed to train you for a specific career path. If you’re not confident that is your career path, I view it as a huge opportunity cost and financial burden.
But if your goal is to reach the pinnacle of success in investment banking or management consulting, where an MBA is effectively a prerequisite to have certain job titles, then that is a good investment of your time, if that is your chosen path. It requires being very honest with yourself about your motives. So if you’re going to business school, as I would say at least half of the students do, because they want a two-year vacation, an excuse to party and decompress that looks good on the resume, that’s fine, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that that’s the best way to gain practical business experiences, which it is not.
I would much prefer to take someone who’s interested in becoming a competent deal maker or business development icon and put them into a start up of, let’s say 15 to 50 people, in a position where they can work directly with the CEO or one of the top deal makers or negotiators in the company like a VP of Business Dev. or a VP of Sales.
An MBA buffers your decision making from the consequences of the real world. It’s fantastic if you can sit down in a Harvard case study and determine what the best decision is for a company that you have no vested interest in. It’s quite a different story when you’re sitting across the table from someone who has 20 years more experience negotiating than you do and you have millions of dollars at stake that will personally affect you and affect everyone at your company. Theoretically, you might understand what to do, but you need practice in the trenches to be able to respond properly in those circumstances or you’ll fuck it up.
Avi: What would be advice to a smart kid in high school today?
Tim: I would say choose your friends wisely. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Choose your peer group wisely and if you can’t find the type of mentors that you’re looking for in person, find them through books and don’t be biased towards the latest and greatest. I think that you can certainly learn just as much, if not more, from Seneca and Benjamin Franklin by just reading their writings, as you can from the hot CEO of the moment.
In closing, and to that point, here are just a few of my favorite passages from Letter XVIII from “Letters from a Stoic“:
For more, grab the hardcopy or Kindle above, or you can find the entire public domain version of Letters from a Stoic here. It might just change your life.
###
To see my highlighted notes (thus far) from the incredible book, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, just click here. To see *all* of my highlights on this and other books, which I’ll make public soon, simply follow me on Amazon here. Hope you enjoy!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Personal Development Powerpoint Templates - Personal Development Powerpoint (PPT) Templates
Download Personal Development PowerPoint (PPT) templates for a good Nervous PowerPoint presentation. Use the aboveIslam PowerPoint (PPT) template to Nervous PowerPoint presentation on -------. This Nervous PowerPoint (PPT) template is designed for effective PowerPoint slides with a colorful PowerPoint background and theme. Our Personal Development PowerPoint (PPT) templates are editable and can be customized according to the requirement. The Nervous PowerPoint template is supported on all versions of Microsoft office. The Nervous PPT template is easy to afford and is of rich quality. The above Nervous PowerPoint (PPT) template is unique and matchless. Use the Personal Development PowerPoint slides for an effective PowerPoint presentationPrice:
Monday, May 23, 2011
NO TRESPASSING " PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TEACHER WORKING VIOLATORS WILL BE CRUSHED " PARKING SIGN OCCUPATIONS
This sign is made of indoor/outdoor weatherproof.040 polystryrene (plastic as thick as 2 credit cards on top each other).This sign comes with rounded corners and one hole at each end for hanging.This is a great giftPrice:
Thursday, May 19, 2011
VIA VOICE FOR WINDOWS PERSONAL
ViaVoice Personal Edition 9.0 is for beginners in speech recognition. Setup is quick and easy, and dictation accuracy has never been better. The more you use ViaVoice, the better the program will recognize your voice. And it comes with a noise-canceling headset microphone that plugs into the microphone jack on the sound card of your computer.Begin by creating a Personal Voice Model so ViaVoice can learn how you pronounce the words you use. Fine-tune your voice model for improved dictation accuracy through the Recognition Wizard. By using the microphone headset and SpeakPad, the ViaVoice speech-enabled word processor, you can talk to your computer instead of typing. Or dictate, edit, and format text directly in Microsoft Word 97, 2000, and 2002.
ViaVoice Personal Edition 9.0 can recognize new words as you use them, and adds them to the 160,000-word vocabulary, improving dictation accuracy the more you use the program. With the Text to Speech feature, ViaVoice can read back your typed and dictated text, making editing your documents easier. An improved Analyze My Documents feature allows ViaVoice to recognize your writing style and the words you use frequently, leading to greater accuracy. Also, use basic voice commands to access the Web and its contents in Internet Explorer using ViaVoice.
Price:
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
" NO ENTERING FUTURE PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TEACHER WORKING " PARKING SIGN
This sign is made of indoor/outdoor weatherproof.040 polystryrene (plastic as thick as 2 credit cards on top each other).This sign comes with rounded corners and one hole at each end for hanging.This is a great giftPrice:
Sunday, May 15, 2011
T-SHIRT NAVY BLUE " USA PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT TEACHER "
This is a great shirt. Great gift. All TopExpressions products are made under strict quality controls. 100% heavyweight cotton, weight aprox 9oz.Price:
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
High Impact Salon Meeting Mission featuring Michael Cole how to develop a Mission Statement: The Personal Side and Creating the Salon Mission Statement
Conversations on the edge of knowledge and discovery. Four complete programs on one tape. Waking Up with Charles Tart; The Practice of Meditation with Jack Kornfield; Personality Development and the Psyche with Helen Palmer; and Spiritual Training with Irina Tweedie. Each talk is about 30 minutes. 2 hours total.
Price:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)