Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Week of March 9, 2020

Tags

Consistency, Exercise, Learning, Monday Motivation, Productivity, Reading, rituals, Social, Spiritual, Writing

I had my monthly book discussion today and fell a little behind schedule, so I’m scrambling a bit to get caught up and knock out my daily tasks. Here’s my weekly schedule:

Read daily – chapter a day

Write daily – Blog postings, any homework assignments, and work on my book.

Exercise daily – Gym, diet, sleep, meditation

Learn daily – Computer Science Path (Codecademy), Algebra course, NLP course, Course on Autism Spectrum Disorder

Spiritual daily – Read Bible daily, Journal daily, Spiritual exercises daily

Social daily – post quotes daily, share articles daily, get out into the community daily, hang out at the coffee shop on Saturday, hang out at a library on Friday

That’s all I got for today, folks. Have a great week!!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursday – Mistakes

Tags

Grateful, Mistakes, Perfectionism, Peter Drucker, Procrastination, Productivity, Thankful

People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.

Peter Drucker

Do you procrastinate? If so, one of the reasons may be that you are a perfectionist. A perfectionist wants everything to be perfect. They want their work areas to be perfectly set up, their project plans perfectly in place, their final product perfect. Guess what? These are all unattainable. Perfection will never happen–ever.

I used to be a perfectionist. It is a bad way to be. When I realized this, I began to look at how to get things done and not worry about the end result. There will always be something else you can do. There will always be another opportunity to improve. So give yourself a break. Get to work, make your mistakes, fix them, and get the job done.

When I stopped praying to the perfectionism gods, my life got a lot easier. I no longer worry about making mistakes. When I discover I made one, I fix it and move on. If the mistake is something I can avoid in the future, I note it, develop a mechanism to prevent it in the future, and get back to work.

If you are a perfectionist and want to escape the perfectionist-procrastination cycle you might want to check out this article by Web Standards Sherpa. I’ve read it and it’s pretty good. You’ll be amazed how freeing it is to just get to work and deal with the mistakes as they come.

Today, I’m thankful for leaving perfectionism behind.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Finding Your Dream Job

Tags

Focus, Investigate, Love the work, motivation, passion, Paying the price, Productivity, Resistance

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four-hour days.”― Zig Ziglar

One of the biggest challenges in life is to figure out what we will do with our lives. I remember contemplating this question when I was about to finish high school. Many of my friends already knew what they would do. Not me. I did not understand what I wanted to do.

Looking back, I would have told myself to choose an area of interest and try it out. As I have matured, I realized that every profession requires a certain price to pay. If you choose a particular area, investigate this area by reading about the people that exist in that field and excel. Learn about what they have to do to be on top of their fields. When you see the price, they are paying you can decide about your willingness to pay the same price. You can do this over several career paths to find the role or roles you will pay the price for.

Once I discovered my desire to be a writer and pursue my dream of learning computer programming life smoothed out. I felt a congruence in my life I had not felt before. When I wake up in the morning, I have a sense of purpose. I know what I will do and I look forward to it.

Once you realize that you’ve made a good choice, you have no resistance to learning, or the work involved in your profession. Writing and programming are a joy. Each day I write, or work on a programming project, it feels like fun rather than work. This was the final confirmation for me. When I realized that my work was really more like play, my efforts in both areas took off.

Like the above quote suggests, focus is the way to productivity and achievement. When you observe people that love what they do for a living, you sense a joy of purpose. The work they do seems effortless. They will work harder than their peers. You can see the joy they experience when they do this work.  You can also see people who are in the wrong position. You see them procrastinate, complain, and do the bare minimum to earn their paycheck. There is no love or purpose behind their work.

This is the key difference between people who are engaged in meaningful work they love and people in the wrong role. Their passion overcomes the price they pay to be in that profession. This passion provides the drive to be the best in their field because it is not work to them. They embrace the training and outside learning the job requires. They work longer and harder. Their work is of a higher quality.

If you are in a position you consider work, maybe it’s time to look at other roles. Research. Investigate these fields. Find out what the top people in these fields do and the price they pay to be the best. If you believe you can pay the same price, try it out. You will never know until you do. The average worker spends roughly 75% of their time at work. Why not do something you love?

This week, I’ll continue my regimen of working on my book, working through my current programming project, reading the five books I’ve selected, and hitting my daily exercise routine. I’ll continue to journal and meditate. I’m making good progress across all areas. I hope each of you has a terrific day!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday

Tags

4 Areas, Building, Contributing, Freedom, Learning, Productivity, Wasting Time

“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.” – Albert Camus

Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/albert_camus_105894

Have you ever thought about the freedoms that you enjoy? Have you ever contemplated all of the opportunity and advantages we have over previous generations? Have you given any thought to the amount of time-saving technology that we now have access to?

I used to have to use a Thomas Guide to figure out where I had to go when I worked in Los Angeles. Now, I simply type in an address to my phone and it tells me where to go. I used to carry my daily plan, hand-written, and barely legible. Now, my to-do list is on the cloud, accessible by any device I can get onto. I used to carry around a bulky notepad to the gym. Now, I enter all my lifts into an app on my phone. The time savings that these applications provide are staggering when I consider what I used to have to do.

Think about the access you have to books, magazines, radio, music, movies, television shows, and sporting events. If you wanted to, you could literally own a phone and be able to get everything was done that used to take so much time. Think about your contacts. Your phone never forgets a phone number, an appointment, or what you must do today.

But there’s a dark side. With so much entertainment at our fingertips, it is easy to get carried away with video games, movies, and all the social media apps that are available. We must make conscious decisions about what we will do and what we will not do. For some, this is challenging. They waste their lives playing video games for hours and get nothing done. They surf YouTube for hours without reading, writing, or learning. They watch hours of television and for some reason can’t squeeze in 30 minutes of exercise. The list goes on and on.

We have the freedom and access to pursue whatever goals we set for ourselves. We also have the freedom to waste untold hours of time, doing absolutely nothing but staring at a screen.

Take some time today to really analyze what you do. Seriously. Write down what you do today in 15-minute increments. I think you’ll be shocked by the amount of time that you waste daily. How do you turn it around? The first step is setting goals.

Set a few goals. Your goals could be in four areas of your life. Set a spiritual goal. Set a learning goal. Set an exercise goal. Set a social goal. Don’t go crazy, just pick one goal in each of these areas. Then, figure out how you will attain the goal. Start small. Pick something you can dedicate time to each day. Maybe you’d like to pick up meditation. Perhaps learning a new language would be something you’d be interested in. What would you like to do for exercise? Is there a relationship you’d like to cultivate?

Start with these four areas and pick something you’d like to do. Schedule the activities you have for improving these four areas into your calendar or time-planner. Don’t miss a day pursuing small amounts of progress for each one. You will be absolutely amazed at the results.

With the freedom we have, we can either do great things or waste our lives. The more freedom we have; the more rope we have to hang ourselves. Don’t be a social media addict. Don’t be a binge watcher. Don’t be a video game addict. All of these will result in a wasted life. Instead, pursue something that will build a great life. Read, write, meditate, spend time with loved ones, exercise. Learn something new each day. This is your life. Make it a productive, service-oriented, fulfilling one.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Thinking Thursday

Tags

Accomplishment, Choices, Decay, Productivity, Slovenliness, Waste

“The condition of health that we suffer is actually a tool to raise us another degree in our state of consciousness.”—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

Anytime we have an issue with our health, God is trying to teach us something. Maybe it’s something we are eating. Maybe it’s something we are not eating. Maybe it’s something to do with the amount of exercise we are doing or not doing.

Each of us is a unique being. My mother has all kinds of food allergies. So, does my brother and sister. I am one of the few in the family that can eat what I want. Each member of my family that has an issue with some type of food deals with it. That’s the way life is. We are hit with a problem. We either learn to solve the problem or live with it.

I find it interesting when I run across people who complain about their life but do nothing to change it. This tells me they are either happy with their situation and just complain because it has become a habit, or they are too lazy to get off their butt and do something about it. This leads us back to the previous sentence—they are content with the way their life is, despite their complaints.

Each of us is on a trajectory in our lives. This trajectory offers a full life with rich experiences, adventures, and accomplishment or it offers a life of mediocrity, slovenliness, and decay. Life never stays in one place—it moves forward, or it moves backward.

I am beginning to learn a terrific lesson. A lesson about people. Some people enjoy their suffering. Some people enjoy living a life of waste, a life of accomplishing little to nothing, a life composed of laziness, a life of inaction. These same people complain, are bitter, and have lost any ability to improve themselves, expressing jealousy when they discover someone who is better at milking the system than themselves.

We all have a choice. We can choose to fight for our goals, set our sights high and strive for them, step out of our zones of comfort and take risks to do more, be more, and achieve more. It is all our choice.

I choose to live a life of accomplishment. I choose to live a life that strives for better. I choose to live a life that exposes me to new challenges, new skills, and wonderful experiences. I choose.

Here’s what I’ve done this week:

Exercise Program:

Jim Stoppani’s Shortcut to Size – (www.bodybuilding.com) – I’ve done this workout before and returning to it because it is just a good all-around weight routine. It’s 8 weeks in length, a 4-day split with 3 rest/cardio days mixed in.

Books:

Armor, Steakley – Recommended by an Army Buddy. A terrific book so far.

The Shariyat Ki Sugmad, Paul Twitchell – This is my bible. I finished it and will re-read again. This book is a permanent fixture on my reading list.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe – This was a terrific book. Now I know much more about the abolitionist movement during the 1800s. HBS really digs hard into the evils of slavery by depicting the horrors of slavery in this book. The separation of families, particularly for the women were absolutely heartbreaking. I highly recommend this book.

Classes:

Web Development Path – Codecademy – Currently learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and REACT. – Completed the HTML course. Now, I’m working through the CSS tutorials and projects.

De-mystifying Mindfulness Course – Coursera – I’ve completed all the coursework so far and waiting until Nov 4, 2018, for the course to continue. One drawback of Coursera is the scheduling. Udemy allows you to buy the whole course, complete the whole course on your schedule and provide a certificate at the end.

Documentaries:

Movies:

Fun:

Ozark – Netflix (in the cue) – Re-watching Season 1 to remind me what’s going on. I’ll kick into Season 2 when I’m back on track with this one.

House of Cards – Netflix – Final Season. I can’t wait to dig into this one. It just started today!

Interesting Apps:

Codecademy – This app is a companion app to the Codecademy website. For $19.99/month you can learn quite a few languages, work on projects, and a whole bunch more. It is terrific! This app has daily quick lessons (<10 minutes) followed by practice quizzes to test your knowledge. It’s a great app. I highly recommend this app and the companion website for anyone looking to learn how to code.

I hope all of you are having a terrific week! See you tomorrow for Funny Friday!!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Daily Ramblings – Journal Series – The Planning Journal

Tags

journaling, Planning, Productivity

The Planning Journal

This week’s posting will discuss the planning journal. You’re probably asking yourself, what is that? Well, Davis (2007) describes the planning journal as a place to brainstorm, to outline, to list out, or any process or tool you use to figure out how you are going to accomplish something or capture ideas about what you are going to do in the upcoming week, month, or year.

I don’t keep a planning journal but do go through these steps when I am looking at tackling a project. The steps I use are what David Allen (2015) calls the “Natural Planning Model” (p.60). Here’s what it looks like:

1. Defining purpose and principles
2. Outcome visioning
3. Brainstorming
4. Organizing
5. Identifying next actions

Defining purpose and principles is about deciding what you want to do and why you are doing it. Outcome visioning is what you see as the “product” of your efforts. Brainstorming is when you list out as many ideas about how you will accomplish something without judging them. Organizing is when we go through all our ideas, group them together, and get rid of the things we brainstormed that won’t work. Once we’re organized and all the tasks we have in our project are put into a defined order of items to accomplish we can identify what to start with first or what is called the next action.

It’s hard to brainstorm, organize, and put all of this together without having something to write in or on. I like using an app called Toodledo, which has a list and outline function. You can use pen and paper in your journal. In the list section, I brainstorm. I literally try to capture anything and everything I will need to do to get something done. This is important for research papers, complicated projects, and writing books, articles, or blog posts. I try to capture anything and everything I will need to do and just list it out in whatever order the ideas come to me. Once I’m done with that, I organize by putting them in an outline, putting these ideas into an order of execution. Then you can take your outline with your ordered tasks and put them on your to-do list or your productivity tool.

You can also write down the things you want or need to do. Maybe you must get a birthday gift for someone. You can brainstorm and research what items you think they need and start getting prices and stores that have these items. Maybe you are looking to begin going to the gym. You can flesh out your ideas on how to get started. Maybe you want to take a vacation or trip or maybe begin working on establishing a new habit you believe will be beneficial.

Anything can go in your planning journal that has to do with ideas, upcoming tasks, projects to accomplish, big projects, anything. Have fun with this idea. One other thing. A planning journal can track your process of idea generation, brainstorming, and ideas of what you’d like to do. It is a great place just to put all of those random ideas that pop into your head about what you might want to do like to do or need to do. It is a great tool to look back at and see where you were and where you have come.

One other best-practice I’d like to introduce you to is the idea of time stamping everything you put into a journal. This way it’s easier to see your growth in action. You can see what you were thinking about in a given period. I’ll pass on all my best-practices in my final article in this journaling series.

I hope this was helpful. Feel free to pass along any ideas you have here if you’d like.

Until next time…

Dave

References

Allen, D. (2015). Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Davis, K. (2007). 15 types of journals to keep. Retrieved from https://www.darktea.co.uk/blog/15-different-types-of-journals-to-keep

 

Daily Ramblings – Workout Diary

Tags

Chores, Doing good, Efficiency, Exercise, Improvising, Productivity

Cardio was the focus of the day today.

Instead of doing my 7-minute workout, I decided to improvise. I shoveled snow off of our front driveway, our front porch, and our back deck walk area so my Mother can access her greenhouse. After about 30 minutes I had a good heart rate going and felt pretty accomplished because I helped out the family with a chore. Since my parents are both in their late 70s, this is one of those things I have to do, to help out around the house.

So, I knocked out two birds with one stone. I got my cardio, helped the family, and got a nice dose of Dopamine for doing something nice. Don’t be afraid to assess your day and utilize a little improvisation to achieve what you need to get done for the day. Now that we are in the New Year, exercise will be a daily priority. Doesn’t hurt when that exercise can be a job that needs to be done anyway.

I hope you are having a great New Year so far!

See you again, tomorrow.

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote

Tags

Acts with ZERO ROI, Efficiency, Maximal Returns, Peter Drucker, Productivity, Wasting Time

Today’s Quote:

“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” – Peter Drucker

Wow!

Have you ever thought that you could squeeze more into your day by just being more focused and efficient? It is a nice thought, right?

Have you ever created a to do list system that is more complicated than the US tax code? I think this is what Mr. Drucker is talking about.

We all have 24 hours in a day. Some people use their time wisely, while others waste it. I think the real key to productivity is putting your efforts into tasks or projects that will maximize your return on investment (ROI). I can think of a few important things we could do each day that would provide maximal returns.

1. Physical Exercise
2. Reading
3. Writing and Learning
4. Meditating/Contemplating
5. Spending uninterrupted time with loved ones.
6. Attending Church, Temple, Mosque, or some other religious pursuit.

Can you think of any more? All of these provide significant returns for any time you invest. Can you guess what items may not bring the best long-term results?

1. Uncontrolled television viewing.
2. Uncontrolled video game playing.
3. Uncontrolled web surfing/social networking.

Notice I placed uncontrolled in front of each of these. Uncontrolled means that you will do these things in place of other more important tasks, simply because you have ZERO control over your schedule. Television, video games, and social networking rule you.

I hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

 

Overwhelming…

Tags

facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Productivity, reality, social media, time-management, twitter, virtual

via Daily Prompt: Overwhelming

I enjoy these daily prompts, particularly on those days when I either have too many ideas or too few ideas about what I would like to write about. I write every day and will either post here, or work on one of the many book ideas I have. My primary project will deal with technical recruiting and provides me a way to give back to the profession that gave so much to me. The word overwhelming could be applied to so many things today. Social media is overwhelming, particularly if you are a member of more than one of these sites. I enjoy Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Facebook. When these media sites are at their peak during the day, it is amazing how many things are being discussed, posted, and reposted.

Like email, I limit myself to a few visits to these sites each day, this blog included. On days that I am absolutely bored and unmotivated, I’ll gravitate from one board to another, clicking like, retweet, etc. During these days the time flies because we become so mesmerized by the blur of activity, funny videos, pictures of our friends, and so on.

As a way to provide some value to my readers, I’ll get to my point. Social media is “virtual” life. It is not real. Sure it’s fun to have someone give you a like for a posting, just like it is a real treat to get likes on my postings here, but frankly, the people you consider your friends in these mediums barely scratch the surface of what true friendship and family are.

These sites are fun. They are interesting and allow us to connect with people that in the past we would have had no access to. I treat the people in my networks as pen pals. Pen pals were something I learned about in elementary school. Our teacher got us to sign up and we each had a friend from another country that we would write to and so forth. After a few years I lost track of my pen pal, but today I have thousands of them.

I’m in America and have friends in Indonesia, the Phillippines, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, India, and many other places. It is so interesting to see what other people find funny, sad, or even how they celebrate. You can see it all on social media. Now, it may not be an exact representation of what you would consider traditional, but it is so heartwarming to see a friend put up pictures of a newborn, or pictures of a far-away place they’ve visited.

Spend time with your family. Spend real time with your family away from the social media, the mobile phones, and really listen to them. Control the amount of time you spend on these sites. They will suck the life out of you and minimize your ability to do anything creatively, pursue your dreams, or accomplish your goals.

I treat them just like I do email. I review my email 4 times a day. I visit my email mid-morning after my morning ritual, I visit again after lunch, evening after dinner, and during my evening ritual. When I’m going through my email I’ll also check my sites, sometimes only for a few seconds if no one has responded to my postings, I have no new friend invites, and so on.

Social media is here to stay. It is fun, it is interesting, and it is definitely entertaining. It is not a substitute for life or real relationships with your friends, family, and loved ones. Now go hug your wife, your kids, your mother and father. That is where our time needs to be placed.

Until next time…

Daily Rituals…

Tags

daily, flow, habit, habits, Productivity, rituals, self-improvement, system, workflow

I’ve recently read a book called Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey. This book lists out all of the Artists and thinkers over the years and how they ran their days. Some didn’t have any plan at all, but these were rare. Most had a very specific list of things they did each day. They got up the same time, retired the same time, and followed a system. I’ve always believed in rituals because they build consistency in my day and reinforce the things I want to focus on.

Let’s look at some things that are good for us. Sleeping 7-8 hours a night, exercising, meditation, reading, writing, hygiene, social networking, etc. By focusing on these simple things, you build a habit of doing these things and building a solid foundation that has been proven to be healthy and efficient. Who wouldn’t want that?

Here’s what my morning ritual looks like:

• Rise
• Record my dreams if I recall anything
• Make my bed
• Hygiene
• Meditate
• Visualize the completion of my most important goal
• Breakfast
• Check Email
• Check Facebook, Twitter, Blog, and LinkedIn, and email iteration 1
• Post quotes to social media sites and write down my recorded dream in my dream journal
• Writing in my Gratitude Journal
• Verifying my plan for the day (top 2-3 things I set to accomplish)

Daily rituals are cool because they provide a stability to my day. Now that I’m retired it gives me a structure, a system to follow, addressing what I consider important. I also have an evening ritual.

Here’s what my evening ritual looks like:

• Dinner
• Exercise
• Planning for tomorrow
• Gratitude Journal
• Check Facebook, Twitter, Blog, and LinkedIn, and email iteration 3
• Write in my Gratitude Journal
• Write in my diary
• Hygiene
• Evening Reading
• Retire

These are things I do every day. Not necessarily in the order, I’ve put them in. Things happen. If I’m sick or have an appointment that disrupts my ability to accomplish some of those ritualistic things, I’ll blow them off that day. The key to rituals is they build habits that are strong enough to deal with the chaos of our lives and survive as templates for our activities.

The key to building a great ritual is to select those things you deem important to your life or are very passionate about. Some of the things on my list may be a given for you, like hygiene. Some folks may decide hygiene isn’t one of those things they want to deal with in a ritual because they are going to do it. The ritual can be composed of anything you want. The key is to build your ritual on those things that you believe will provide value to your life if they are done consistently.

After using rituals for the last 6 months I am a firm believer in their efficacy. I am on automatic each morning and launch into my evening rituals with the same tenacity. My morning ritual is triggered by my waking in the morning and the bulk of my evening ritual is triggered by my dinner. After dinner is complete, I exercise, plan for the next day, check social media and this blog, hit my gratitude journal and my diary, and get ready for a relaxing evening.

I hope some of these ideas are helpful and wish you well on creating rituals that provide value to your day.

Until next time…