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I’m excited to release as a free audio download my recent interview with top productivity blogger and speaker Merlin Mann of the incredibly popular 43 Folders blog. Merlin is also known for his Inbox Zero series, his speeches on productivity, his video podcasts including the Merlin Show and MacBreak, and other creative work.

Leo Babauta Interviews Merlin Mann

In this interview, I talk with Merlin about:

• Some of his heroes and inspirations.
• How his daughter changed his conception of priorities.
• His new rule regarding his laptop.
• How many emails are in his inbox, and what matters more than that.
• What motivates him instead of fear, and how to stop from overworking.
• What direction his work will take in the next year or two.
• And in the end, Merlin turns the tables on me!

Enjoy the interview! Please feel free to share this interview with friends, family, anyone who would be interested, and help spread the word about my book, The Power of Less!

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Elsewhere:

• Video interview with Leo about The Power of Less (bloggers — leave questions for me about blogging in the comments of this interview!)
• J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly reviews The Power of Less
• Erin Doland of Unclutterer reviews The Power of Less
• My guest post on ProBlogger: The Essential Guide to Growing Your Blog on Minimal Time
• My guest post on Dumb Little Man: 7 Simple Time Management Tips for the Super Busy
• Video interview with Leo on Guamology.com — more focused on living on Guam

Have you encountered a log-jam in your business channel? Do you feel that you have outgrown your current position? As I write this, the economy brings uncertainty with it… which is why this might just be time for a lateral career move.  Your new position may not be for more pay… but in the long run, you will be happier if you’re not bored or pigeon-holed into one area of expertise.

Moving to avoid or alleviate stress

Sometimes you just don’t sync with your boss or even your boss’s boss. Ask yourself if it would be worth changing jobs to work for someone else. This can make your work day more pleasant and your mind less stressed when you are off the clock. If despite all effort, you simply do not know how to please your boss or be on the same page, then a lateral career move seems pretty straight forward. It is not worth the stress to work for someone that you have tried repeatedly to work with but cannot. And this can be no-one’s fault. Sometimes personalities and/or workstyles simply do not meld. It’s better to move on than to make both of your lives miserable, or to struggle against the grain each day just to bring home a paycheck.

Moving with the changing times

I have friends that have been in the same position with the same company for over ten years. Though there is something to be said of job stability, the changing times bring changing priorities. Who is to say that such careers will go on indefinitely? Many companies are going “leaner” these days - eliminating positions entirely, consolidating job responsibilities so that one person may be responsible for many more tasks than previously known. If you’re concerned about job stability, a lateral career move will put you ahead of the game by allowing you to get new skills under your belt that may make you a hot commodity for another position, maybe even with another firm. Don’t pass up the chance to move sideways and, in doing so, broaden your horizons and make yourself even more marketable than before.

Moving to exercise your brain

Another reason to change positions and make a lateral career move: you do not feel challenged in your current job. In all of us, there is an inert need to continue growing and challenging our minds. If the only changes in your job are employee turnover and the new rules set out by HR, then it might be time to start doing something else. Maybe it’s a career move in your own company.  Maybe it’s doing the same job with a different company. Or, maybe, just maybe, it’s a completely different career path. Any way that you look at it, changing things up in your career will open new doors and bring new challenges and opportunities.

Moving to provide for your family

The lateral career move decision might also be simply for your family. If you and your spouse believe that the only way for your children to get an education is in the public school system and you do not feel comfortable with your public schools, it might be time to move to a new city. Whether it’s to someplace nearby, or to someplace farther away but with a better cost of living, this could open up options that you had not before considered. Or you could be in a financial bind at the moment. If you feel that a move to a more cost effective area could benefit your family now and in the long run, the option of taking a lateral move might be in the cards.

Move to avoid not moving

In both government and corporate jobs, sometimes a “log jam” to get to the next level is so tight that it makes more sense to make a lateral move. I’ve talked to many people both professionally or personally that have had to make this career move. Especially if you really enjoy your job, it can be difficult to see the big picture. But if you’ve always seen yourself in a position much higher than the one that you currently occupy, it really does make sense to review your options. Corporations post jobs publicly, as does the government. Be sure to speak with people who are experienced in the field you’re interested in pursuing. It can really help in your decision making process.

Whether you’re entertaining the idea of a lateral career move or have already decided to pursue an opportunity, be sure to weigh all of your options. Take care not to burn any bridges… and make sure that above all else, you’re doing this for your personal benefit as well as for the betterment of you family and your future.

Have you made a lateral career move? We would love to hear your experiences in the comments below.

About the writer: this article was written by David B. Bohl - Husband, Father, Friend, Lifestyle Coach, Author, Entrepreneur, and creator of Slow Down FAST.

Originally posted at PickTheBrain a weblog dedicated to self improvement and motivation.

Your computer crashes. It won’t start up again. What do you do? Nothing productive. The morning’s wasted, the technician comes and tells you that you need a new hard drive, and your afternoon’s gone too while you go shopping for a new one.

There are a million variations of this scenario. We put ourselves in a precarious position when we rely totally and completely on technology to maintain our productivity systems and execute the tasks we set for ourselves with them. Technology gives personal productivity steroids; everything’s faster. Most of us can type faster than we write and using email as a form of day-to-day communication allows us to drastically reduce the number of disruptive conversations and phone calls we receive each day. So we learn to rely on technology, so much so that when it fails — and it does — we can be left speechless when asked the old question, what’s the next action?

Two years ago I was in such a position. My task management system was a text file stored locally on my computer. A computer that failed with disturbing regularity. It wouldn’t have mattered if I stored my task management system in a Google Doc; at the time I didn’t have another computer, nor an iPhone, and anyway, what if Google Docs went down?

We need to learn to rely less on technology. And I don’t mean we should ditch our computers as the hub of our productivity system, but we need redundancy. Redundancy for the system, and redundancy for the situation.

Redundancy for the System

Redundant systems are systems that ensure that a problem with any single component does not cause problems for other components or the system as a whole. This is usually done by doubling up on components; either the same component in a different place (such as off-site backups), or simply the same component in a different medium that is unrelated to the first.

So you could keep copies of your task list on two computers and ensure they’re always up to date in case one of them goes down. You could depend on Time Machine (if you’re on a Mac) to provide this sort of redundancy for you, or keep a copy in Gmail or Google Docs, or best yet (if not somewhat obsessive), all of the above. Or, you could write the list down on paper and email a copy of your computer’s list to your phone.

When it comes to computer-based systems, synchronization between multiple devices is a good start. But it’s also a good idea to keep a copy that doesn’t rely on electrons. Your power could go out for hours (the same day you forgot to charge your laptop and phone the night before). Anything can happen with these solutions, whereas if you’ve written or printed things out, the system is a lot less fickle. Someone you live with could accidentally throw your task list out or your house could burn down (in which case the last thing on your mind will be whether your task list is okay) but it’s much less likely you’ll lose access to both your online and offline copies at once.

Redundancy for the Situation

The other problem with relying on technology too much has to do with execution. Even if you’ve got your task list on a piece of paper once the power goes off, what do you do? Nothing, if you haven’t planned for it. One of the excellent tools that many productivity systems provide are some sort of variation of GTD’s Contexts, and they’re useful in exactly this sort of situation (among others).

In almost any project, there’s usually some task that can be done without the help of a computer — even if using a computer would, under normal circumstances, be the best way to go about it. The idea is that if you’ve got your contexts set up properly, when you don’t have access to a computer, you use a context set up for offline work. No Internet connection, switch out of your @internet context and into something else. If you’ve got a fair bit that can be done offline, just make an @offline context and switch to it when you need it. You can use multiple contexts on a single task, too. If your work should be done on a computer but can be done without one, you could attach an additional @offline or @nopower context that works as a secondary to the task’s usual context.

It’s mostly a matter of personal taste as to how you set your system up to adapt to unexpected changes, but the bottom line is that you should plan ahead for these situations and be ready to go with a list of things that can be done in the meantime.

Contexts is about having a productivity system to include and suit the environment you are in and the tools you have available. Consider technological failure of any kind as just another environment. Planning ahead for something to go wrong isn’t being pedantic, it’s smart, and it’s even got a name in the public relations world: crisis management. Any good public relations team will have a plan in place for a crisis so that if anything happens, they can move straight into action. There’s no reason you can’t do this with personal productivity.

It’s much easier for us than it is for PR guys; during your weekly review, while you set up new tasks, just scan through your list, and slap a context on anything that can be done offline. Easy — takes a minute or two longer than your weekly review usually does. You could go weeks or months without using it, but it’ll be well worth it when the time for technical failure comes. Instead of having your sense of the day’s work set off course by this “disaster” and sitting there with a confused expression, you’ll be back up and running in no time. That’s what redundant systems are all about.

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Offering a unique perspective and insight on productivity based on his experience as a writer, musician, family man and manager, Joel Falconer has been published online and off, and brings to Lifehack's readers practical advice you can use to be more efficient and effective.

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The Last Lecture is a book based on an internet sensation, the “Last Lecture” given by computer scientist Randy Pausch at Carnegie-Mellon University.  Pausch died tragically of pancreatic cancer in 2008; the principles he discusses in his last lecture (and in a companion lecture on time management, both of which are available on the internet) take on a whole new meaning in light of the fact that they were given by a man who was face-to-face with his own mortality.

 

The book has much to recommend it to the reader of Lifehack.  Pausch was the consummate go-getter who inherited from his parents a drive to go out and get the answers to questions rather than to simply ask questions (p. 22).  He inherited from his youth football coach a reverence for fundamentals and execution, without which “the fancy stuff is not going to work” (p. 36).  Pausch highlights this by asking whether self-esteem is something that can be given, as many educational theorists argue, or whether it is something that is developed by developing the ability to do things that one previously couldn’t do.

 

Pausch illustrates the principles he lays out with examples from his academic career.  He encouraged students to listen to those who would criticize them because this meant that they actually cared about their performance (pp. 36-37).  He mentions a meeting with William Shatner and holds up hiss earnest attitude and desire to learn about virtual reality as a quality that would be admirable in any graduate student (p. 45).  He discusses the power of framing in light of Disney employees who, when asked when the park closes, would reply that “the park is open until 8:00″ (p. 62, emphasis added).

Among Pausch’s theme is his point that people are more important than things (pp. 69-70).  For the Pausch family, cars were never a status symbol but were instead means of getting from one place to another.  This point resonates with me in light of a recent addition to our family (our son, Jacob, was born at the end of July).  Life is too short and family and friends are too precious to worry about whether a car, couch, or carpet will survive if something is spilled on it.  Pausch didn’t sweat small details and uses a story about his wife crashing one of their cars into another to argue that “not everything needs to be fixed” (p. 87).  Particularly after it was discovered that his cancer was terminal, he and his wife had to learn that small things, like clothes left on the floor, don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

The book is strongest when it moves to practical application.  As a professor myself, I found that much of what Pausch had to say about organization, teaching, and disposition resonated with me.  In discussing his educational philosophy, he argued that “educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective” (p. 112).

Through the second half of the book he offers a number of pithy expressions, some recycled and some original, that illustrate important principles about how to actually live.  Chapter 29 is titled “Earnest is Better Than Hip.”  On page 134 he reproduces advice from his parents, who said that “you buy new clothes when your old clothes wear out.”  A chapter beginning on page 138 exhorts us: “Don’t Complain, Just Work Harder” because “complaining does not work as a strategy” (p. 139).  He encourages people to discount what people say and pay attention to what they do.  He leaves us with sound advice about apologies (p. 161), honesty (pp. 163-164), and humility (pp. 168-170).

I found an anecdote about treating symptoms rather than disease quite compelling (pp. 139-140).  Pausch tells us about a girl he knew who tried to deal with her financial problems through Tuesday night yoga.  Pausch pointed out to her that if she worked evenings and gave up yoga, she would be able to pay off her debts within a few months.  She did so, and I presume she was able to enjoy her yoga on a whole new level after her debts had been paid off.

The Last Lecture is a quick, easy read that has much to recommend it to anyone and everyone interested in improving their performance.  The tragic context in which the book was written makes it all the more poignant.  Randy Pausch is no longer with us, but his legacy will live on in The Last Lecture.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Eugene Yiga of Varsity Blah.

Mind, body, heart, and soul: These four elements make us who we are. In order to fully explore our potential we need to constantly nurture all aspects of our lives. It’s not just about being “well-rounded” or balanced; it’s about being anchored in what really matters. And with another year already upon us, now seems as good a time as any to start making some serious change.

The Mind

Everything begins in the mind. Every skyscraper, every painting, and every custom-made Italian suit were once ideas in someone’s head. Without these ideas, nothing would exist. Without new ideas, nothing will ever change.

The problem is that most people stifle new ideas without ever giving them a chance to flourish. One of the biggest things that held me back in life was my limiting belief about what was possible. I was always talking about how I couldn’t do this or how I couldn’t be that. Is it really surprising to see that what I believed actually came true?

We all need to start seeing the world from a different perspective. That comes from going out everyday and keeping our eyes open to all the possibilities. It comes from learning new and exciting things that force us to stretch our minds and move outside our comfort zones.

Put practically, there are a lot of ways to do that. Turning off the TV would be a good start. Pick up a book, a newspaper, or a magazine that doesn’t have yet another celebrity’s drinking problem on the cover. Go to a museum, a gallery, an exhibit, a film festival, a theatrical production, a classical concert, or a jazz concert. Take a dance class, a cooking class, or even an investment class. Do a crossword puzzle. Do a jigsaw puzzle. Learn a language, learn an instrument, or plan an exotic holiday just for fun. Phew! I’m sure you get the idea.

Recommended Reading:

• As a Man Thinketh by John Allen
• Thinking for a Change by John Maxwell
• Mind Power into the 21st Century by John Kehoe
• The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

The Body

Healthy living has become increasingly popular recently. And that’s definitely a good thing. Regular exercise and a balanced diet leave us feeling (and looking) good. But not many people follow this advice.

What’s up with that? Why would anyone not want to invest in something they know will pay dividends a thousand times over? I guess it’s because most people simply have no reason. They think of all the hard work and sacrifice it takes and then simply give up in advance. That’s why it’s important to have a good reason in the first place. Why comes first; how comes second.

My reasons for living a healthy lifestyle are simple. I want to look as good on the outside as I feel on the inside. Keeping that in mind is the reason I’m able to exercise regularly, even on days I’d much rather stay cuddled up in bed. It’s also the reason I’m able to avoid all those tempting chocolate bars at the supermarket checkout, as much as is humanly possible!

Another aspect of taking care of my health has to do with stress management. There are three approaches I have as far as that goes. Firstly, I make a constant effort to become aware of my emotions. I do that by keeping a journal, which has become the perfect outlet for everything on my mind. Secondly, I make sure I’m well-rested. I do that by meditating every afternoon and by getting enough sleep at night.

But the best way I’ve found to deal with stress is to manage my time. Like I said in Work in Progress, it’s about taking care of the big things so the little ones take care of themselves and the really little ones don’t bother me at all. To do that, I ask three questions to decide whether or not to do anything.

Firstly: Does it have to be done at all? If it’s not really important, I don’t do it! Secondly: Does it have to be done by me? If someone else can do it instead, I let them! Thirdly: Does it have to be done today? If I can put it off until later, I do. (Of course this assumes it won’t be put off forever!) Ultimately, it’s about working on what matters, focusing on one thing at a time, and always remembering that life is not meant to be taken too seriously.

Recommended Reading:

• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
• Heart of the Soul by Gary Zukav and Linda Francis
• Destructive Emotions by Daniel Goleman
• Self Matters by Phil McGraw
• How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
• The Everything Stress Management Book by Eve Adamson

The Heart

This aspect is all about relationships. It’s impossible to go through life without interacting with other people on a regular basis. And it’s also impossible to ever feel completely fulfilled without strong relationships. You can be the smartest, sexiest, and richest person in the history of the world. But without people to share that with, none of it will matter.

The people we spend our time with have a powerful effect on us. They change us, whether we’d like to admit it or not. More specifically, they tend to make us more like they already are. Whiney people create more whiny people. Interesting people create more interesting people. That’s why it’s important to spend time with the right people and not the wrong ones.

Now I’m not talking about right and wrong in the way only a comic book could do justice to. I’m talking about what’s right for you. That’s something we all need to figure out. By knowing what qualities you want to develop in yourself, you can figure out whether the people in your life are keeping you on track towards achieving that or are dragging you off course altogether.

Personally, I look for three qualities. The first is vision. This is about being ambitious, living life based on some sort of direction, and having the discipline to go out and make things happen. The second is passion. This is about being outgoing, showing a spontaneous side every now and then, and always knowing how to have fun.

The third (and definitely most important) is integrity. That means living a principled life. It’s about being tolerant of other people, honest in your actions, and always an independent thinker. It’s about developing complete security in who you are and what you have to offer the world. It’s about living your own life instead of letting other people live it for you.

So, what do you do once you’ve found the right people? You hang onto them, is what! I’ve lost a few too many great relationships just because I got too busy with stuff that didn’t even matter. That’s why I now keep a list of all my contacts in plain sight so that I’m forced to look at it everyday. Nowadays, there really is no excuse. All it takes is a quick text. What are you waiting for?

Recommended Reading:

• The Everything Self-Esteem Book by Robert Sherfield
• Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
• Influence by Robert Cialdini
• How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
• Improve Your Communication Skills by Alan Barker
• The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie

The Soul

The fourth and final element of all people is the soul. This is what really matters. It’s about finding your purpose and then living it everyday. Many people seem to think their mission in life needs to be a spectacular quest to “save the world.” That’s not true. It doesn’t have to be huge; it just has to be something. And it has to be what’s right for you.

Life really becomes a whole new experience once you figure out what you were born to do. Getting up in the morning isn’t quite as difficult as it used to be. All those little things that used to drive you crazy don’t seem as annoying anymore. Everything becomes so much clearer and life definitely becomes a whole lot more enjoyable too.

So, how do you figure out what you are meant to do? A good place to start would be at the beginning. After looking at all the things I wanted to be when I was growing up, I noticed a pattern. All of them, from movie director to human rights lawyer, had to do with other people. I always loved being an entertainer. I loved using my sense of humor to cheer people up and ultimately make their lives a little better. That’s how I came to realize my mission in life is to uplift, inspire, and ultimately change the world.

I also realized that the only way I can bring about this change is through my own efforts. I need to live a life of integrity and passion. I need to live life at such a high level that those around me are inspired to do the same. It’s the reason I’m so committed to my health and my work. It’s the reason I wrote this book!

That basically means I go out everyday and spend my time doing things that add value to my life and the lives of other people. And there are tons of those. Every time I read a book, go running, or do a favor for a friend, I like to believe I make a small difference in the world. Silly as it may sound, I believe those things add value to my life and I believe that value gets passed on to everyone around me.

That’s my key to happiness. It’s just a case of living one day at a time and making sure every day counts. It’s about doing little things that have a huge impact. A smile here and a compliment there really go a long way! In the end you realize that happiness is a choice and that you might as well be happy because 99% of the time there’s no reason not to.

Recommended Reading:

• Life Strategies by Phil McGraw
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• The Eighth Habit by Stephen Covey
• Success Built to Last by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson

Conclusion
Well, that’s all I have to say about the mind, body, heart and soul. I hope I’ve given you some ideas you can apply in your own life. And I really hope you’ll take the initiative to make whatever changes you feel the need to. All the knowledge in the world means nothing unless it’s applied. If you’d like to learn a bit more about the things I’ve talked about, I highly suggest “Get the Edge” by Anthony Robbins. It is without a doubt the best thing that ever happened to me. It completely changed my life and I know it can do the same for you.

To read more from Eugene Yiga, check out his blog, Varsity Blah. To download your completely free copy of the South African or International edition of Work in Progress, right-click and save the relevant link.
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If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. I’d appreciate it. :)

Biolodzy często mówią o wpływie środowiska na organizmy: najwyższy dąb w lesie jest najwyższy nie tylko dlatego, że wykiełkował z najodporniejszego żołędzia; jest najwyższy także dlatego, że żadne inne drzewa nie zasłaniały mu słońca, wyrósł na grubej warstwie żyznej gleby, w młodości żaden zając nie obgryzł mu kory i żaden drwal przedwcześnie go nie ściął. Wszyscy zdajemy sobie sprawę, że ludzie sukcesu mają odporność zapisaną w genach. Ale czy wystarczająco wiele wiemy o słońcu, które ich ogrzewało, o glebie, w którą zapuścili korzenie i jak uniknęli kontaktu z zającami i drwalami?

Malcolm Gladwell "Outliers" (19-20)

I’m not going to pretend that this is the best route to go when you’re looking for a way to lose pounds or inches, but there definitely seems to be a need to find out how to get in as much exercise as possible in today’s busy lifestyle.

Let’s face it; our bodies were just not made to sit around at a desk for most of the day. We were built to move! It doesn’t matter how much attention you pay to the ergonomics of your office space – without movement you are bound to suffer from back pain, stiffness, and headaches.

It is generally recommended that you try to get in at least 30 minutes of activity 5 days per week. It will help you to feel better, look better, be more productive and help to melt away those winter pounds. If you do nothing else, be sure to get up from your desk every ½ hour and take a short walk or stretch your body.

Try these exercises the next time you’re sitting at your desk:

1. While sitting in your chair, lift your leg off the seat and hold it out in front of you for 5 seconds. Lower your foot to the floor (but don’t rest it) and hold it for five seconds. Switch to the other leg. Do 5-15 repetitions on each leg.
2. Try a mini burst of cardio by pumping your arms over your head for 30 seconds, then switch to tapping your feet on the floor for 30 seconds.
3. Place your hands on the armrest of your chair and lift yourself out of the chair. Hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 5-10 times.
4. Hold on to the edge of your desk and roll your chair back until you are looking at the floor. Use your arms to pull yourself back. Repeat 15 times.
5. While sitting straight in your chair raise your arms high above your head and hold for 5 seconds. Stretch your left hand high, then your right. Repeat.
6. Add a bit of Yoga to your day by turning your head to the right and your torso to the left. Hold for 5 seconds then change directions.
7. Work your abs and buttocks by clenching the muscles as tight as you can, hold for 5 seconds, then release. Repeat each exercise 15 times for an invisible workout.
8. If your wrists have you in knots try this stretch exercise. Make a fist with your thumbs on top. Place your hand and forearm on your desk. Stretch your wrist to the left, then the right. Then lift your arm from the desk and rotate your wrists in circles (both directions). Finish by placing your fingers on the edge of your desk and pressing gently to stretch the fingers.

We are a society of stress junkies. We must be – it’s the only way to explain how we think about and behave with regards to work. This “go go go” attitude, this notion that everything is a competition, that everything is a test of our mastery, that we must strive to excel at everything – these are not the symptoms of a healthy relationship with work!

A lot of productivity literature encourages this unhealthy attitude about work. And a lot seems to discourage it, but is grounded in Western notions of work-as-spiritual-value. It’s practically inescapable in the West –it’s called the Protestant work ethic, but after five centuries of Protestantism, it’s become a dominating theme in Western thought.

Work as a Value

According to Max Weber, the turn-of-the-20^th century German sociologist whose book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is one of the great sociological works of all time, Protestant attitudes towards grace, labor, thrift, and sobriety were integral parts of the rise of capitalism as a socio-economic order – and centuries later, they have been internalized throughout the Western world, regardless of religious faith. For Protestants, work was something akin to prayer, and its products were valuable inasmuch as they celebrated God’s grace. Thus the accumulation of wealth was also the glorification of God, and wealth that did work – that is, capital – was doubly sacred. (This might seem odd to us today, but as recently as the mid-20^th century missionaries at Indian schools were teaching that “property and wealth are signs of God’s approval”; see Mary Crow-Dog’s Lakota Woman).

Now, I’m not at all saying there’s anything wrong with work as a means to reach our goals. Where we go wrong, though, is in finding in work for work’s sake a sense of meaning, accomplishment, and ultimately of self. Our culture is littered with phrases like “Idle hands are the Devil’s playground” and Thomas Jefferson’s admonition that “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it” that suggest that work is a value in and of itself.

In the workforce, the elevation of work to the level of sacred calling manifests as a constant pressure to keep busy – or at least appear to keep busy, which is a particularly grueling kind of work. I remember slow nights at a video store I worked at in college, when my manager – a Marine sergeant in his non-video store life – would exclaim “If you can lean, you can clean.” True enough, I suppose, but cleaning for the sake of looking busy never struck me as all that meaningful – especially as the cleaning demands of a smallish video store with a fairly efficient staff were never all that great.

More problematic, though, is the way that this attitude towards work spills over into our leisure time – when we allow ourselves leisure time. Studies of US workers a few years ago showed that 35% of American workers do not take all or any of their vacation time each year (along with almost 60% of executives) adding up to 415 million unused vacation days in 2003. Work pressures, such as too much work or employees feeling disloyal if they take time away from their jobs, are the main reason given, but for many, it’s simply an inability to fill the time. If we’re not working, we wonder, then who are we?

Stress and Selves

There are a lot of explanations for stress, and I’m sure there are numerous and wildly various sources of stress in any individual’s life. But if I had to nail it down in one general statement, I’d say that stress emerges when a person’s work becomes out of line with their life. We rarely feel stressed out when we’re deep in the flow of a satisfying task (or if we do, it’s what psychologists call “eustress”, positive stress that leads to greater focus and motivation). But when we do work for reasons that do not relate to our own self-actualization (to borrow another term from psychology), stress emerges. Whether its work we do just for the money, or just to look busy, or because our job is on the line if we mess up, or because a dominating supervisor or manager is riding us, or for whatever reason, work under externally-imposed conditions seems to be the biggest source of stress.

So the question is, how do we bring our work in line with our inner, authentic self – and how do we cut out the work that isn’t? I don’t claim to know the answer, but I do know that to start with, we need to have some sense of what that inner self looks like – and in our society where work for work’s sake is celebrated as a primary source of meaningfulness, we have remarkably underdeveloped psychic tools for self-reflection. Self-reflection, in fact, feels a little too much like not working for us to be very comfortable with it, let alone for us to be any good at it.

But it’s something we have to grapple with as part of a new vision of productivity, because being efficient at work that a) leaves us too stressed to enjoy our lives (or even to live them – stress not only kills, it maims), and b) creates open time that we desperately fill with even more work, is not being productive in any meaningful sense.

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Dustin M. Wax is the project manager at Stepcase Lifehack. He is also the creator of The Writer's Technology Companion, a site devoted to the tools of the writing trade. When he's not writing, he teaches anthropology and gender studies in Las Vegas, NV. He is the author of Don't Be Stupid: A Guide to Learning, Studying, and Succeeding at College.

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The number of websites dedicated to helping entrepreneurs is incredible: there are always new sites, to the point that it can be hard to keep track of them. However, I have a few favorites. There are some tools I absolutely rely on for everything from marketing to billing, some blogs I read constantly and a few resource sites that I consult for all sorts of small business issues.

If you are an entrepreneur of any kind, it doesn’t particularly matter where you are in the process. Whether you’re just starting out freelancing in your spare time or you have a thriving business and you’re looking to expand, there are always new resources that can help you along in the entrepreneurial process. These sites are a great starting point: they’re all good resources and you may not have explored all of them.

Blogs

1. Startup Nation: Startup Nation offers entrepreneurial advice from a whole slew of people who have been there and done that — and have the business to prove it. The site has advice on just about every aspect of creating and running a startup.
2. IttyBiz: This site is an especially valuable resource if you’re looking to start an online business, but it’s got tons of great information on marketing in general.
3. Lateral Action: For creative types, like graphic designers, writers and such, there are some special challenges that come with running your own business. Laterlal Action offers up advice specially targeted to those fields.
4. Freelance Switch: FreelanceSwitch has all things freelance — business advice, ideas for staying productive and far more. Even though the title says ‘freelance,’ there’s plenty of good information for anyone running their own business.
5. Escape from Cubicle Nation: Leaving a cubicle in favor of starting your own business isn’t easy, but this blog helps support such escapees.
6. Young Entrepreneur: Young Entrepreneur focuses on the challenges that younger entrepreneurs face when they start business. It’s also got some great profiles of young entrepreneurs.
7. Small Business Labs: It isn’t easy to predict the trends that will affect small business, but Small Business Labs goes the extra mile to help entrepreneurs figure out what’s coming next.

Web Applications

1. Basecamp: There’s a reason that Basecamp and 37signals other tools are so popular — they work better than a lot of the other options. Basecamp is the company’s project management tool. 37signals also offer Highrise (CRM) and a few other great tools.
2. Blinksale: There are quite a few online options for invoicing. Blinksale is one of the most recommended options, in part because it works well with other tools like PayPal and Basecamp.
3. Skype: Skype is a popular choice for making phone calls online, but it has a lot of bells and whistles (like video conferencing) that make it a far more useful tool for a small business than you might expect.
4. LinkedIn: LinkedIn has come in handy for me many times. It’s an easy way to find contacts for a wide variety of purposes, as well as get answers and advice on all sorts of business topics.
5. Zoho: For a full suite of business tools, including CRM, invoicing, project management and databases, check out Zoho. All of the tools have at least some level of free use, perfect for an entrepreneur bootstrapping a business.
6. RocketLawyer: If you aren’t sure where to start with the legalities of running your own business, RocketLawyer provides free forms as well as help with all sorts of legal documents.
7. Google Docs: At least when you’re starting out, Google can be the easiest way to share documents, manage your business’ calendar and far more. It may not be a long term solution, but it can help you get started without spending a ton of money.

Resource Sites

1. SBA: The U.S. Small Business Administration is a treasure trove of information for entrepreneurs. In general, the SBA’s focus is helping entrepreneurs create long-lived small businesses, but there are also some great resources for folks further along in the process. If you aren’t in the U.S., there’s still some valuable information on the site — and you may find a similar agency where you’re living.
2. SCORE: If you find yourself in need of mentoring from an entrepreneur who’s already been through it all, SCORE can help you find a mentor. The organization is an amazing source of free business advice.
3. Freelancers Union: The Freelancers Union offers a long list of resources for freelancers — and the Union’s definition includes a pretty wide variety of entrepreneurs as freelancers. Among the information you can find on this site is health insurance options that don’t require quite the expense of other non-employer options.
4. Entrepreneur: For a huge collection of information on starting and running your own business, start with Entrepreneur. The company behind the site also runs Women Entrepreneur — a good resource for women looking at entrepreneurship.
5. BusinessWeek Small Business: Business Week has been a solid source of business information for years. The magazine’s small business site is an equally solid resource.
6. About.com Entrepreneurs: About.com offers a regularly updated resource on entrepreneurship. It’s got links to all sorts of other resources, both on About.com and elsewhere on the internet.
7. Entrepreneurship.org: The Entrepreneurship.org site is run by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to provide global resources for entrepreneurs.

These sites are only a starting point, of course. They’re the resources I use myself — and I know there are thousands out there I haven’t seen yet. If you’ve got any resources that you’d like to recommend to entrepreneurs, I’d appreciate it if you would share your links in the comments.

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Thursday Bram is a freelance journalist of over five years experience. She studied Communications at the University of Tulsa and is currently working on her MA in Communication Design. Her work has focused primarily on entrepreneurial topics. More information about Thursday is available at thursdaybram.com.

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W pierwszej części zamieściliśmy relację Ani Olear Dzisiaj zapraszam do przeczytania tego, co rok później ma do powiedzenia Ludwik C. Siadlak _______________________________________________________________ “Staliśmy nad przepaścią, ale zrobiliśmy ogromny krok naprzód” Jeśli przepaścią byłaby głębia personal developmentu, to to zdanie najlepiej obrazowałoby efekty szkolenia jakie Alex nam sprezentował. Oprócz praktycznych umiejętności negocjacyjnych, szkolenia Alexa przyczyniły się do [...]

I was originally planning to write this as a regular blog article, but since one of my resolutions is to do more videos this year, here it is in video form: the top 3 mistakes that cause 88% of all new year's resolutions to end in failure:

 

If you can't see the video here, you can watch it here on Google video.  And, if you want to get the ebook and other stuff I mention near the end, you can find it here.

StevePavlina.com Personal Development for Smart People podcast #22: Loving Relationships

This is a podcast about loving, intimate relationships that Erin and I recorded together this afternoon. We discuss the inner workings of our (almost 15-year) relationship in depth and share insights, advice, and stories regarding the following topics:

• Meeting each other’s needs and desires (emotional, physical, spiritual, etc)
• Creating and maintaining a deep connection
• Common interests
• Areas of compatibility and incompatibility
• Monogamous relationships
• What is cheating?
• The ultimate goal of an intimate relationship
• Polyamory
• The 6 styles of open relationships
• Jealousy
• Compersion
• Coming out publicly as a polyamorous person/couple
• The big picture - why intimate relationships are so important for personal growth
• Raising the consciousness of your relationship
• The 3 qualities of strong, loving, intimate relationships
• Commitment - what it means to commit
• How to know whether you should break up or stay together

Our ultimate goal in creating this podcast is to help you enjoy more conscious, loving relationships in your own life.

Of course the “elephant in the room” that spawned this podcast is that Erin and I recently announced that we’re shifting from a monogamous to a polyamorous relationship style.

In this podcast we talk a lot about that decision, which wasn’t so much of a decision as it was a realization — and a major breakthrough in the way we’ve been relating to each other. We hope our love and caring for each other comes across in this recording.

We appreciate the care and concern everyone is expressing toward us. We understand that this announcement was probably a shock to most people. That was to be expected. We’ve been discussing this for quite some time, but you weren’t privy to those conversations, so it may seem like this is a snap decision that happened abruptly and that our relationship is in trouble.

The truth, however, is that because of this change, our relationship is actually stronger than ever.

In recording this podcast, we want to help you understand where we’re coming from and why we’re excited to explore polyamory. We think this will help prevent misunderstandings based on inaccurate assumptions. We also think it will be very eye-opening for you if you’re interested in learning more about polyamory or if you’re currently experiencing problems in your current monogamous relationship.

If you’re in a relationship right now, we encourage you to listen to this together with your partner, and feel free to pause and discuss the ideas that strike you as you go along. We expect this form of sharing could lead to some new breakthroughs in the way you relate to each other. Just be aware that we may challenge your pre-established notions about how your relationship is supposed to work and where it may be headed.

Erin and I explain in detail how we relate to each other and the mindset we use to maintain a very conscious, loving, intimate relationship. We also discuss problems we encountered as a couple and how we overcame them together.

When I began writing about polyamory a few days ago, there were lots of misunderstandings and misinterpretations of our motives. Many people assumed the worst. Part of the reason for those misunderstandings is that plain text is a weak medium for expressing such an emotional topic because you can’t hear our tone of voice. The words themselves don’t convey enough of the meaning we were trying to convey. We think this is one reason why our words are being interpreted in so many different ways… often not in the way they were intended. By using audio instead of text, we hope that misinterpretations will be greatly reduced.

Hopefully when you hear us communicating about this together, you’ll get a better sense of how Erin and I relate to each other and why we believe polyamory (i.e. an open relationship) is an awesome next step in our journey together.

A couple books are mentioned in this podcast: Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships by Tristan Taormino and The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I highly recommend both of them.

This is our longest podcast ever (103 minutes long). It’s more like an audio program on relationships than a podcast. If you receive some genuine value from it, please consider making a donation to let us know you found it helpful.

Enjoy the podcast…

Pavlina-022-Loving-Relationships.mp3
(Time = 1:43:23, Size = 47.3MB)

Visit the audio section to play this podcast directly through your web browser and to view the entire podcast collection.

Subscribe to podcast via RSS:

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Świat się zmienia i w odpowiedzi na te zmiany powinniśmy zastanowić się nad nową definicją produktywności. A oto przemyślenia Leo Babauty na ten temat:

1. Przestań machać wajchą - skup się na tym, co robisz
   Stara szkoła to sprawne, lecz bezrefleksyjne wykonywanie kolejnych zadań. Im więcej zrealizowanych zadań, tym wyższa produktywność.
   Produktywność 2.0 to głębokie, dające poczucie wielkiej satysfakcji skupienie wykonywanej na pracy, której jakość ma znaczenie.
2. Przestań zaplanowywać się na śmierć - zacznij działać
   Stara szkoła to niekończące się sesje planowania mające na celu przewidzenie wszystkich czynników, które mogą przyczynić się do niepowodzenia przedsięwzięcia.
   Produktywność 2.0 to sporządzenie szkicu planu, przystąpienie do działania i jak najszybsze zaprezentowanie klientom wersji beta.
3. Skończ z papierzyskami - zautomatyzuj swoje działanie za pomocą technologii
   Stara szkoła to stosy dokumentów, formularzy, segregatorów, kopiowania i faksowania.
   Produktywność 2.0 to wykorzystanie komputerów i sieci komputerowych do przechowywania i udostępniania informacji oraz automatyzacji procesów.
4. Skończ z wielozadaniowością - realizuj wiele projektów zadanie po zadaniu
   Stara szkoła to przełączanie się pomiędzy zadaniami pod wpływem różnych bodźców takich, jak dzwoniący telefon, nadchodząca poczta elektroniczna, czy wizyta szefa.
   Produktywność 2.0 to świadome ograniczanie czynników rozpraszających w celu realizacji poszczególnych zadań od początku do końca. Nie wyklucza to oczywiście realizacji w odpowiedniej kolejności zadań dotyczących różnych projektów.
5. Ilość nie przechodzi w jakość - rób mniej, ale lepiej
   Stara szkoła to wykazywanie się jak największą liczbą wykonanych czynności bez zwracania specjalnej uwagi na ich jakość, co często prowadzi do produkcji stert chłamu w czystej postaci.
   Produktywność 2.0 to skupienie się na jakości, innowacjach i kreatywności. To - w przypadku pracy programisty - napisanie kilkudziesięciu linii właściwego kodu, a nie kilku tysięcy łat na kodzie tak zmurszałym, że w każdej chwili grozi katastrofą.
6. Zapomnij o porządkowaniu - użyj technologii
   Stara szkoła to umieszczanie informacji w starannie skonstruowanej hierarchii katalogów.
   Produktywność 2.0 to wykorzystywanie etykiet i mechanizmów wyszukiwania informacji dostępnych w praktycznie wszystkich środowiskach przetwarzania danych.
7. Precz z hierarchią - niech żyje wolność
   Stara szkoła to przemożne dążenie do zaszufladkowania wszystkiego i wszystkich w rozbudowanych strukturach hierarchicznych.
   Produktywność 2.0 to wolność, niezależność i współpraca oparta na płaskiej sieci powiązań wszystkich ze wszystkimi.
8. Pracuj mniej, a nie więcej
   Stara szkoła to etos 60 i więcej godzin przepracowanych tygodniowo i syndrom wypalenia w okolicach czterdziestki.
   Produktywność 2.0 to możliwość dowolnego kształtowania czasu pracy i różnicowania zajęć w celu przeciwdziałania syndromowi wypalenia.

Na podstawie Productivity 2.0: How the New Rules of Work Are Changing the Game.

Do you want to get out of your mindless job. Do you want to be an entrepreneur, paid for your innovative creativity?

Can you handle zero separation between your work and your play?

Good questions for the budding 2009 entrepreneur. Do you know why people can’t take the entrepreneurial leap? Fear of losing the patterns that shape their work and private lives. The same patterns that shaped their parents lives and their grandparents lives. Losing the walls that separate the private from the public.

The 9-5 work paradigm is dying

People used to go off to the factory or the office, for approximately 9.5 hours a day including commute, return home, and do their best to leave work behind. But no one really did, did they? It was kinda a lie we all told ourselves. Because the only real way to leave work at work, is to leave your paycheck at work. Your home life is directly affected by the stability of your paycheck, isn’t it? In family life, there is no way to remove the home from the economic situation and if your only income is a job, your job determines the decisions your family makes.

The line between work and home is disintegrating

Even if you have a corporate job there is a growing trend toward telecommuting. And there is a growing trend toward home based internet businesses. Our home life is becoming our work life. The industrial age is nearly dead, and taking its old social patterns with it.

The line between our public and private lives is blurring

The relationships we have in our personal life are quickly becoming the same relationships we have in our business life. Our social networks are becoming our business networks. The people we associate with directly determine our economic success. Our work and home lives are not separate, they are one life.

Change your thinking and change your life

Can you handle exposing your life to the world? If you can, the internet and social media will give you the greatest opportunity to realize your dreams man has ever known. Get over your fear of losing your privacy. If you can’t, you will be left behind.

Post written by Leo Babauta. Follow me on Twitter.

I was sitting here at my computer, pondering whether I wanted to write a post with tips about “making 2009 your best year ever”. It’s been done, and most of my tips you’ve already read before on Zen Habits.

I made a small list of things I’d recommend to anyone wanting to make 2009 their best year ever … coming up with a single life-changing goal, creating a mantra for that goal to keep them on track, simplifying their lives, making time for loved ones and themselves, learning to be in the moment … all of these are great tips, and I could come up with a dozen more that would really help people if they wanted to make positive changes.

But then I realized that there’s just one tip that’s needed. And it’s not a tip you’ll read in most personal development, productivity or self-help blogs or books.

That’s because if you implemented this one tip, you wouldn’t really need any others. It would put all of us out of business.

So, because I enjoy writing personal development posts and books for you guys, I’m counting on you to NOT actually implement this, and to keep needing other tips I give you in the future.

Kidding of course! Go ahead, put me and all the rest of ‘em out of business. I’d rather have you happy and successful, and look for another job, knowing that I did something good.

So what’s that single secret, the one thing that will not only make 2009 your best year ever, but put personal development and self-help bloggers and authors out of business?

Are you sure you’re ready to hear it?

OK, you’re ready. :) Here goes:

Stop waiting for happiness. Happiness is right here, right now.

Sounds too simple, but if you haven’t realized this, and put it into action, it can have an amazing effect on your life. Today. Right now.

My Life of Waiting

When I was young, I couldn’t wait to become an adult. Oh, the freedom! Becoming an adult would bring me happiness. I couldn’t wait.

When I became an adult, I couldn’t wait to get a good job. That would surely bring happiness. I couldn’t wait. When I got a good job, I couldn’t wait to get a raise. When I got a raise, I couldn’t wait to get married. When I got married, I couldn’t wait to buy a nicer car. Got the car, then I couldn’t wait to buy a house.

When I bought the house, I couldn’t wait to … get out of debt.

I could go on for quite awhile, but you get the point. None of my desires ever produced happiness, because I was stuck in the mindset of wanting more. When I got what I wanted, I wanted something else. My happiness was always on hold, because I was waiting to reach a goal.

Waiting for happiness.

On Goals and Desires

It’s good to have goals. I have them — it’s a part of living and working. But how much are you investing in your goals? How much of your happiness is based on your goals?

It’s also natural to have desires, but if your life is a series of desires, one after the other, and everything in you is in pursuit of those desires, you will always be striving for happiness, waiting for it.

Instead, remember: Stop waiting for happiness. Happiness is right here, right now.

Feel free to pursue goals, and desires … but don’t make your happiness dependent on them. Don’t think of happiness as something you’ll have once X happens (whatever X is right now for you).

Life is a Journey - Enjoy It!

So how do you go for goals and still have happiness right here, right now? By remembering that the important thing isn’t the destination … it’s the journey!

Remember that, always: the journey is the most important thing. Not the goal. Not the ending point.

Think about it: if you are only happy once you reach a goal, what about all the time you spend getting to the goal? That’s much more of your life than actually being at the goal. If you’re only happy when you’re at the destination, you’ll be unhappy most of the time.

What’s more, if you are stuck in that mindset, when you reach your destination, you won’t actually be happy — you’ll be looking toward your next destination.

Instead, remember: Stop waiting for happiness. Happiness is right here, right now.

How do you enjoy the journey? By appreciating life in its fullness, its wonderfulness. By not looking so much toward the future, but focusing on the present moment, right here, right now. By looking around you, and realizing that everything you need for happiness is already here!

Everything You Need for Happiness

What do you need to be happy? Do you need a fancy car and a mansion and millions of dollars? If you could have every single desire granted to you right now, would you be happy then?

Or can you be happy now, with what you have?

Can you look at the gorgeous sky, and realize what a miracle it is? Can you look at a sunset, a forest, a flower, a child, and realize the miracle of each of these things? You probably can, if you take the time to look at them fully.

And then you might realize that your eyes are a miracle, and that they allow you to see each of these other miracles. If you have your eyes, you have all you need for happiness.

What if you are blind? Can you taste chocolate, or strawberries, or cinnamon, or tears, and realize what a miracle those things are? Can you hear Mozart, or John Lennon, or Jack Johnson, and have your soul fill up with happiness? Then you already have all you need for happiness.

All you need is the present moment: spend time with a loved one, talk with a friend, watch a funny movie, go swimming in refreshing water, smell fresh baked bread, go for a walk or a run, curl up with a good book, cuddle on a rainy day, give and receive a hug.

It’s true — this is the only thing you need to know: Stop waiting for happiness. Happiness is right here, right now.

But … What About My Goals?

Should you give up your goals for 2009, now that you’ve decided to be happy now? Nah. Go ahead and pursue those goals, but remember to enjoy the journey. Consider:

• Losing weight. Will you only be happy after you’ve lost weight and are slim and trim? When you have the perfect body? Screw that! Make it an enjoyable journey — exercise can be a lot of fun! Eating clean, healthy food can also be incredible, once you learn to enjoy it! Enjoy the journey to health and the great body will only be a side benefit.
• Getting productive. Do you have a desire to crank through your to-do list, stop procrastinating, and knock down your projects, one after the other? Well, that’s good, but realize that your to-do list will never ever be completed, nor will your project list. They’re never ending, and in fact they’re supposed to be that way. So you’ll never reach a destination here — all you have is the journey! Learn to enjoy your work - every minute of it — and productivity will come naturally.
• Learning a new skill. Whether you want to learn French, or to play the trombone, or to master Jeet Kune Do, will you only be happy once you’ve learned the skill? No! Learn to love the learning process! It’s an exploration not only of new territory, but of yourself. It’s wonderful.
• Simplifying. Do you want to get rid of clutter? Will you be happy only when you’ve gotten rid of all excess things? No! Enjoy the process of decluttering — it’s one of my favorite pasttimes! :) Imagine that I’m there next to you, enjoining you to “TOSS IT!” with a wildly cheerful voice.
• Writing a book. Do you want to write the Great American Novel? Don’t wait until you’re done to enjoy the book … love each moment you can spend writing. It’s a miracle.

What are you waiting for before you become happy? Can you find happiness right now, in this moment? Let us know in the comments!
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Elsewhere:

• Why Less is More: Interview with Leo Babauta of Zen Habits.
• The Power of Less: An Interview with Leo Babauta

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If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us or StumbleUpon. I’d appreciate it. :)

Image courtesy of Exfordy

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We all know the saying, but we often fail to apply this lesson in our lives. If you view the elephant as one giant goal that your whole life depends on, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Why not enjoy the bites along the way?

If you ask somebody what goal they’re working on, what kind of answer do you think you’ll get? Assuming they even have goals, they’ll probably say they’re working on something really big, maybe even something that will make them feel like they’ve achieved their life purpose.

It’s not just about big goals

Many people make a major mistake in being entirely focused on big goals. If your goal is to become a best-selling novelist, great. But that’s a really big goal. If you base too much of your life satisfaction on achieving it, you’ll be unhappy for a very long time (possibly your whole life).

Long term goals are great, because aiming high lets us strive to be the best we can be. But for every long term goal you have, you want to have many short and medium term goals. If being a best-selling novelist is your long term goal, what smaller goals can you come up with that you should achieve along the way? Maybe for now, you’d be happy to come up with an idea for a character you want to include in your first novel.

The beauty of small goals

When you have small goals like that, there are a couple of advantages. First, a small goal gives you something concrete to focus on. If you want to become a best-selling novelist, how will you make that happen? You can easily be overwhelmed by such a huge task. If you don’t know specifically what to do, you’re only going to get frustrated. As time goes by, you notice over and over that your goal still hasn’t been achieved, yet you’re not sure what to do about it. But it’s a lot easier to come up with an idea for a character. When you know exactly what to do, you’re much more likely to take inspired action.

Second, you enjoy the satisfaction of achieving a goal and enjoying the benefits. Even if it’s a small goal, you feel good for checking it off your to-do list (whether it’s on paper or just in your head). You also get to have something that brings a little satisfaction right now. When you have your idea for a character, that in itself means something, even though you have a long way to go to your ultimate goal.

Life is a journey, not a destination

Your life satisfaction will probably be a lot higher if you view your life as a series of many small milestones, instead of one huge milestone that you may or may not ever achieve. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have big goals, only that you should also have smaller ones to focus on along the way.

If you want to lose 40 pounds, great. But don’t just focus on that one huge goal. If you do, then every time you get on the scale, you’re only going to notice that you haven’t achieved your goal yet, and so you continually reinforce failure in your mind.

So break it down into smaller goals. There are plenty of goals you can try to accomplish even before losing 1 pound. Maybe you want to read a book about weight loss, or find a support group, or learn a new healthy recipe. A series of small accomplishments will keep you on track and make you feel good about your life, whether or not you eventually go on to accomplish your ultimate goal. If you end up eating the whole elephant, that’s wonderful. But don’t forget to enjoy the bites along the way.

About the writer: Hunter Nuttall is an eclectic personal development blogger and author of the free ebook Why We’re Failing the 4-Hour Workweek.

Originally posted at PickTheBrain a weblog dedicated to self improvement and motivation.

Thanks to the nature of life and society, we’re often forced to make our most important decisions under pressure. Whether that pressure is caused by a lack of time, emotional duress, or something else entirely, it’s hardly the best state in which to make reliable decisions. Without a way to switch into an objective mindset — or at least a process to deal with decisions objectively — you could wind up making a bad decision that’ll bite you for years to come.

Almost every important decision I’ve ever had to make has been made out of necessity and under pressure of various kinds, and that’s given me the chance to work out a process that I can use to work through them in a detached way. You can never eliminate all the bias that comes from emotions and circumstances. Subjectivity is inherently part of being a human being. But you can minimize that bias through the use of a reliable process and make the most of a bad situation. Here’s how.

1. Know the Situation

Knowledge is power. The better you understand the decision and all that it entails, the more likely you are to make a good decision. The first step of the process is to put your research skills to use and study the relevant material, study it until you’re intimate with it.

Employ various research techniques. Don’t rely on anecdotal evidence, such as the opinions of trusted friends, but acquire it — it matters. Hard information matters, and some people would say it matters the most, but a healthy mixture of hard information and the opinions of those who have “been there and done that” is best in my opinion. It serves to reduce the sway that media manipulation by marketers or vested interests may have wielded through the bias in (what seems to be) objective texts.

You want to know the big picture, and you want to know the fine print. Leave no stone unturned, because the small pebbles in their aggregate have just as much weight as the big rocks.

2. Know the Outcomes

From the certainty of information, you must turn to the tentative vacillation of prediction. There’s no way you can know the future, but the knowledge you have gathered will help you to get closer to it. Make the best prediction you can as to the outcome of the various options you have at your disposal. What are the short-term effects? What are (more importantly, usually) the long-term effects? Will the effects of my decision affect the lives of others and how?

It is too easy to get caught up in the minutiae of your decision and make your final choice based on small factors or short-term effects. After doing heavy research, the quality of your decisions can be affected by familiarity blindness. So it’s important to take a careful look at where each decision puts you in a week, a month, a year, a decade. This helps you regain your perspective.

3. Consult with the Objective

Talk to objective people — people who aren’t your friends — who are experts or knowledgeable in the area you need to make a decision in. Research as done in the first step is about finding out all the information that is out there already. It’s static information and can’t be tailored to your situation because it (should) just describe what is. Objective experts can look at your situation, and without emotional attachment to you, give advice on the best course of action.

But what is objectively the best course of action as far as an expert is concerned isn’t always the best course of action. It usually is, but subjectivity does play a part. If you don’t feel you could live with the results of the decision they suggest or it doesn’t align with your core values and beliefs, it’s not stupid to pass the advice over. Seek a second opinion or go for the next most workable suggestion on their list.

4. Commit

The thing about difficult decisions, and decisions you need to make under pressure, isn’t just that they’re hard to make in the first place. It’s that they’re hard to commit to. If you’ve followed a sound process for determining the best course of action, and the advice you have attained is sound advice, the best course of action should be clear by now.

That doesn’t mean it’s the easiest course of action. The best one rarely is the easiest. Be sure when you make your final decision, and commit to it. Start implementing it as soon as your situation allows, because once you’ve made the first steps it’s harder to fall back into your indecision.

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We have all just entered into a new year, and an uncertain one at that. It’s a time when many people want to make changes in life and make big decisions, and we also live in a time when many more people are facing difficult times than they’ve had to in years past. So it seemed pertinent to suggest a way of dealing with these things, and I hope these guidelines help you through.

It’s impossible to give a process of flow chart-like proportions that will hold your hand throughout every step of the  decision-making process. That’d be great for making the best choice even when the pressure of the world is doing your head in, but the situation that comes with each decision changes too much for that. We’re left to deal with principles that are flexible enough to help us through many different situations, but they’re solid principles, and followed properly, the finer steps will reveal themselves.

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Offering a unique perspective and insight on productivity based on his experience as a writer, musician, family man and manager, Joel Falconer has been published online and off, and brings to Lifehack's readers practical advice you can use to be more efficient and effective.

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It’s so curious how we spend the last weeks of the year in a sugar-plum-induced family frenzy of parties and holiday sweaters, and expect to walk into our lives on January 1 ready to drill down and get things done.

To get our minds focused back on what the year holds in store for us we make these shoulds-posing-as-resolutions and order all kinds of shiny productivity tools and smile at the future coming toward us. Then February rolls around and we glance sideways at our list and hope nobody’s looking over our shoulders.

Straight out, resolutions are dangerous little dragons because we humans need meaning. We need a resonant, compelling context for any goal, wish, or dream to have a shot at making it into our everyday schedule.

Wait, Come a Little Closer…
So let’s say we’ve teased out a few New Year’s Resolutions by now, and ordered some shiny new gadgets and calendars for 2009. What’s to keep the litany of familiar patterns from grabbing us by the heels as we reach toward our resolutions?

Too many high maintenance friends…loathing the 8-to-5…missing appointments…too much laundry…no time for family…forgetting to back up the laptop.

Those perfectly reasonable sources of frustration provide cover for something deeper. If we look inside the window to our soul and listen, this string of buried refrains actually kills countless plans and goals for getting things done and becoming the high priest[ess] of accomplishment and joy—because we keep avoiding what we really, really want most.

We Already Know This Stuff
Let’s say you’ve always wanted to go back to school, get a law degree and work in the social justice field. Every year you resolve to put it on your list, apply to schools and set a start date. And then life happens—a broken arm, a big new client, something—and you set your lifelong dream aside yet again. It’s too much. Too costly. Ridiculous, actually.

We already know who we are and what we’re passionate about. We can do all the soul searching and personality tests into infinity, yet they somehow keep pointing to the same things. The longer we dismiss what we already know, no matter what productivity gadget we employ, or how many nannies and assistants we hire, the louder the buried refrain will get. Even though we think it’s the report, or the big meeting that’s keeping us up twisting in our sheets at night, it’s everything we’ve been meaning to do and desiring most that does it. Not your crazy schedule and the soccer-momming and the endless board meetings.

We humans can tolerate just about any circumstance when we’re truly committed to our highest purpose. When we actually give our dreams a committed shot at landing on our everyday schedule, we can tolerate busyness and life at high speed.

Goal Setting from the Inside Out in 2009
Truth? No matter how much we want to get things done, what we really want is a life that matters. We want the chain of endless doings to add up to something meaningful at the end of the day. So, take a look back at your calendar in any given week for 2008 and ask yourself two questions:

1. “What’s most important to me?”
2. “What values did I honor?”

The information you gather by answering those questions will help you percolate what’s next. Declarations.

Create Context and Meaning with Declarations
To give your resolutions or goals heart and soul, take a look at what you most deeply value in each of the four life areas: Life’s Work, Relationships, Personal Wellbeing and Financial Development. Next to each area, you’ll have words like joy, integrity, leadership, and service, and you’ll use these words to craft your declarations.

Declarations are timeless statements of purpose in the present tense designed to create ongoing quality of life shifts. Much like a mission statement, declarations stem from who you are and what you value, and point to your vision. They may sound bold and completely outrageous, perhaps even a little wild—but not impossible.

You’ll know you’re on track if your declarations make you want to cry or scream or jump up and down. (Go ahead, we’ll wait.) Declarations also act as your truing mechanism when you forget who you are and what you’re up to. Or when your busyness has no connection to what you value. Or when you’ve been saying yes way too much.

Practically speaking, declarations inform your goals, not the other way around. So, once you’ve finished your declarations, listing your top goal in each area (that’s right, just one) should come easily and organically.

Go ahead, we’ll wait.

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Lisa Gates is a life balance coach and writer at Craving Balance. Committed to helping smart working women achieve the everyday extraordinary and the extraordinary every day, Craving Balance offers goal setting from the inside out teleclasses and workshops for individuals and businesses, as well as fabulously sensible and affordable private coaching. Find her at Craving Balance.

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While blogs about blogging is a crowded niche, there is always room for a new entrant with a fresh approach.

Eric Hamm (Motivate Thyself) and Sean Platt (Writer Dad) have teamed up to launch Blogopolis Blueprint, a blog dedicated to helping bloggers find their online voice and remain one step ahead of the curve.

Eric and Sean have been busy in recent months with guest posts on Zen Habits, ProBlogger and Pick The Brain (here and here). If you have come across these posts, or are familiar with their own personal blogs, you will know both men are great writers and have a lot of insightful knowledge to share.

Eric and Sean tell me Blogopolic Blueprint will highlight a specific blogging theme each week, and in addition to their own articles the blog will feature a rotating cast of guest authors and interviews.

But that’s enough out of me…. go check out Blogopolis Blueprint (or subscribe via RSS and email).

Peter Clemens is Editor of Pick The Brain (follow him on Twitter).

Originally posted at PickTheBrain a weblog dedicated to self improvement and motivation.

Lekarze-demaskatorzy postanowili zbadać prawdziwość wybranych obiegowych opinii medycznych i stwierdzili, że:

• nie ma dowodów na to, że cukier powoduje nadpobudliwość u dzieci;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że liczba samobójstw zwiększa się w czasie świąt;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że wilczomlecz piękny (gwiazda betlejemska) używany w dekoracjach świątecznych jest trujący;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że człowiek szybciej marznie bez czapki niż bez spodni;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że jedzenie późnym wieczorem powoduje tycie;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że istnieje skuteczne lekarstwo na kaca;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że ludzie powinni pić 8 szklanek wody dziennie niezależnie od innych posiłków;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że wykorzystujemy jedynie 10% możliwości swojego mózgu;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że włosy i paznokcie rosną po śmierci;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że golenie wzmacnia zarost i czyni go ciemniejszym i bardziej drapiącym;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że czytanie przy złym oświetleniu psuje wzrok;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że po zjedzeniu indyka ludzie są szczególnie senni;
• nie ma dowodów na to, że pole elektromagnetyczne wytwarzane przez telefony komórkowe zakłóca pracę aparatury medycznej w szpitalach.

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Na podstawie Popular Medical Myths Put to Rest, Festive medical myths i Medical myths .