Getting Your Projects Off the Ground

January 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

“You have to be able to take action in your life without being bumped around like a victim… It helps to recognize that being a self-starter is a set of behaviors that you can adopt.”

This is a quote from productivity consultant David Allen that’s mentioned in The Wall Street Journal.com article “You Just Have to Do It.” It briefly talks about how to accomplish the changes, the new projects, and everything you want to start in your life when all you have in you is your passion.

It’s a great read for someone who’s into a career change or a total life makeover. If you’re tired of making all those New Year resolutions and not being able to accomplish any one of them every year, this will give you a good push.

Anyone, in fact, who’d like to make an improvement in his life, no matter how big or small, can find some inspiration in this short piece. You can read the whole article by clicking on this link - You Just Have to Do It.

 

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Outcome Attachment Kills Performance: Relax Instead

June 30, 2011 By 13 Comments

Want to know a fantastic way to sabotage your performance?

Be dependent on success. Attach everything to the success of your performance. Say, “If I don’t come through here, I’m a failure. I suck. I’m not good at what I do.”

If you do that, watch yourself tense up. Watch your performance go downhill. Watch yourself get even more tense as you try to save yourself from failure.

More often than not, your tension will end up being your downfall. At the end of your performance, you’ll look at yourself and think, “Well, I lost. I failed. Now I’m not good at anything, and I’m just a failure,” and so on, until you end up shredding your self-concept into a million pieces and think of yourself as the most incompetent human being to ever walk the earth.

Attachment to the outcome – staking your self-esteem on your performance – did you in.

Outcome Attachment Kills Performance: Relax Instead

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Slow Down, Please

May 27, 2011 By 7 Comments

One of my biggest flaws as a person is that I’m always trying to move fast. Being a productivity junkie will do that to you: I’m always trying to do things as efficiently as possible so I can move onto the next thing. The logic is, of course, that the faster I do things, the more I’ll be able to do, and the more I do, the happier I’ll be. Getting a lot of things done just feels good.

Of course, by perpetually focusing on getting the thing I’m doing done so I can move onto the next thing, I’m never really focused on or enjoying the thing I’m doing in the present – for example, writing this post. I’m worried about reading Infinite Jest later (which is an awesome, awesome book, by the way), and after that, working out, and after that, meditating, and after that, cleaning up my RSS feeds, my twitter feed, and realigning my life on the Internet so I can do what I need to do in order to make this blog grow more and enjoy myself along the way (I’ve been getting burnt out a little bit). I can guarantee you that when I finish this post and start reading Infinite Jest, I’ll be worried about finishing my reading on time so I can go work out. And while I’m working out, I’ll be pushing myself to go faster so I’ll have more time to meditate. And so on, until I’m a big ball of rushed anxiety.

This is why, in order to enjoy the task you’re working on, all you have to do is slow down and enjoy the process. You’ll be amazed at how fast time flies when you slow down and your’e actually enjoying yourself.

Slow Down, Please

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How to Kill Burn Out

February 10, 2011 By 13 Comments

How many times have you been bogged down in the middle of a project, feeling like giving up because there’s no light at the end of the tunnel? The project feels as if it’ll never get done, everything you do takes forever, you’re starting to get frustrated with the process, and the best option – the option that will seemingly free you – is to quit.

Unfortunately, quitting renders all the time you spent and all the frustration you had meaningless. All those sleepless nights, cringe-worthy meetings, and the tens or hundreds of hours dedicated to getting things done? All gone. Don’t mean anything.

So, of course, you have to press on in spite of your growing sense of frustration and hopelessness. But, in order to do so and keep yourself sane, you have to change the way that you’re doing your project. If you keep doing what you’re doing and press on valiantly, sure – you’ll get the project done. But, by the end, you won’t be doing your work to its fullest potential. You’re going to experience “burn-out” even more, with greater frustration and resentment for the work that has to be done. You’ll be cutting corners and taking shortcuts just so the project gets done. Not good – that’s why burn-out is so tricky to manage.

How to Kill Burn Out

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Filed Under: Productivity

Going From Good to Great

February 3, 2011 By 12 Comments

Inspired by two awesome posts – one by Jonathan Fields and one by Seth Godin – I’ve had yet another epiphany.

At its core, it’s this: always be willing to go the extra mile, to do what others might deem ‘unreasonable’, to do the right thing.

Why? Because, my friends, that’s just what you do. Doing what’s right and spending the extra energy to make sure it gets done should be a part of you, something that’s just part of your identity. It should be automatic.

Now – getting to that point isn’t easy. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult, since you’ll be fighting the temptation to give in and only give what’s deemed “good enough”.

But you have to tell yourself that being “good enough” just isn’t good enough anymore. Being you – a person of power, respect, love, creativity, and integrity – demands more. It demands a higher standard – not perfection, but the willingness to go above and beyond what others expect of you to produce something excellent.

Going From Good to Great

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