Overcome Procrastination with "Solar Flaring" Zen and the Art of Making a Living: Web and Book Resources > Web Resources: Researching Global Issues and Challenges. A Master Plan for Taking Control of Your Life. How to have an Awesome Day – The 10 Essential Elements. We’ve all heard the cliched phrases “You have good days and you have bad days” and “Some days are better than others”.
What is it about those “good days” that makes them better than others? Are there any common elements that result in having a really good day at work, school or university? Whether you get to the end of the day and say “What an awesomely productive day!” Or “What a waste of a day” often comes down to a few factors that are within our personal control. Based on empirical research, my own experience and some informal qualitative research conducted on Facebook, I have compiled a list of the core elements of an “awesome day”. 1.
A good breakfast sets you up for the day. “If you look at your day as a football game and divide it into quarters, you will be able to fuel your body with the right foods at the right time”. So what constitutes a good breakfast? I have the most energy first thing in the morning. 3. 4. Most of us don’t move as much as we need to during the day at work. Developing Razor Sharp Focus with Zen Habits Blogger, Leo Babauta. If you’ve just logged into Facebook or your email for the 10th time today or find yourself thinking in Facebook statuses throughout the day, it may be time to read Leo Babauta’s eBook “Focus: A simplicity manifesto in the age of distraction”. This free eBook contains dozens of practical suggestions to help you enjoy life more, enhance your creativity and get things done.
If there ever was an equivalent of steroids for focus, this book is it – it’s a great tool to help anyone develop razor sharp focus and churn out quality work. After reading this book, I made a number of changes that dramatically sharpened my focus. I have summarised a number of the strategies in the mind map below. Create Focus Rituals/Habits: Babauta defines a ritual as a set of actions you repeat habitually. He argues that rituals can help us to get into a focused mindset and suggests a number of rituals for the morning, before you begin your work, to help you refocus on your work and for the end of the day. The Skill that Matters Most. Self control is the ability to say no, in the face of temptation, and to take sustained action, despite the difficulty of a given challenge.
At its heart, self-control requires the ability to delay gratification. More commonly, it's called discipline, or will. Without self-control, we can't accomplish almost anything of enduring value. And we rarely pay much attention to it. Over the past decade, I've built a company, The Energy Project, which is devoted to helping people and organizations improve sustainable performance, in large part by more systematically exercising self-control. Over the years, we've learned that nearly everything people tend to believe about self-control is wrong. Energy is the fuel for self-control. Roy Baumeister has been studying self-control for more than two decades and he has just published a terrific new book, Willpower, written with John Tierney, which summarizes his conclusions.
Aerobic exercise is a second way to increase energy. Reprinted from HBR.org. Hack Your Productivity: A Time-Management Geek's 10-Minute Solution. I just had the most productive week ever. I am a bit of a time-management geek. I’ve met and interviewed some amazing entrepreneurs, CEOs, and politicians. They all have one thing in common: They achieve more in less time than the rest of us. They each follow their own system, and I’ve tried some version of every one. But two weeks ago I tried something new. And with the early results in, it’s the clear winner. First, let me tell you what it’s not. This also is not a checklist. And you simply cannot predict these unexpected opportunities. So what we need is both: the vision and the action. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
I created a simple strategy tracking tool, which you can find on the tools page of my website (kaihan.net). I did this for two weeks and amazing things started happening. Even more important were the advances that were not on my to-do list. The daily “meditation” clears your mind, pulls you above the trees, and reconnects you with what you are building (your long-term vision). The Twelve Attributes of a Truly Great Workplace. More than 100 studies have now found that the most engaged employees — those who report they're fully invested in their jobs and committed to their employers — are significantly more productive, drive higher customer satisfaction and outperform those who are less engaged.
But only 20 per cent of employees around the world report that they're fully engaged at work. It's a disconnect that serves no one well. So what's the solution? Where is the win-win for employers and employees? The answer is that great employers must shift the focus from trying to get more out of people, to investing more in them by addressing their four core needs — physical, emotional, mental and spiritual — so they're freed, fueled and inspired to bring the best of themselves to work every day. It's common sense. Our first need is enough money to live decently, but even at that, we cannot live by bread alone. Commit to paying every employee a living wage. How does your company measure up? Reprinted from HBR.org. How to Accomplish More by Doing Less. Two people of equal skill work in the same office.
For the sake of comparison, let's say both arrive at work at 9 am each day, and leave at 7 pm. Bill works essentially without stopping, juggling tasks at his desk and running between meetings all day long. He even eats lunch at his desk. Sound familiar? Nick, by contrast, works intensely for approximately 90 minutes at a stretch, and then takes a 15 minute break before resuming work. Bill spends 10 hours on the job. By 1 pm, Bill is feeling some fatigue.
It's called the law of diminishing returns. Nick puts in the same 10 hours. Nick takes off a total of two hours during his 10 at work, so he only puts in 8 hours. Because Nick is more focused and alert than Bill, he also makes fewer mistakes, and when he returns home at night, he has more energy left for his family. It's not just the number of hours we sit at a desk in that determines the value we generate. There's plenty of evidence that increased rest and renewal serve performance. There's No Such Thing as Constructive Criticism. Here's a question guaranteed to make your stomach lurch: "Would you mind if I gave you some feedback? " What that actually means is "Would you mind if I gave you some negative feedback, wrapped in the guise of constructive criticism, whether you want it or not? " The problem with criticism is that it challenges our sense of value. Criticism implies judgment and we all recoil from feeling judged.
As Daniel Goleman has noted, threats to our esteem in the eyes of others are so potent they can literally feel like threats to our very survival. The conundrum is that feedback is necessary. It's the primary means by which we learn and grow. So what's the best way to deliver it in a way that it provides the greatest value — meaning the recipient truly absorbs and acts on it? There are three key behaviors, I believe, and they're each grounded in the recognition that what we say is often less important than how we say it. 1. If it's about us, it's not truly about them. 2. 3. Reprinted from HBR.org.