What Confucius Can Teach You About Living a Happier Life Image by Ivan Walsh (license). “It is better to play than do nothing.” “Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.” “Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.” About 2500 years ago there lived a man called Confucius. Today I’d like to share a few of my favorite happiness tips from Confucius. What goes around, comes around. “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” A very simple rule for how life often works. The payoff may not be instant though. You have to do to understand. “I hear and I forget. This is a key piece of advice. So while books and seeing someone doing something can be useful, the key to really understanding what something is about is to do it yourself. Shoot for something. “If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it’s OK. The most important thing is to start and to do. But if you don’t try then nothing will ever get started. Focus on what you want. What you focus on, you will see in your world. Let go of the past. You are here.
100 Time-Saving Search Engines for Serious Scholars While burying yourself in the stacks at the library is one way to get some serious research done, with today’s technology you can do quite a bit of useful searching before you ever set foot inside a library. Undergraduates and grad students alike will appreciate the usefulness of these search engines that allow them to find books, journal articles and even primary source material for whatever kind of research they’re working on and that return only serious, academic results so time isn’t wasted on unprofessional resources. Note: Visit our updated list for the latest in academic search engines. General Start off your research with one of these more general academic search engines. Intute: Use this website’s search tools to find the best and most reliable sites to start your research. Meta Search Want to search it all at once? Dogpile: Search Google, Yahoo, Bing and more at once with this great search engine. Databases and Archives Books and Journals Science Math and Technology Social Science
7 Smart Ways to Deal with Toxic People Don’t let toxic people rent space in your head. Raise the rent and get them out of there. Surviving the ups, downs, and lightning storms of other people’s moodiness can be quite a challenge. It’s important, though, to remember that some moody, negative people may be going through a difficult stage in their lives. They may be ill, chronically worried, or lacking what they need in terms of love and emotional support. But there’s another type of moody, negative behavior: that of the toxic bully, who will use his or her mood swings to intimidate and manipulate. I’m a firm believer that toxic mood swings (like chain letter emails) should not be inflicted on one person by another, under any circumstances. 1. If you know someone who insists on destructively dictating the emotional atmosphere, then be clear: they are toxic. When you delete toxic people from your environment it becomes a lot easier to breathe. 2. Constant drama and negativity is never worth putting up with. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
30 Habits that Will Change your Life Developing good habits is the basic of personal development and growth. Everything we do is the result of a habit that was previously taught to us. Unfortunately, not all the habits that we have are good, that’s why we are constantly trying to improve. The following is a list of 30 practical habits that can make a huge difference in your life. You should treat this list as a reference, and implement just one habit per month. Health habits Exercise 30 minutes every day. Productivity habits Use an inbox system. Personal Development habits Read 1 book per week. Career habits Start a blog. What do you think? Update: A reader put together a downloadable copy of all these habits.
Good and Bad Procrastination December 2005 The most impressive people I know are all terrible procrastinators. So could it be that procrastination isn't always bad? Most people who write about procrastination write about how to cure it. But this is, strictly speaking, impossible. There are an infinite number of things you could be doing. There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. That's the "absent-minded professor," who forgets to shave, or eat, or even perhaps look where he's going while he's thinking about some interesting question. That's the sense in which the most impressive people I know are all procrastinators. What's "small stuff?" Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work. Good in a sense, at least. Some errands, like replying to letters, go away if you ignore them (perhaps taking friends with them).
10 Things I Wish Someone Told Me 10 Years Ago · LifeReboot.com At the start of every year, I like to review my goals. I pull out the list of goals I set for myself last January, and then grade myself on how well I did. This year is quite different than past years. Everything changed after Cassie was diagnosed with cancer. Suddenly, nothing was important except her health. It’s been tough. Although I didn’t do any of the fighting — you have Cassie and her doctors to praise for that — I did get caught up in the ride. Here I am now, happy that 2010 is upon us, wondering what else to write about. I’m glad for how things turned out. I suppose that I’m afraid if I don’t talk about it, the only other thing I can say about 2009 is that life was on pause for a while, so nothing else was accomplished. The other thing about 2009 is that I feel so detached from everything I experienced throughout it. I think that the dawn of a new decade is an excellent time to reflect upon the last ten years, and figure out what life lessons I’ve managed to learn from them:
10 Tips for Designing Presentations That Don’t Suck: Pt.1 Powerpoint has produced more bad design in its day that perhaps any other digital tool in history with the possible exception of Microsoft paint. In this post we’re going to address the epidemic of bad presentation design with ten super practical tips for designer better looking and more professional presentations. Along the way we’ll see a number of awesome slide designs from Note & Point along with some custom examples built by yours truly. Let’s get started! Also be sure to check out 10 Tips for Designing Presentations That Don’t Suck: Pt.2! Not a Designer? Most of the content on this site is targeted specifically towards professional designers and developers, or at the very least those interested in getting started in this field. You’ve chosen a visual tool to communicate and should therefore take the time to learn a thing or two about visual communications. Follow the ten tips below and see if you don’t start getting comments about your awesome presentation design skills. Kuler Piknik
16 things I know are true but haven't quite learned yet There’s a difference between knowing something and living as if it were true. At the end of 2013, these truths are all lingering on that awkward threshold, for me anyway. 1) The sooner you do something, the more of your life you get to spend with that thing done — even though it takes less effort (or at least no more) than it will later. It’s the ultimate sure-thing investment and I pass it up all the time. 2) I never regret working out. 3) Whenever I’m playing with my phone I am only shortening my life. 4) Nothing makes me more productive and in-the-moment than a clean house. 5) Minute-for-minute, nothing I do is more rewarding than meditation. 6) Creative work is something that can be done at any time. 7) Acting the way you want to feel usually works. 8) Ninety-five per cent of my happiness comes from having a home, a functioning body and something to eat. 9) Our minds are geared to manage much less than we typically end up managing. Goodbye 2013, you were great. Photo by David Cain
30 Ways to Live Life to the Fullest “Begin at once to live and count each separate day as a separate life.” ~Seneca At times, it’s seemed as though life contains an endless supply of days. I thought this for sure when I was younger. It didn’t matter how long I held a grudge or how long I waited to do something I wanted—there would be an unlimited pool of other opportunities. At least, that’s what I thought back then. Maybe it’s a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, the moment when you realize life happens now and that’s all you’re guaranteed. It hits you when somehow you feel it. But maybe that’s irrelevant. With this in mind, I recently asked Tiny Buddha’s Facebook friends, “How do you live life to the fullest?” 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. What have you done today to live life to the fullest? Photo by gaborbasch
The Two Types of Procrastination I just finished reading a wonderful article on procrastination by James Surowiecki in the October 11 issue of The New Yorker. The money quote: [I]t might be useful to think about two kinds of procrastination: the kind that is genuinely akratic and the kind that’s telling you that what you’re supposed to be doing has, deep down, no real point. The procrastinator’s challenge, and perhaps the philosopher’s, too, is to figure out which is which. “Akratic” is a term defined earlier in the article, a word taken from the works of early Greek philosophers that refers to doing something against one’s better judgment. In essence, Surowiecki is making the statement that we procrastinate in two ways: we either do something truly against our better judgment or we are simply acting on our deep impulse that we’re merely avoiding something that’s a waste of time. How do you distinguish between the two, though? This is something I often find challenging in my own life. Here’s how. The solution?
50 Ways To Boost Your Brain Power | 4 Mind 4 Life: Good Health Tips 1) Meditate — Meditation has been known to increase IQ, relieve stress, and promotes higher levels of brain functioning. Meditation also activates the “prefrontal cortex” of the brain, an area responsible for advanced thinking ability and performance. 2) Draw A Picture — Drawing stimulates the right-hemisphere of the brain and inspires creativity. Get out the colored pencils and begin drawing your way to a powerful brain. 3) Exercise — Long-term exercise has been proven to increase brain power and even create new neurons in the brain. 4) Brainwave Entrainment — Brainwave entrainment is a safe, innovative way to stimulate and shape the brain and it’s functioning. 5) Avoid Junk Food — Junk food has been proven to decrease energy in the body and promotes “brain fog.” 6) Deep Breathing — Deep breathing actually increases oxygen levels and blood-flow to the brain. 10-15 minutes of daily deep breathing can make a huge difference in the quality of your life and brain’s functioning potential.