Listen Loudly!

Put away your phone, focus and try to understand! If you don't understand ASK! Just listen loudly to the person you are talking to and stop thinking about what to answer...listen loudly to understand. The rest will be easy!

We are addicted to our thoughts

The only time change is possible is when you change your thinking, but how often does this happen?

The small things...

I think it was Markus Aurilius that said "We fought with lions, only to be eaten by mosquitos" or something like that. In our daily grind we often lose the big picture and waste too much time in the small stuff.

Now, in my 40s, I often see old friends that where once filled with dreams and plans now to be bitter task oriented just-pay-the-bills middle aged men. I can't blame them, I understand them. It is so easy to get sucked in the daily grind.

The thing that kept me going is small steps (or even huge ones) EVERY DAY towards my dreams. Seeing most of them come true and feeding on that emotion of "You can make things happen!" if you truly give yourself time to focus on the daily things that will get you to your goals!

So do not let the small stuff make you a small person!

Read my other posts

Never, ever, ever give up...

Information consumes attention.

Information consumes attention.

I was reading a book on productivity called

Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind

when I stumbled on the quote that I put on the image. Information today has become more of a problem than a solution for the productive man (or woman).

The sheer volume of it is enough to send you of tracks when working on a project or a goal. That is why I think 2 things are really important when striving for exceptional productivity and time management.

1. Having a daily routine that works in your favor. Build in your days routines and rituals that are about creation and not just reaction to information. That way, if you stick to it, you will limit the time spend on useless browsing and target your energy and focus to the things that will help you the most.
2. Learn to search. I see this problem almost daily. People do not know how to search for information properly and they get lost in the volume of general data coming their way. Take the time to train in retrieving information and you will be more productive and focused!

Don't let information hold you back from action taking and results!

Have an awesome day!

Give time to yourself to gather energy

For a long time I could not understand my energy cycles. Whenever I felt I was low on energy (usually a week in seven weeks period) I thought I could fight through it, which always resulted in taking another week to recover.

Now I understand that this is my energy cycle, I embrace it and lay a bit lower that week. This gives me room to do what is necessary, not over extend my self, and be really productive the other weeks!

Lately I am trying to do the same for my daily routine. Lay of the notifications, or the phone for some period of the day, sleep a little more (I used to get up at 5:30, now its 6:15 and I go a bit earlier in bed) and

DO MORE CREATIVE THAN REACTIVE WORK!

What about you? What are any tricks you can share about your daily routine?