Let’s rewind to your morning today. Did you wake up with purpose, knowing exactly what to do for the next six hours? Or did you open your eyes with your brain all clouded, knowing that you have zillions of things to do, but with no idea about where and how to start? In this confused state, it is very easy to pick activities that need very little effort. For instance, snooze the alarm & stay back in bed. It is very easy to cling to activities that make your brain feel busy, but you aren’t doing anything productive. For instance, reading the newspaper all morning, browsing your email or watching TV. Continue reading The magic of planning for the next day
Tag: priorities
600 minutes for your most productive day
I have talked about how to intentionally schedule your days here and here. The first post talks about chucking a simple to-do list and using a calendar to put a date and time to activities. The second post mentions that the activities in a single day should strictly follow a theme, such as book-writing on Mondays, marketing on Tuesdays, etc.
To help you really boost your productivity, I talk about the rule of 3 x 200 to take control of your day and get the most important things done effectively. Continue reading 600 minutes for your most productive day
The ONE thing you should do every morning
Grab any magazine, read lifestyle sections of newspapers, go through productivity blogs or read productivity books. Everyone tells you the importance of morning routines, a regular sequence of actions you do every morning to build up to peak performance. Without the rhythm of a morning routine, you may mindlessly fumble through the day.
Most morning routines (including my previous one), fall under two categories: getting physical so that your body grows energetic (jogging, workout, yoga) and getting mindful so that your mind can focus better (meditation, journaling, worship).
However, Benjamin Hardy and Bedros Keuilian hit the nail on the head by suggesting that the first thing you should do every morning is an activity which takes you a step closer to your life’s most important goals. This activity most likely changes every week or month and is the #1 activity for that period of time. Continue reading The ONE thing you should do every morning
From masterpiece to mediocrity
We have seen this quite often. We love a certain brand of chocolate dearly. Let’s call it Toffee X. Over the years, the taste of the Toffee X changes gradually until one day we feel that the chocolate is tasteless. We try to reason it as a natural change of taste associated with growing up. But no! Your friends say the same thing. Well, they have grown up too. But no! The kids in your block say that Toffee X isn’t a tasty chocolate at all. They wonder why their parents were hyping it so much!
After poking around, you find that the makers of Toffee X did indeed change the taste. To cut costs, they kept cutting back on certain ingredients. The amount of cardamom was halved, butter was replaced with margarine, the size went down by a third and they used refined sugar instead of honey. From being the market #1, they are now just also-rans. This is a typical example of a work of masterpiece degrading over time and dying a slow death due to short-sightedness and lack of commitment and cutting corners as a result. Continue reading From masterpiece to mediocrity