You're Not A Tree

     Walking through Chapters tonight (and maybe this makes me a geek but I think it's one of the coolest places on earth) and I saw a book titled: "What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains". This book should be one word long: NOTHING! The internet isn't doing anything to your brain, fast food isn't making you fat and smoking isn't killing you. It's your choices that are doing this! Do things in moderation. Don't spend all your time doing something that you choose to do and then blame the thing for the consequences. Take some personal responsibility. 



"If you don't like how things are, change it. You're not a tree." Jim Rohn

It's Amusing How People Think

     Had an amusing experience yesterday. I went out looking for a last minute Christmas gift for my wife. It's a tacky novelty that I suspect costs about .40 for the store and I imagine would have cost me about $8. When I went into Canadian Tire the two women there were amused I was looking for this item so late in the season. They told me that they do carry the item every year but are out of it by mid November. Their whole attitude was amusement at my not knowing this. Walking out I was equally as amused by how people that are supposed to be in business just don't get it. I'm the customer. I left without giving you my money. Someone did something dumb here but it wasn't me. You say yourself you run out of this product which I guarantee is a high mark up item, every year very early and don't meet the demand. Order more. Find another source. Charge more. It's incredible that people don't understand the fundamentals of how business works.

Be better, be different or be cheaper.

   Read this on Seth Godin's blog today: "be better, be different or be cheaper." This is it in a nutshell. People complain about how they can't find a good paying job or why people don't buy their products. The reason is the people aren't finding a way to be either of the first two and the store/manufacturer isn't finding a way to be any of the three. Or you can choose to blame the government or the economy or China if you prefer. However that is just thinking about your perceived cause of your problem rather than moving forward to the solution. As I've said before: the world has changed. Deal with it.

Profound Idea About "Tomorrow"

     Thought provoking quote from Seth Godin: “If you could do tomorrow over again, would you?”

     If the answer is no I think you really need to think about that concept. If you know already that you are not going to enjoy your day and that you wouldn't want to repeat it why live that life? I know it's easy to explain all the reasons why you're trapped but I also have come to realize you can have fun doing almost anything if you have the right attitude. There isn't anything really remarkable about my job but I can tell you that day in and day out I have fun at work. It's about the people, the situations, the passion and most of all finding things to smile and laugh about.  

The World Has Changed-Deal With It

     Staying in a nice hotel for a Conference this weekend. Hotel was nice enough to provide a bottle of water on the night stand. But wait! Sign on it says if I drink it there will be a $5.95 charge on my hotel bill. The world has changed. People expect more and they don't want to be nickel and dimed to death. In my opinion the hotel would be better off not providing the water. I still remember renting a car from National in Albany, New York and being given two free cold bottles of water and the woman coming to the vehicle to explain all the little features that change on cars that those of us who rent cars all the time have to take a moment to figure out (radio controls, headlights, trunk release, adjusting seats etc.). Other things being equal I will rent again from National.
     Unfortunately it looks like this hotel belongs with our school system that still thinks teaching our children to memorize things they can look up in 30 seconds on their phone and the US Postal Service that lost $8.5 billion this year providing the same six day  a week delivery that they did when the world depended on snail mail and used it in great volume.
     The world has changed. Deal with it. You and your business need to evolve or die.

This Is Awesome

     A passage from Dumblittleman.com about complaining:

• Have a plan.
  I find it quite irritating when people complain about their job or people they work with or how they're bored with whatever it is they're doing at the moment. I find it even more irritating when people have no answer to the question "and what are you doing about it?" Some people have given it some thought and others just stare blankly as if to say "There's something I can do?" If you're unhappy with any situation make a plan on how you can change it. How are you going to take control and make your situation better?

Time

     One quick way to get me irritated is to say: "I wish I had time to do that" in response to someone's story about their interests or how they spend their time. We all have 24 hours in the day. Don't sleep nine hours a day. Don't run a farm that doesn't make you a nickel. Don't push your kids into hobbies that barely interest them and then consume both of your lives. You choose how to use up your time.
     I saw a great speech by Gary Vaynerchuk today on Youtube. It was all about chasing your passions in life. The gist of what he said is if you have to work nine to five then you do this in your other hours. Work nine to five,  come home, spend a couple of hours with the family and then seven to two are prime hours. Don't argue about the semantics of the time. Nine to two, ten to two, whatever. We all have time. He accentuated the point with an awesome quote: "You have time. Stop watching fucking Lost!"

Link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqZ0RU95d4

Simplicity.

     I've been making a real effort of late to spend time with the people I know who are intelligent, who have new ideas, who add value. I'm a big believer in the concept that who you become and how you much you grow is based on who you spend your time with. The common denominator I notice among these people is the ability and desire to relentlessly simplify. A great ability to understand what they are being told and frame it back to the source in much simpler terms that make it clearer. Here's a quote I found tonight: “The great artist and thinker are the simplifiers.” — Henri Frederic Amiel. Next time you are faced with a problem make it simpler. Then make it simpler. Then make it simpler. Next time you are sending an e-mail find a portion that doesn't matter and remove it or find a way to rephrase it with less and shorter words. Simplicity. Try it. I think you'll like it.

Make It Easy For Me.....

    Yet another simple concept......You need to make the thing you want people to do, the easiest thing for them to do. I got a piece of paper from my childen's school that said: "Go Green, Go Paperless". The school was asking me to opt out of receiving the paper copy of the school's monthly newsletter.I was initially interested as I thought they were finally going to start e-mail communication. However that wasn't the case. They were suggesting that I could go every month to the website and look at the monthly newsletter. Asking me to move from having the newsletter pushed to me to having to pull the newsletter from the website is not going to entice many people. It isn't that difficult to create an e-mail group or even better to have me go to the website and sign up to receive the newsletter. Then there was a deadline I had to respond by if I wanted to do it. If you're committed to doing this to "save paper" (and the school money) you can probably deal with the few people that will submit their form after the artificial deadline.
     The point is......walk a mile in your customer's shoes. Yes I am a customer of the school. I pay for a service. In this situation you are trying to change my behavior to suit your needs. Fair enough but it needs to be a win/win. Think about what would make it easiest for me and offer me a compromise. Expecting me to embrace a concept that adds work to my side of the equation is not going to be widely accepted and probably will not result in you meeting your target, unless you set it very low.  

It Really Is Simple

     So the election has come and gone and I realize I broke my own mindset of keeping things simple. Sometimes you get close to a situation and become blinded to the reality. I met a guy who was running for council in a local ward and was really impressed by him. I agreed to lend a hand knocking on doors and generally helping out in the hopes of him getting elected to council.
     The candidate was about 40 years old with no previous experience in politics running in what amounts to a seniors' community. The opponent was a 76 year old woman who had previously been Mayor in two other areas and had a long track record of political experience. If someone else had explained this to me I would have told them that their guy didn't have a chance because people generally vote for people like them and an older generation in particular is going to put significant value on experience. However being personally involved and being impressed by my candidate's qualifications I let myself believe it wasn't that simple.
     On election night my guy lost by a margin of about two to one. I really believed that the people in the riding would support change and a new voice but in hindsight I complicated something that was simple. It was a great experience and I still think he was an excellent candidate but the loss would have been easier to take if I had properly analyzed the situation beforehand.
     Just another great example of how life really is simple but we insist on making it complicated.

Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.

Great quote: "Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote." ~George Jean Nathan. The municipal election is Monday. I've seen a lot of discussion recently by people about how we need to get out and vote. This is true. However it's equally true that we need to vote with some degree of education about the candidates. There are many sources of information on the candidates in every race. Please take a few minutes and understand what the people you are voting for are all about. There are some amazing people running for office.....and there are some people who will do damage and clearly aren't fit to lead us. Please do your homework and understand the difference.

Letter To The Editor About The Election

http://www.madhunt.com/letter-holliday-20101021.html

I Can Accept It....

     One of the things that constantly amazes me is how people can have such different opinions. About anything.....politics, work, people you name it. However I can accept it. It puzzles me but I get that other people when presented with the exact same set of information can come to a different opinion. What I struggle with is why it's so hard for others to accept that? I'm amazed at how often people tell me: "you don't get it" or "you don't understand". Oh I get it. I'm a reasonably bright guy. I get it. I just don't agree with you. Why is that so hard for people to get?

It's Simple

     To me the company/employee relationship is simple. People like to make it complicated but like just about everything it's really simple. I have to listen to people at work everyday tell me the reasons why they are angry, bitter etc. at the place we work. To me they are angry at themselves for allowing themselves to be the victim. They may not know it but I think that's really why they are mad......because they realize at some level that they have some weakness which is preventing them from doing something about it.
     About a dozen years ago I sat across the table from people representing the company and they said we will give you X, Y and Z if you come here, follow the rules and work hard. So I follow the rules and work hard and they have given me far more than the X, Y and Z that were originally promised. There are some people who want to make it complicated and claim they are entitled to more or that it should be easy or some other way of blaming a faceless company for their unhappiness but in my opinion they're wrong.

Simplify...simplify.....simplify

     I have a new manager at work (a year ago). One of the things I have picked up from him is a relentless drive to simplify everything as far as it will go. Like most work skills this has carried over into my life. I have come to really believe this skill helps in every aspect of life. There is a quote from Confucius I have always liked that says: "Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated." There is another I love from Einstein (arguably my favorite quote ever and for those who know me that is saying a lot) that says: "If you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well enough."
     There is a video I like from Connie Podesta where she speaks to why people have affairs. The gist of the idea is that it's because the person no longer feels good about themselves in the presence of their spouse. She goes on to say this is why people leave jobs and other examples. The reason we do anything is because of how it makes us feel about ourselves. An excellent two minute video Here is a link to the video:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqU39qGfeGA
       Another great video that speaks to the same thing is one by Larry Winget I saw today. It's called There Are No Grey Areas. His point is about right and wrong. If you have to ask if it's right it isn't is the gist of it. Another good two minute video 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAnYBSALIAM

The Shrinking Middle

     Went to the Lone Star for dinner tonight for the first time in years. Cost $50 and was good. That seems disappointing to me. Further evidence of something that I read about and that I've really started to notice lately which is that there is no room in the "middle". I can spend $100 at Moxies and have an experience. I know it's going to be great and that I am going to be happy. Going in I know I'm going to spend but I also know it's going to have value. I can go to Harvey's and spend $20 and I get good value for the money. Tonight spending $50 for good just didn't seem worth it to me. This phenomenon seems true everywhere though. I think people buy an expensive TV because they want premium entertainment or they buy a cheap TV because it's cheap. I don't think many people buy a middle of the road TV. I think it's the same with clothes. I think people buy a name brand pair of jeans that's expensive or they buy at Wal-Mart. I don't see a big market anymore for that middle of the road product that we used to buy constantly. I think this is some of the reason we are seeing the end of Eatons, The Bay, Sears etc.
     The way I first became aware of this concept it was described as a "race to the bottom". If you aren't delivering tangible value then someone is always going to do it cheaper. People in the workforce or businesses in the marketplace have to realize you can no longer make an average product or do average work and make money at it. Someone is always going to do it cheaper if it takes no real skill. If you expect to be paid you need to add value. I think this is part of the problem with the way the world of work in our communities is changing and people seem to be struggling to adapt. The days of going to work and doing some unskilled labour and being paid well for 30 years until retirement are quickly ending if you look around. As Seth Godin says it is the end of ABC work. ABC stands for Attendance Based Compensation. Less and less companies are willing to pay you just to show up and put in time. I think the world is changing and you need to have a quick factual answer to how you add value. I saw a comment recently that said if you don't think your job is temporary you just haven't realized it yet. I think there is a lot of truth to that. This concept is being trumpeted by many business leaders like Seth Godin and Tom Peters. These guys got where they are because they have the vision to see what's coming.
     It sounds scary but maybe it isn't......maybe we just need to work harder and make sure we deliver work or a product that's worth the money......isn't that what we were supposed to be doing all along? Or was it really fair that we expected jobs with Attendance Based Compensation?

1000 people got together.....

     On Friday night approximately 1000 people got together for the Alliston Relay for Life and raised over $220,000. This shows what can happen when people decide to fight back instead of just accepting things. It reminds me of John Lennon's quote: "If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set we would have peace." A lot of people getting together and each doing a little bit can have tremendous results. 
      People often ask me who I lost to cancer or what my situation is that caused me to get involved. Nothing did except that it pisses me off. It pisses me off that kids get cancer and go through traumatic experiences and even die. It pisses me off that other great people suffer and some are taken prematurely. It is inevitable that if enough research is done we will solve this problem. Don't let people tell you different. There are lots of things that are being done currently and lots of breakthroughs that are very close. Part of the problem is that people think of cancer as one thing and it still exists so they think we aren't getting anywhere. The reality is that there are many forms of cancer and some are getting solved. I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with a form that has actually been identified right to the cell and that is able to be treated with a drug and he should live as normally as you or I for the rest of his life other than taking the medication. 
     So the idea of people getting cancer pisses me off and I get involved with Relay for Life. It pisses me off that kids hang out in front of Tim Horton's and cause trouble. So I get involved with the Youth Center and dances. It pisses me off that I can have anything I want and there are people who don't have enough to eat so I volunteer at the Food Bank......and don't start with the nonsense about how they should be working. Lots of seniors and disabled come into the Food Bank and lots of others with stories that aren't visibly obvious to you. It pisses me off that other people may not have had some of the advantages I have had to learn things so I volunteer at the Literacy Council.
     The point is: What pisses you off? All these problems are solvable. There is an organization out there that is close to solving the problem of Tsunamis by figuring out how to change the water temperature. We can certainly get kids off the street, teach people to read or continue to figure out ways to prolong the lives of people fighting cancer. 
     What pisses you off? Go. Get involved in fighting back against these things. I guarantee you will feel better about yourself. We aren't victims. Get out and help solve a problem like the 1000 or so people did on Friday night.  

Don't Forget Why You Came

      Just read an interesting quote: "When you leave here don't forget why you came". It was from Adlai Stevenson to college graduates. I went past it and didn't post it to Facebook like I normally would because it didn't really fit with what I normally would post. Then I got thinking about it and all the situations in life it applies to: work, friends, spouses etc.
       When we got offered the job, or the friendship was growing or met the spouse there were reasons that we were interested and wanted that person or job as part of our lives. For the most part those reasons are still there but we have come to take them for granted and now we focus on all the irritations.
        Perhaps next time I find myself complaining about my work, or my spouse or a friend I'm going to think about why I wanted to work there or be with that person and I'm going to remember why I came.

Epiphany

     I had an epiphany today. I love the word and I love the concept. The ah ha moment. Anyway my epiphany: I've read all sorts of quotes, comments etc. about running toward your fears and I've never understood the concept. I thought it meant if I was afraid of skydiving I should go do it and I would develop as a person. Maybe that's what some of the people who say it mean but I've never bought into it.
     Today I was thinking again about how we don't ask for what we want and we miss out on so much because we are afraid of our egos being bruised. Then it hit me.....this is what people are talking about. Two people who are both interested in each other but neither says anything about it and they lose the opportunity. A husband and wife who both want more _______  (sex, communication, time out together whatever) but neither tells the other and it spirals downhill, a friendship that fades away because neither pushes the other for more time because each is afraid of feeling needy. Life is full of numerous examples every day.
     I've heard stories of articles and movies of people who are fanatically honest. No lie telling or holding back any thoughts. However I've never heard of anyone doing an experiment where they never let being afraid of something soft (feelings being hurt etc. as opposed to hard like a safety concern or physical fear) stop them from saying or doing things. I guess the heart of it would be asking for things. How many times a day do we settle for less than we could have because we don't ask for what we want? Look at your own life for a day and see how many times you don't ask? What would be different if you did ask?

Keep moving

     I just read a quote from a movie executive who says that in reflection he thinks if he had said no to all the projects he said yes to and yes to all the ones he said no to things would have worked out about the same.....makes me wonder. What's more important: making the right decisions or just doing something? Is it really just all about getting up to bat? A numbers game? 
     Thinking back on the areas of your life where you have been successful is it because you made great decisions or because you gave consistent effort?

Someone died today

     Someone we knew died today. I didn't know him well but I knew him enough to know he was a good man who was taken too soon. I didn't know him well enough to have memories that will remain with me but I will remember the way it happened and I will strive to apply it's lessons to my life. In his memory here are some quotes about life:


For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life.  But there was always some obstacle in the way.  Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid.  Then life would begin.  At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.  ~Fr. Alfred D'Souza

Enjoy yourself.  It's later than you think.  ~Chinese Proverb

To change one's life:  Start immediately.  Do it flamboyantly.  No exceptions.  ~William James

Why must conversions always come so late?  Why do people always apologize to corpses?  ~David Brin

You will never find time for anything.  If you want time you must make it.  ~Charles Buxton

Death twitches my ear.  "Live," he says, "I am coming."  ~Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Minor Poems, Copa

Most of us spend our lives as if we had another one in the bank.  ~Ben Irwin

If you woke up breathing, congratulations!  You have another chance.  ~Andrea Boydston

Expect an early death - it will keep you busier.  ~Martin H. Fischer

Live as you will wish to have lived when you are dying.  ~Christian Furchtegott Gellert

No man is quick enough to enjoy life to the full.  ~Spanish Proverb

You don't get to choose how you're going to die.  Or when.  You can only decide how you're going to live.  Now.  ~Joan Baez

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.  ~Japanese Proverb
Don't ever save anything for a special occasion.  Being alive is the special occasion.  ~Author Unknown 

"Go for it now. The future is promised to no one." -Wayne Dyer

This list of quotes came almost exclusively from QuoteGarden. 

Life Is Short

     Another Stu Saunders gem. 

Mar 25, 2009

I am sitting at my favourite Starbucks enjoying a latte. I know all the staff, I am a regular. The manager is sitting at the table beside me. She has just promoted a young barista to a shift supervisor. I am happy to see her so excited. I open my Macbook and look at my dozen new emails.
“I don’t know it you heard?” says the manager as she leans over to me.
“No, what’s the news?” I reply.
“Sandy the other Starbucks Manager, her husband passed away on Sunday.”
“How?!”
“Sudden, don’t know all the details. Went into hospital on Wednesday and was gone on Sunday.”
“How old?” I asked.
“39”
“I’m 39.”
We were all silent for a few minutes.
Life is short, we need to make it sweet. Be great, be awesome. Stop complaining about silly things that are truly silly. Hug your children, love your spouse, smile at a stranger, lead without title.
Now.
You know this stuff. I talk about it all the time. This is not new.
“The sad part about it is we all go back to our lives and not think about it in a few days.” the manager adds as I empty my inbox.
True.
Need to stop that, need to stop.

A Life Defined

From Stu Saunders at http://www.ylcc.com/stu-saunders-presentations/stu-pendous-blog

Feb 27, 2010

How you live your days defines your life.
I am not sure where I read that quote. I am not sure if perhaps I strung it together myself. The point though, is not new. Each and every day of our lives we choose to live how we want. It’s true you may have restrictions from bosses, coaches, parents, financial means, geography or physical ability but no one controls our attitude.
I once wrote a blog called the “Bitter Bus”, the point being so many of us live our days riding around as passengers on the bus of bitterness. We complain, whine, blame and make excuses. We exist rather then evolve. Each day is a chance to get better, to grow and to learn. Why not choose to be the star rather then the extra of your movie, your life, your day?
Today I had trouble getting out of bed, putting on my winter gear and venturing out into the deep snow with my dog Duke. I struggle through the packed ice and with each step I labour to the next. I think to myself, “turn around”, no I can’t. After the first five minutes have been conquered I get stronger, I search for deeper snow, for challenge. I move to the lake and embrace the cutting wind as it strikes my face, burning it. I pick up my pace, high step through the snow drifts. My Lab and I throw the stick for a while. His enthusiasm is never changing. Heading around the point I find the path back to my home. I take the hills instead of the path. My dog breathes heavy, panting, whining a little but continues. When we arrive back to the house, I peal off the gear and my shirt is soaked with sweat. I feel as if I won, I am an Olympic athlete that has conquered my foe. That foe is me. I am the only one that decides how I live.
Back on the couch, I pour my coffee, Duke is fast asleep on his bed. I open my Mac and begin to write. Already I feel as if I am winning.
Today I will CHOOSE to live fully, to live deliberately, to define my day. There is no bitter bus, it does not exist.
My life story is a result of my days. My mortality is my coach, reminding me that I must win, play hard and find a way. I am the star and not the extra, the passenger or the observer.
Are you?

Mother Teresa's prayer

Mother Teresa's prayer
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
... Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
... Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
... Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
... Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
... Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
... Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
... Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
... Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

We can do no great things - only small things with great love.

- Mother Teresa

A Great Book

     A blog post from Happiness-project.com. It's about the idea behind the book How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk which in my opinion is the best parenting book of all time. I had been thinking about this same concept over the last few days because I've been noticing how whenever my four year old son comes to me to complain about his seven year old sister bothering him the most effective reaction from me is just to listen to him. I listen and tell him that must have made you feel (however he's feeling) and he goes away happy. The whole notion of invalidating others feelings when we watch for it is incredible. You just suddenly realize how often you do it. The natural reaction is: "You shouldn't feel bad".......

 

 

Bad parenting: back from the brink

This morning I almost made a classic bad-parenting move: denying a bad feeling.

We began the day at 6:30 a.m. with the Big Girl claiming, “No one’s paying attention to me. Everyone pays more attention to the Baby. Even when she’s ripping my book or pulling my hair, no one cares.”

This is absurd, and I started to snap back with the usual, “She’s too little to know what she’s doing, and how can you say no one’s paying attention to you? We played eight games of Uno yesterday,” etc., etc.

Just in time, I remembered the principle I’d recently re-read in the greatest parenting books of all time, Faber and Mazlish’s How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. (It’s a parenting book but the principles apply equally well to dealing with other adults.)

They say: Don’t refuse to acknowledge someone’s feelings of anger, irritation, or reluctance; instead, name the feeling and articulate the other person’s point of view.  This is much harder to do than it sounds, because the urge to correct a bad feeling is very strong: “you can’t be hungry,” “you love Tae Kwon Do,” “you always have fun at parties.”

But I gave it a shot. “You wish people would pay more attention to you? You’re feeling neglected?” She nodded.

“Come here,” I said, “let me give you a big hug.”

As simple as it was, that did the trick. And the nice thing about this approach was that not only did it work, I felt nice doing it, while that other kind of arguing puts me in a bad mood.

The Years Are Short movie

http://www.theyearsareshort.com/

Smile and Move

      The comments below are from Ken Blanchard about a book by Stan Parker. I will be copying this to my Good Karma file.

A couple of weeks ago I ran into a guy by the name of Stan Parker. An interesting guy. He has a new little tiny book called Smile and Move: A Reminder to Happily Serve.  Here’s what he says:
How to smile:  Wake up. Show others you care by giving attention to their needs. Be thankful. The opportunity to serve is a gift, not an entitlement.  Be approachable. We’re at each other’s service and contact is where it starts. Complain less. We have work to do. Smile. Really. It’s where pleasantness begins.
How to move:  Start early and go long. Get lost in your service to others. Exceed expectations. Dismiss mediocrity. Expect more from yourself. Have a sense of urgency. Predict and pre-sweat the details for others. Be resourceful and resilient. Service is about giving someone what they need, no matter what.
So I kind of like that: A Reminder to Happily Serve. And I love the quote he has in the back from Ralph Waldo Emerson:  “Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”  I hope you’re having a really fabulous day. Thanks for being happy. It’s a special occasion.

One Thing At A Time by Ken Blanchard

    Here is a post I liked by Ken Blanchard. Fits with another thing I read and have been thinking about recently called Three Things which was from the Zen Habits website. Essentially the idea of it was to just do three things each day to move you toward a goal. This is similar.

I really like my friend B. J. Gallagher’s little book called Staying the Course.  B. J. says, “Our journey in life is about progress, not perfection.”  (Boy, isn’t that true.) “It’s not about doing one thing 100 percent better, it’s about doing a number of things one percent better each day. Progress is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Most days we measure our progress in inches, not miles.”  (That’s feedback, that’s the breakfast of champions!)  “What matters most is showing up for your life, whether you feel like it or not. Ask yourself, ‘What two or three things can I do today that would move me forward?’”  (That’s a very good question—what could you do?)  “You’d be amazed at how much distance you could cover by taking it in increments. The little things add up. The inches turn to miles and we string together our efforts like so many pearls. Before long, look what you have—a whole strand.  Ahhh—beautiful!”   So, what can you do today to keep going?  To keep making a difference for your customers and for each other?  Remember, things are about progress. One thing at a time. One small step can change your life. So take that step today.

How To Deal With Problems by Ken Blanchard

     A good post by Ken Blanchard about problems. The take away for me is don't wallow in your problems do something about them. Even small steps to generate momentum......


This morning I was listening to Tony Robbins. I went and got a tape of Tony after being with him recently. He was saying a lot of people acquaint happiness with having no problems. He says that’s crazy. It reminded me of one of Norman Vincent Peale’s favorite stories. Norman was walking down the street in New York City when he ran into a friend of his and said, “How are you doing?”  Norman thought it was just a casual greeting, but the guy took it as an invitation and he lay down all of his problems at Norman’s feet. After about twenty minutes, he was finished and he said, “Norman, if you can solve all of my problems, I’ll give you a check for $5,000 to give to your favorite charity.” Norman said that he had never turned down such a challenge, so he ruminated and he cogitated and he agitated and he came up with a solution. He said, “I was just at an organization the other day where people have no problems. Would you like to go there?” And his friend said, “That’s exactly where I want be.” And Norman said, “I’ll take you there tomorrow. It’s called Woodlawn Cemetery. The only people I know who have no problems are dead.”  Problems are a way of life, so if you equate your happiness to not having any problems, you’re going to be naïve for the rest of your life. Happy people know how to deal with problems. They don’t get bogged down with problems. They solve problems. They work on problems. But they don’t let problems take over their life. You know, sometimes you put a problem on your back and it drags you down. What you have to do is to say, “How do I solve this?”  Happiness and problems go together. So as Tony said, it’s your attitude—it’s what you bring to a problem—that can result in a positive solution, So if you have any problems today, great! You’ll probably have a happier day.

Knowledge Base from Sources of Insight

      I've talked before about how I started keeping the Good Karma file based on advice from Christine Kane. Here from Sourcesofinsight.com is an explanation of how to do this. The author calls it a personal knowledge base but it's the same principle. 

Build a Personal Knowledge Base of Success Stories, Insight, and Action to Improve Your Success

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 08:55 AM PST

I collect success.  From stories of heroes to gems of insight, I gather and organize principles, patterns, and practices for success.  It’s like a living playbook for life with short-cuts, success patterns, and proven practices.  It supplies me with insight and action that I can use for just about every situation.  Whether it’s motivation or strategies or tactics, it’s my unfair advantage and how I get the edge in life.  It’s truly how I “stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Keys to an Effective Success KB Here are some of the keys to success when it comes to building a personal “Success KB”:

• Think in Nuggets.  Think in terms of “nuggets” or “gems of insight.”   Collect a nugget at a time and chunk things down.
• Keep it Scannable. Think in terms of “tickler lists of insight.”  Keep ti scannable and write in one-liners where you can.  Make it easy to quickly flip, sort, or search through your KB.
• Factor reference from Action.  If you have a bunch of blah, blah, blah, simply add three take aways or key actionable insight to the top.   Ideally, keep your actionable methods and techniques, separate from good concepts and stories, which are really reference information.  This will help you turn insight into action.
• Keep it Simple. This is a must.  It’s crucial to have a simple way to store and retrieve things.   Otherwise, the little bit of friction adds up and it dies a slow death of a 1000 paper cuts.

I happen to use Evernote for my KB now, but I’ve also used pen and paper, Wikis, text files on my hard drive … etc.   Whatever you use, simply make sure that it works for you and it’s simple.
What Goes Into a Personal Success KB
I think the real key to building an effective “Success KB” is knowing what to put into it.  Here are some of the things I collect:

1. Ah-Has – jot down the little ah-has you find or when you connect the dots.  For example, one of my ah-has I wrote down is “legacy is a by-product of giving your best where you have your best to give.”
2. Book Nuggets – summarize the best insights from the best books.  For example, here’s my book nugget Argue Your Way to Optimism from the book, Learned Optimism.
3. Lessons Learned – make a tickler list of your key lessons from mentors or experiences.  You can even draw from movies.  For example, here are my Lessons Learned from Peaceful Warrior.
4. Mental Models – write down lenses you can use for looking at life.  For example, add the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to your tool-belt to help you understand yourself and others or the Johari Window to help you know and share yourself more effectively.
5. Patterns – note down patterns you see, including your own success patterns, and name them so you can remember them.
6. People – collect stories of success and lessons learned.  One way is to summarize lessons learned from your heroes.  For example, here is my lessons learned from Stephen Covey.
7. Principles – note down timeless principles.  For example, Covey provides a nice set of principles to start your collection with.
8. Questions – write down the best questions you find help you in any situation.  For example, some of my favorite questions are, “Is it working?” … “Who else shares this problem that I can learn from?” … “What do you need to be successful?” … “What do you want to experience?” … “What’s my next best move?” … “How can I use this?”  As you can see, questions are my game changer.
9. Quotes – write down words of wisdom and the best quotes you hear from friends, books, people, movies, songs … etc.  The right words said the right way can change your life.   For example, here are some of my quotes collections.
10. Success Stories — summarize success stories.  You come across success stories everyday, whether they are your own, or on the news, or somebody you know.
11. Techniques – write down techniques, ways or methods for doing things.   This is your colleciton of “know-how.”

Ultimately you end up with a consolidated set of distinctions and reference examples to draw from.  The sum is way more than the parts.
Start Small
I started small.  A few years back, I got into the habit of dumping quick little insights.  If I took training, I would make sure I had three key take aways.  When I met with my mentors, I got into the habit of taking brief notes.  If I read a book, I summarized the most important, actionable things.  If I heard a great quote, I jotted it down.  If I saw a movie, I walked away with three key take aways.  Next thing you know, turning insight into action became second-nature.
Remember that the goal isn’t to take the place of experience.  It’s to supplement it and help you stack the deck in your favor.  Often what you don’t know can hurt you, and in many scenarios, there is no need to start from scratch.

What Makes A Truly Great Person.

I wish I could remember where I got this so I could give the proper credit. I love this story/idea. I love the concept of how our image of people changes once we know them.

What Makes a Truly Great Person?

The real Idea that I wanted to discuss is who are the truly great people? How do you know when you have met an honest to goodness great person.

Though we can think of many aspects that define a great person; ethics, charity, love, integrity, there is one idea that I heard that really helps to narrow it down.

The difference between the not so great and the great is, that the more you get to know the not so great person the more dirt you find on them, on the other hand the more you get to know the truly great person the more you see things to give you proof of their greatness.

I once heard a story of a community leader with incredible integrity and love who was asked to be a witness in a trial. He was not of the christian faith and would not swear on the bible. A police officer was called to give character witness about him and told the judge this story. The leaders home was broken into and as the thief was leaving the leader returned and tried to take his belongings away. The leader then began chasing the thief down the street yelling “I forgive you”.
The judge asked the police officer if this was really a true story? The officer replied “I can’t say for sure, but they don’t tell these stories about you or me.”

Find Truly Great People. Learn from them. Grow.

It's all your money

     I read an article recently where the author said that we should force everyone, including the media, to refer to the government as "us". As in we spent $100,000 to make a glossy advertisement that explains what the Simcoe County services do for us. Not the County spent $100,000. We did! It's all our money. Here's a great example of wrong thinking from Seth Godin who I generally think is a brilliant guy.

No!

They just announced the results from the vote on the school board budget in my little town.
As usual, several hundred people voted no. In fact, every year approximately the same number of people vote no. The budget passed, it almost always does, but the naysayers get their say.
Here's the interesting part. Also on the ballot was a New York State grant. This would permit the town to use State money (a grant, not a loan) to improve a building. More than 200 people voted no. Even the most selfish person who analyzed this measure would see that there was no downside, selfish or otherwise, to the town. Yet hundreds voted no.
When no becomes a habit, it's very hard to break.

     How can he not clue in that the State money is still his tax dollars? Perhaps those 200 people just had the foresight to realize that the money being spent on that building wasn't the right thing to do. Seth apparently sees "no downside" to the State tax dollar being wasted but it's still out of HIS pocket!

Favorite Quotes 3

Listen or your tongue will make you deaf.

Forget about the brick you laid before. Forget about the next brick. Focus on the brick in your hand that you're laying right now.

We carry adolescence around in our bodies all our lives. We get through the Car Crash Age alive and cruise through our early twenties as cool dudes, wily, dashing, winsome . . . shooting baskets, the breeze, the moon, and then we try to become caring men, good husbands, great fathers, good citizens.

If you look at things properly, there's no need to wait for the dessert cart. Dessert is everywhere.

A wise old owl lived in an oak. The more he heard, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard. Why aren't we all like that wise old bird?

Success is not to be pursued; its to be attracted by the person you become.

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.

Freedom and success isn’t about taking big risks. It’s about becoming good enough at something society values, so you can dictate the terms for how you live your life.

The secret to a great life is recognizing that life was never intended to be fair. Life simply isn't "fair," and that's okay. The joy of life comes from playing the game of life as best we can, focusing far more on the love and good example we can contribute to other lives than on demanding money, stuff, love, or appreciation. Service becomes a source of joy when it is not viewed as a duty.

Leaders aren't born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.
.Make it a practice when something is done, no matter by whom, to ask yourself: "What is their intention in doing this?" But start with yourself; examine yourself first.

Good Karma File

     I read this great idea once from Christine Kane. She said that we all have a head full of memories that we dredge up when we want to feel bad about ourselves. We all know exactly what she means I suspect. So her idea was that we should at least balance it out by keeping a good karma file. A file full of encouraging emails, favorite photos or whatever else we like. Since then I have been compiling all sorts of interesting little things that motivate me or seem likely to get me out of boredom or a bad mood with a quick read. Here is one I copied and pasted into that file tonight. It's from Seth Godin's blog:

Is effort a myth?

People really want to believe effort is a myth, at least if we consider what we consume in the media:

• politicians and beauty queens who get by on a smile and a wink
• lottery winners who turn a lifetime of lousy jobs into one big payday
• sports stars who are born with skills we could never hope to acquire
• hollywood celebrities with the talent of being in the right place at the right time
• failed CEOs with $40 million buyouts

It really seems (at least if you read popular media) that who you know and whether you get 'picked' are the two keys to success. Luck.
The thing about luck is this: we're already lucky. We're insanely lucky that we weren't born during the black plague or in a country with no freedom. We're lucky that we've got access to highly-leveraged tools and terrific opportunities. If we set that luck aside, though, something interesting shows up.
Delete the outliers--the people who are hit by a bus or win the lottery, the people who luck out in a big way, and we're left with everyone else. And for everyone else, effort is directly related to success. Not all the time, but as much as you would expect. Smarter, harder working, better informed and better liked people do better than other people, most of the time.
Effort takes many forms. Showing up, certainly. Knowing stuff (being smart might be luck of the draw, but knowing stuff is the result of effort). Being kind when it's more fun not to. Paying forward when there's no hope of tangible reward. Doing the right thing. You've heard these things a hundred times before, of course, but I guess it's easier to bet on luck.
If people aren't betting on luck, then why do we make so many dumb choices? Why aren't useful books selling at fifty times the rate they sell now? Why does anyone, ever, watch reality TV shows? Why do people do such dumb stuff with their money?
I think we've been tricked by the veneer of lucky people on the top of the heap. We see the folks who manage to skate by, or who get so much more than we think they deserve, and it's easy to forget that:
a. these guys are the exceptions
and
b. there's nothing you can do about it anyway.
And that's the key to the paradox of effort: While luck may be more appealing than effort, you don't get to choose luck. Effort, on the other hand, is totally available, all the time.
This is a hard sell. Diet books that say, "eat less, exercise more," may work, but they don't sell many copies.
With that forewarning, here's a bootstrapper's/marketer's/entrepreneur's/fast-rising executive's effort diet. Go through the list and decide whether or not it's worth it. Or make up your own diet. Effort is a choice, at least make it on purpose:
1. Delete 120 minutes a day of 'spare time' from your life. This can include TV, reading the newspaper, commuting, wasting time in social networks and meetings. Up to you.
2. Spend the 120 minutes doing this instead:

• Exercise for thirty minutes.
• Read relevant non-fiction (trade magazines, journals, business books, blogs, etc.)
• Send three thank you notes.
• Learn new digital techniques (spreadsheet macros, Firefox shortcuts, productivity tools, graphic design, html coding)
• Volunteer.
• Blog for five minutes about something you learned.
• Give a speech once a month about something you don't currently know a lot about.

3. Spend at least one weekend day doing absolutely nothing but being with people you love.
4. Only spend money, for one year, on things you absolutely need to get by. Save the rest, relentlessly.
If you somehow pulled this off, then six months from now, you would be the fittest, best rested, most intelligent, best funded and motivated person in your office or your field. You would know how to do things other people don't, you'd have a wider network and you'd be more focused.
It's entirely possible that this won't be sufficient, and you will continue to need better luck. But it's a lot more likely you'll get lucky, I bet.

Favorite Quotes 2

As human beings we have a tendency to focus on the negative.....You can have all this wonderful stuff and this one little thing is going wrong and we tend to focus on that. It's not about that. It's about being grateful.

"Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is."

 "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most fools do." Benjamin Franklin

“The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” – Allan K. Chalmers

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Dalai Lama

“That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.” – Henry David Thoreau

Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever …
- Isak Dinesen

People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within.
- Ramona L. Anderson

If half a century of living has taught me anything at all, it has taught me that nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
- Dale Carnegie

“If it isn’t life threatening, if the house is not ablaze, if it is not an emergency, or if the child you are yelling to is not half a mile away, then yelling is the wrong choice in parenting.”

Favorite Quotes

If you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough."-Snowboarder

"If you learn to set a good sail, the wind that blows will always take you to the dreams you want". ~Jim Rohn

Choose your goal and keep your eye on it. Never give up. Perhaps you will need to change your plan and approach you goal from a different direction, but don't quit. Keep thinking. Keep re-planning. Keep going.

The first step of success silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others. S. Gabriol

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
—André Gide

Success is about getting up to bat and giving your best.  It’s a numbers game.

Genius is the ability to turn complicated into simple.

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”
 
"While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior."

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

Paying it Back....or forward......

    Another cool short post from Seth Godin:

Do you deserve it?

Do you deserve the luck you've been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you've got? Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand?
Not at all. “Deserve” is such a loaded word. Most of us don’t deserve the great opportunities we have, or the lucky breaks that got us here.
The question shouldn’t be, “do you deserve it.” I think it should be, “what are you going to do with it now that you've got it?"




       The problem with this post is he didn't go far enough. I remember reading some quotes from NFL running back Warrick Dunn who is a noted philanthropist.  He said he was using the opportunities given him to help others. Godin talks about us needing to make the most of the opportunities we've been given but he doesn't go far enough into the fact that as Bill Clinton once said: "It's everyone's responsibility to level the playing field". There is no doubt the playing field isn't level. For most of us a lot of the reasons, skills, looks etc. that helped us reach the level of success we have reached really aren't things that we had control over. Now wouldn't it be only fair to help someone who had a little less to start with by giving them a hands up however we can? Just a few minutes.....or a few dollars.

My Latest Rant

     I get told I don't write enough on here of my own stuff. So here for your amusement is my latest anti-tax rant. It was in the Alliston Herald the other day.

Somebody needs to hold politicians accountable

February 02, 2010 16:02

I wanted to comment on Ray Suutari's letter in the Jan. 14 edition of the Weekend Herald.

As someone who "rants against taxes" I have been and continue to be willing to identify government spending that I would be willing to see cut. I would start with the billions in stimulus spending that, at best, artificially propped up our economy and that I fear our children are going to end up paying for, potentially in many ways.

Abraham Lincoln said, "Government should only do for people, what people can't do for themselves."

I believe government at all levels has long outgrown this idea and continues to grow both the size of its workforce and the size of its spending all the while taking on responsibilities that used to belong to the people.

While I fully recognize that taxes are required for health care, police, roads, national defence, social assistance and other very necessary programs I also recognize that huge amounts of our tax dollars are going to grants, special interests and other items that serve the needs of the few at the expense of the many.

I refuse to recognize that "higher taxes in various forms are inevitable". I believe we need to rein in government spending increases and I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Suutari that we have long enjoyed living beyond our means.

I think there is some truth to Mr. Suutari's comment that the enemy may be us but I think the traits among us that are concerning are the apathy and acceptance with which we treat the poor financial control we are receiving in many areas of our government today. We need to demand better and hold our elected representatives accountable for what they do with our money.

Rob Holliday,

Alliston

Positive Thinking

Interesting post from Seth Godin talking about the benefits of positive thinking and wondering why we ever think negatively. I read another idea yesterday that talked about how successful people are never cynics. So why do we do it?

 

 The problem with positive thinking

All the evidence I've seen shows that positive thinking and confidence improves performance. In anything.
Give someone an easy math problem, watch them get it right and then they'll do better on the ensuing standardized test than someone who just failed a difficult practice test.
No, positive thinking doesn't allow you to do anything, but it's been shown over and over again that it improves performance over negative thinking.
Key question then: why do smart people engage in negative thinking? Are they actually stupid?
The reason, I think, is that negative thinking feels good. In its own way, we believe that negative thinking works. Negative thinking feels realistic, or soothes our pain, or eases our embarrassment. Negative thinking protects us and lowers expectations.
In many ways, negative thinking is a lot more fun than positive thinking. So we do it.
If positive thinking was easy, we'd do it all the time. Compounding this difficulty is our belief that the easy thing (negative thinking) is actually appropriate, it actually works for us. The data is irrelevant. We're the exception, so we say.
Positive thinking is hard. Worth it, though.

Just Discovered

    I'm a voracious reader. Every time I walk in the library here (usually a couple of times a week) I check the new section and as often as not I take something. Today I picked up Linchpin by Seth Godin. I have read about a third of it and so far he is bang on with all kinds of great insight. The book jacket mentions that he is one of the 25 most read bloggers on the internet which led me to his blog. As I cruise through it here are a few of the things I liked:


-A link to an article about an unusual cafe in Japan from PSFK.com. Here it is:


Cabel Saasser brings word of a mysterious cafe that he recently experienced in Kashiwa in Japan. Located inside the Urban Design Center Kashiwa-no-ha, the Ogori cafe looks innocuous enough, but holds a surprise in store for its patrons. In a nutshell, you get what the person before you ordered, and the next person gets what you ordered. Thus, if you’re in on the game, you can choose to be either a generous benefactor, and treat those that come after you – or try your luck at being cheap. Either way, it’s an interesting experiment that explores surprise, kindness and encourages interactions.
Cabel describes a scene from the cafe:

As I sat down to enjoy my surprise Appletizer, loving this insane idea and wondering what would happen if you tried it in America, a Japanese woman approached the cafe. Since she could actually speak Japanese, she could read the large sign at the front and, fortunately or unfortunately, got advanced warning of what she was in for. Before making a final decision on what to order, she quietly snuck up to me to try to ask me what I had ordered, knowing that it would be her unwavering refreshment destiny. The staff put a quick stop to her trickery, and I didn’t answer.
Of course, regardless of what she ordered, she got the orange juice I ordered a few minutes earlier. But here’s one of the moments that make this experiment cool: she actually chose orange juice, just like I did. So she got what she wanted. Ogori cafe synchronicity!
Before we left, there was one last thing hat had to be done.
Mike went up to the cafe, slapped down a couple thousand yen (~$25), and ordered a little bit of everything: some ice cream, some snacks, some candy, some drinks, a Japanese horn-of-mysterious-plenty intentionally set up as a shocking surprise for the next lucky customer. (After his order, Mike received single iced coffee.)
As we walked away from the cafe, with just the right amount of delay, we heard an extremely excited “arigato goazimasu!! thank you so much!!” yelled in our direction, from an ecstatic mom and her equally excited young son. They truly appreciated the surprise.
It was so worth it.

-A pretend exchange between husband and wife after the husband comes home from work that I am going to print and put on my computer at work:
Wife: "Honey, how was your day?"
Husband: "Oh, I was busy, incredibly busy."
Wife: "I get that you were busy. But did you do anything important?"


-A cool post that doesn't only apply at work and really hits home because it's a key focus point of mine recently:


 The victim

Does your job happen to you?
If you're a willing cog in the vast machinery of work, it's entirely possible that the things that occur all day feel like they're being done to you.
The alternative is to create a job where you create forward motion, where you do things to the job, not the other way around.
Take a look at the language you use to describe what happened at work yesterday, that's your first clue. If you're not the one creating the change, perhaps it's time to start.

10 Ways To Improve How You Manage Information

From SourceofInsight.com. This is a great article. I particularly like items one and three. Grab that item immediately out of your e-mail and put it on your to do list. As for item three I have a collection of favorites quotes, anecdotes etc. that I keep in my palm as a "mood changer". I read once on Christine Kane's website where she said we all have a mental list of our failures, bad memories etc. that we dredge up when we are feeling down and they make us feel worse. She suggested we should keep a "feel good" file to use to try and change our moods when we're down.

10 Ways to Improve How You Manage Information

14 January 2010 19 Comments

“The problem of information overload, therefore, may not be the quantity of it but our inability to know what to do with it.” – Danniel Tammet
One of the most important skills I mastered early on at Microsoft, is information management.  My ability to organize information directly impacts my success.  For me, information management is the key to daily productivity from researching to learning faster to keeping my email inbox empty.
When I first joined Microsoft, I found myself spending four or more hours on administration and email.  Then one day I decided … enough is enough.  From that point on, I refused to spend more than 30 minutes a day between email and administration overhead.  That day marked the start of my pursuit to find the best ways to handle and organize information.  While my motivation helped, it’s actually finding and creating effective techniques that really made the difference.
Here are ten of my favorite ways to manage information:

1. Factor reference from action.   Carve out action items, To Dos, and tasks from your incoming streams of information.  if it’s not an action, it’s reference.  I first learned this practice when I was dealing with information overload as a support engineer.  I ended up cementing the idea while working on our Microsoft Knowledge Base.  The Knowledge Base is a vast collection of information, where each article tends to be optimized around either action or reference.
2. Create lists.  Make a new To Do list each day and use it to organize your key action items for the day.  Create checklists for your common routines.
3. Create collections.  Put things into collections or think in terms of collections.  Consolidate your notes into a single collection that you access quickly, such as in a personal notebook, a Word document or etc.  Consolidate your thoughts or ideas into a single collection.  Consolidate reference examples of your heroes or stories you can use for inspiration.  Consolidate your “ah-has” into a single collection.  Note that by single collection, I don’t mean you have it all in a single document, although you can.  Instead, I’m thinking of collections of items, much like a photo album music collection.  By stashing things of a similar type, such as “idea” or “note” … etc., you can determine the best way to arrange that collection.  Maybe it’s a simple A -Z list or maybe you arrange it by time.  For example, when I keep a journal of my insights, and each time I get an “ah ha”, I write it down under the current date.  This way I can easily flip back through days and see my insights in chronological order.  While I could arrange them A – Z, I like having my most recent ideas or inspirations bubbled to the top, since chances are I’m finding ways to act on them.
4. Put things where you look for them.  Where ever you look for it, that’s where it should be.  If you keep looking for something in a certain place, either just put it there when you find it or add some sort of pointer to the actual location.   While you might logically think something belongs in a certain place, the real test is where you intuitively look for it.
5. Keep things flat.  Out of sight, out of mind holds true for information.  Avoid nesting information.  Keep it flat and simple where you can.  Think in terms of iTunes or a playlist.  A well organized playlist is easy to jump to what you need.
6. Organize long lists or folders using A-Z.    When you have long lists or big collections, then listing things A-Z tends to be a simple way to store things and to look things up fast.   Once a list gets long, A-Z or a numbered list is the way to go.
7. Archive old things.   When information is no longer useful for you, consider archiving it to get it out of your way.  This usually means having a separate location.  I’m a pack rat and I have a hard time letting things go, so I tend to archive instead.  It let’s me get things out of the way, and then eventually get rid of them if I need to.  Archiving has really helped me get a ton of information out of my way, since I know I can easily rehydrate it if I need to.
8. Bubble up key things to the top.  When you have a lot of information, rather than worry about organizing all of it, bubble up things to the top.  You can effectively have a quick, simple list or key things up top, followed by more information.  Keep the things up front simple.  This way you get the benefits of both exhaustive or complete, as well as simple.  Whenever you have a large body of information, just add a simple entry point or key take aways or summary up front.
9. Know whether you’re optimizing for storing or retrieving.  Distinguish whether you are storing something because you will need to look it up or refer to it a lot, or if you are simply storing it because you might need it in the future.  For information that I need to look up a lot, I create a view or I make it easy to get to the information fast.  For example, I might use a sticky note since I can quickly put it wherever I need to.  For a lot of information, you simply need a quick way to store it.  What you don’t want to do is have to work to hard, each time you need to file a piece of information.  This I is where having a place for things, using lists, and organizing information in a meaningful way comes in handy.  For most of my reference information, I organize it either by A-Z or by time.  This way I don’t have to think too hard.  I don’t create a bunch of folders for my email.  Instead, I just store it all flat so it’s easy to search or browse or sort.  For example, if I need to find an email from somebody, I simply sort my email by their name.  Just by asking the question whether you’re optimizing for fast filing or for fast lookup will get you improving your information management in the right direction.
10. Create views.  Create views for the information that you need to frequently access.  For example, you might put sticky notes of information that consolidate just the key things.  As an analogy, think of your music store versus your playlists.  You store might be a large collection organized A-Z, but your playlists are views that are more focused or have themes.  You can apply this metaphor to any of your information collections.

Well, there you have it.  Those are my top 10 favorite techniques for organizing information.  I’ve had the privilege of learning and modeling from many great colleagues and mentors.  The beauty is, I get to practice my information management skills every day while hacking my way through the information jungle.  These skills save me a ton of time whether I’m reading books, taking notes, learning something new, or just about any time I’m dealing with information.  It’s deliberate practice with immediate results.
Two More Ways to Improve Your Information Management
As a bonus, I’m including two additional techniques that significantly changed my game:

1. Periodically sweep things.   No matter how well you organize things, you’ll need to periodically sweep.  Sweeping simply means cleaning things up after the fact.  Periodically, allocating a block of time to go back through and clean up some of your messes.   Things will always get out of disorder over time.  Time also changes what’s important.  When you revisit things, after the fact, you also gain the benefit of hind sight.  Make the time now and then to make a pass through your collections.  Get rid of what you don’t need.  Archive things that you don’t currently need.  Restructure your information to support your usage scenarios.  This is one of those vital practices that really makes the difference if you actually do it.
2. Reduce friction.   Whenever you find that you’re working too hard to either find, organize, or use your information, pay attention to the friction.  Work to reduce the friction.   This might mean getting more information out of your way.  It might mean bubbling more things up to where you can find them quickly.  The key is to make it easy to use your information, and don’t let it become a burden.

Larry Winget is a loud mouth jerk however he speaks the truth here. He is probably destined to go down in some scandal like all this type do that will make me regret posting it but it's really a great blog post. 

What’s REALLY important?

December 14, 2009 | By Larry Winget | In Money & Personal Dev | 9 Comments 

Seems like such as easy question to answer. The average, normal person would quickly say “my kids,” or “my family” or “being healthy” and so on. I bet those answers are about what you came up with when you first read the question too.
It’s just that I’m not buying those answers. I’m not calling anyone a liar who recites those quick and easy answers, it’s just that I don’t buy that’s what is really important to most people. Why would I say that? Because their isn’t too much proof to suggest those answers are the truth.
One of my basic philosophies is that your time, your energy and your money go to what is important to you. So if kids and family and being healthy was as important as most people say, it would follow that is where people would focus their time, energy and money. Follow? Well, it isn’t happening. Look around and you’ll see that people are clearly not putting their actions into the important things in life. People are putting their time, energy and money into lots of things but more often than not, it’s the temporary, the mundane, and the instantly gratifying. The ridiculous occupies people’s time, saps their energy and seduces the money from their fingers. And the media helps with that fascination. But I don’t blame the media because they only give us what we beg to see. It’s not their fault they are capitalizing on our preoccupation with the stupid; it’s our own. Watching stupid stuff on television is voluntary participation. No one forces you to sit there and see who the newest stupid celebrity is and what he/she is doing. You choose to do that. People choose to participate in things of no importance and neglect what is really important. I dealt in great detail about this problem in my book, The Idiot Factor: The Ten Ways We Sabotage Our Life, Money and Business (formerly titled People Are Idiots and I Can Prove It.)
Are there exceptions? Of course there are so don’t get all fired up and write me a bunch of comments about how wrong I am and how my premise doesn’t apply to you. Fine. You may be the exception. Read this and be satisfied with how none of this applies to you and find some satisfaction in pointing the finger of blame at everyone else.
“I get it, Larry. So what is important?”
Your obligations are important. What does that entail? Your relationships, your family, your bills and other financial commitments, your employment and your health. Don’t just say “of course” to this statement. Look closely at each of these obligations and consider that the word really means that you are obligated to do take care of these things to the very best of your ability. And I don’t mean with your words, but with your actions!
You are obligated to do the job you were hired to do. It’s not important that you be happy or enjoy it, it’s important that you do it. That was the agreement you made when you took the job, so do your job and be thankful you have one because millions of people don’t.
You are obligated to be as healthy as you can so you can live as long as you can and not be sick and become a drain on your family physically, mentally or financially. You owe good health to your family and to yourself.
You are obligated to pay your bills – on time and as agreed to. That is money you gave your word you would pay when the goods or service was extended to you, so pony up and do what’s right. Even though we are in a recession. Even though money may be tight. Pay your obligations before you do anything else. Don’t go to the movies, out to eat, or buy anything other than what it takes to survive; instead, pay your obligations no matter what it takes. That’s the important thing to do.
Here is the most important thing and your biggest obligation: your kids. We are a world in crisis. I know it and you know it too. There is no other decent way to describe it: we are in a mess! How did we get in this mess? The mess happened because we either didn’t care enough to keep it from happening or we weren’t involved enough to know it was happening. Either way, we allowed it to happen. We are to blame. And we have to take responsibility and fix it.
The best, long-term solution to turning our world around is to create a society that knows how to be honest and do the right thing in every situation. No more situational ethics but real ethics based on honestly and integrity. We have to create a society that knows how to earn money, save money, be charitable, invest and enjoy their money as well. We have to raise kids that grow into adults who know how to give their word, mean it and keep it. Who do their job for no other reason than because they said they would. Who know how to treat people fairly and be healthy and take care of the environment. Who become involved in their communities and in their world to fix the problems we face. Who know how take action and work to create change instead of sitting on their butts and griping about the way things are. Raising kids to be and do their best is our obligation as a society. But it is also every parents obligation. To fail at raising your kids and teaching them how to succeed is the ultimate failure as a person. Good parenting is the most important thing any person can ever do. Nothing will make a bigger difference in our world than people raising kids who will become responsible, productive adults.
This message has become my primary focus and my purpose. It is impossible to fix the problems surrounding business and money without addressing the primary cause.  I can’t help businesses do better in the future until we create a society that believes in honesty, service and takes their job seriously. It does little good to talk about money and credit obligations until parents teach their kids about how to earn, save, spend and honor their commitments. That’s the problem right now with people and their money, they weren’t taught the things that really matter. That has to change. My work can have no lasting impact on society without going to the source of our problem: bad parenting. That’s why I wrote my newest book, Your Kids Are Your Own Fault: A Guide For Raising Responsible, Productive Adults. This message is what’s important for me. It means everything to all of us that we turn our world around and that is clearly not going to happen with the adults we have in charges of our businesses, our schools and our governments right now or in the foreseeable future. Which means, it changes with our kids. It changes with your kids.
I ask that you stop now and take your obligations seriously. How will you know if you are doing that? Measure the amount of time, energy and money you put into an activity and that will tell you whether you consider it to be important or not. Pay attention to that especially when it comes to your kids. Need a guide for doing a better job? Check out my new book, Your Kids Are Your Own Fault: A Guide For Raising Responsible, Productive Adults. It’s the most important thing I have ever written. And if it helps you raise a more productive, responsible person, then I have done an important job.