Hot answers tagged goals
9
There have been a lot of studies on handwriting and memory. The Wall Street Journal article How Handwriting Trains the Brain talks about one such study that shows that children learn to recognize letter shapes faster and more accurately if they write them out rather than typing them. Writing by hand also helps adults who are learning a graphically ...
9
Some ideas for your 12 books:
Choose your books carefully. Pick good books on topics you want to know about.
Read for enjoyment first, information second.
Don't get hung up on the number of books you read. Instead, focus on getting the best from each book.
If numbers really matter to you, choose thin books.
Consider whether all your books need to be ...
7
Every minute of the day should not be useful. That is a trap see.
Rest and relaxation are necessary for your health. Working more than 40 hours total in a week is bad for your health and bad for your productivity. Watching tv actually does bring you closer to your goals because it allows you time to rest. Certainly there are other activities as well, but ...
7
Keys
Consider a retractable key ring. You can clip it to your pants/straps of your bag so that they will be always attached to you.
Minimize the times taking out your keys in the shops and offices. For example, use apps to store your patrons' barcode cards or keep those barcode cards on a nylon strap/key chain; don't attach tools like bottle opener to your ...
4
In my opinion, no.
Money is the worst possible goal you can have. It's a tool. What do you plan to do with the money? Start a business? Buy a nice car? Buy a house? Buy a supermodel wife?
Money can work as a checkpoint, e.g. I want respect -> I want a Mercedes E Class -> I want a million dollars.
It's more quantifiable, but in this case really have to ...
4
The big advantage of concrete goals like dollar amounts is that they are easily quantifiable, which means you can easily analyze them (eg. making a graph of money over time, making a pie chart of your budget, applying statistics, etc.) Quantification helps cut through many of the psychological biases people tend to have. Numbers promote a more scientific ...
4
You sound a bit like me. Some of my challenges are:
I spend more time "getting organised" than actually accomplishing very much
I've got too many "systems" for organisation, so I have to look in lots of places to find the information I need.
I've got far too many projects on the go.
I'm not really motivated to get much of this stuff done anyway.
The ...
4
Two methods occur to me:
Routine
Always check the items in the same order:
keys
mobile phone
helmet
Preventative
Keep your phone in your pocket, and put your keys in a pocket as soon as you have finished filling up. The helmet is likely to become obvious before you leave the cashier.
4
I am 44 weeks into my year with the goal of reading 52 books in the year. I am right on pace.
The way I did it successfully was ever time I picked up a book I figured out a way to track the number of pages I needed to read in it per day to finish in 6 days (one day of wiggle room in case something weird happened). I can't tell you how great this is. Instead ...
4
I used to run a mastermind group myself and I structure the meetings this way:
Each participant comes with a challenge he faces in his business.
The group has 15 minutes to discuss the issue and suggest solutions.
Then it is the next participant's turn. Etc...
I wrote how we did it more in details on my blog: Founder Mastermind Breakfast
3
I've been using a relatively new app on my iPhone called Everest. You create "dreams" that you want to achieve and within each dream you add steps (in the style of to-dos), text notes, and images. The steps can be set to repeat and you can assign dates for completion. As you make progress and add notes or images, Everest keeps track of your journey and ...
3
I've always found that it's easy for me to think of the thing I want to achieve, the end result - but find it very difficult to figure out the steps (the small steps) that I need to get there.
For the last 6-12 months I've started working out the smallest steps I can think of (or learn from someone else) to get to my goal. Half the time I realize I don't ...
3
Procrastination is the mechanism used for coping with the anxiety of starting a task, and thinking about that elevates anticipation and hence anxiety, and in turn triggers more procrastination. When you are actively working on something you are focused on short-term goals and receiving short-term rewards, so no anxiety.
The classic solution is to break up ...
3
Languages are learnt in the long run, and it's a very volatile knowledge that erodes quickly with time. It's not like a project you can stop in the 'finished' state.
Rather than milestones, I use the system of Spaced Repetition, just like Mnemosyne or Anki, but not only for flash card: for any piece of my learning material.
There are goals:
Read lessons.
...
3
2 things I do in bigger projects which I possibly have to interrupt:
Documentation of your work and progress, so you don't loose overview. For bigger projects I prefer Mind/Concept Mapping to keep overview and quickly get back into the interrupted work, otherwise GTD. Of course, the less likely your work will get interrupted, the less documentation you ...
3
I recently read that a simple short-term change of the environment you work in actually helps to revive your energy. So now I allow myself a stairs’ up-and-down run when I feel tired or stuck. And, apparently, having a couple of minutes for socializing and playing office games can be productive too! I, actually, took these and some more tips from this blog ...
3
Three things that work for me:
I try to put things in the same place every day. For example, at work my mobile phone goes on my desk next to my mug. As a result, I've developed a habit of always checking that one place before I leave work.
At work I keep everything I need to take home in one place. That way, if I remember just one thing I automatically ...
3
I'll start with reading speed. I know that for me, speed can be affected by my level of focus, distraction, and the complexity of the material I'm reading. For instance, Reading a short story by Raymond Carver, with his sparse language breezes by. However, switching to Dickens, with embellished, and sometime run-on sentences, I find myself re-reading ...
2
Exercise. Usually working heavily reduces your time to exercise. There are plenty of recreational exercises that can be done that equally benefit your health and put you in a better mood. Bike riding, swimming, jogging, basketball, racquetball, yoga, meditation, etc.
There are many indirect effects that it will have on your work too. Daily exercise will ...
2
For the downtime / relaxation time that is essential to maintain performance, you actually have to switch off from your core role in order to get the best benefits. So, when you say it "doesn't bring me any further to my goals" there are two possible responses:
By relaxing you are actually improving your capability to perform towards your goals
Assigning a ...
2
At first I used Wunderlist (in your case you could make one list for tasks and another for goals) and it worked nice, you can use the web version on PC or Mac and the app for android/iWhatever (you can also add tasks offline and sync later).
But then i started to follow more strictly the GTD methodology and decided to change to a more specific software, you ...
2
I use a more-or-less manual GTD process with Outlook, but it would fine with almost any task app, nothing special required.
Instead of special names for tasks, I use Outlook's "category" feature. Most common to-do software has a similar function.
As per GTD, I have a Projects category that I use for longer-term things, and various other space or ...
2
I think I know what you mean. Maybe any.do is what you want.
It's a simple todolist app that can help you sort tasks in only 4 simple categories:
today / tomorrow / Upcoming / Someday
When you set up a task, you can put it in one of theses, or give it a date, so that it goes immediately in the today, tomorrow or upcoming category.
Now the Someday category ...
2
From your question, and from the comment conversations on the answers already given, it is very plain that your mental approach is core to the issue, not the type or number of organisational tools.
For work:
it is very useful to have a tool or small set of tools to manage customer/team/project tasks in a structured way, but the tools you choose should be ...
2
First, until you get a handle on the many things you have to do at work, dump the personal projects.
Next, stop using all these tools. What you need is a priority list and the files for your projects and nothing else.
I'm going to make a radical suggestion that you keep your priority list on a piece of paper. Why? Because it is faster and you can see it ...
2
You should try to cut down on the tools.
At least insofar as to put all your tasks in one place, the reference files can be anywhere.
I have exactly your setup, except using "producteev" instead of Asana. ;) I just started Workflowy, but I aim in part to make it a substitute for other solutions - not to expand my tool range. My recommendations:
If you ...
2
You are overloaded and need to reduce the number of activities. You may also be using too many tools and as a result end up with too much overhead work.
Now, how to focus on right stuff? Consider Steven Covey's matrix below and imagine your tasks placed in it according to level of urgency and importance:
Primarily, you need to focus on urgent and ...
2
Harry Loraine, author of "The Memory Book" suggests to make absurd or unrealistic connections in your mind with the items you want to remember, in a ridiculous way.
For instance, next time you get out of home, imagine a giant talking key speaking to you and saying "Please, don't leave me at home". Or maybe pretend your home main door has a giant phone ...
2
You could attach a StickNFind (http://www.sticknfind.com/) to all of the objects you want to keep track of (helmet and keys), and use the Virtual Leash feature with your phone:
Virtual Leash
This feature allows you to create a virtual Leash on a sticker, if that sticker moves away more than the approximate selected distance from your phone, your ...
2
Great question! This one struck close to home because I struggled with the same thing for years. My father taught me a trick that has stuck with me—it's simple, but I find it pretty effective.
The trick is to settle on a number of items that you always need to remember. For me it's 3—when I walk out the door for work I always echo the number 3 in my head, ...
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