3 Quick-and-Dirty Productivity Tips

I’m still amazed at how well my current GTD system is working for me. I’ve made a few minor tweaks but essentially I’ve been using the same system for over 6 months now!

It also never ceases to amaze me how well the entire GTD concept fits into my personal and professional life. I can’t really imagine how to be productive, effective and organized without it anymore! So, it seems my search for the “perfect” GTD system is finally over and I can safely conclude that GTD has become an important foundation for structuring my life.

You may have noticed that I’ve been busy over the past couple of months. I’ve been busy at work and with my family, but I’ve also spent quite some time catching up on my reading and learning more and more about productivity, personal development, NLP, life purpose, achieving goals, coaching, success and financial freedom. More on that later, I’ve got some things brewing!

For now, I would like to share 3 quick-and-dirty productivity tips with you. These tips have proved to be useful in combination with GTD to help me keep organized and decluttered.

3 Quick-and-dirty productivity tips

1. Less than 1% of a magazine’s content is useful information… toss the rest!
I’m a real packrat when it comes to magazines. For years I’ve been collecting stacks and stacks of magazines. My thougts usually go like “Wow, this is a cool/useful/funny/expensive magazine! I’d better keep it for future reading pleasure!”. Guess what, I’ve never read any of the magazines ever again. Some of them get stacked without even being read. A couple of months ago I decided that enough is enough, literally! I’ve started tossing boxes full of old magazines. The space reclaimed in my house and especially my study is enormous! I didn’t toss any magazine without at least quickly flipping through them, hunting for interesting articles. I rip out the interesting pages or I cut out interesting articles with a special cutter, and store these in my reference system… and then toss the rest of the magazine! Surprisingly, I was left with much less than 1% of the original amount of paper. This was also a great exercise in determining which magazines I should quit subscribing to!

2. Digitize old or unused archive folders
Since I’ve started implementing GTD (back in October 2006) I’ve created a fairly extensive (analog) reference system, i.e. boxes full of file folders. Occasionally I prune my reference system by moving old, unused or obsolete folders to a separate box. I’ve now gone one step further. Just like my old magazines, I’ve decided I do not want to keep my folders indefinitely. Instead of simply tossing them (I’m very bad at that!) I’ve decided to digitize them first and then toss them.

Since I don’t own an industrial scanner, I’ve created my own little digitizing contraption using my digital camera. I don’t own a tripod so I got creative and created something from an old cardboard box to ensure a fixed and stable distance between the camera and the paper I want digitized. Now I simply take snapshots of every single page in a folder; this only takes a few minutes, which is much faster than my flatbed scanner. I merge the pictures into a single PDF, store the PDF in my digital reference system, toss the contents of my file folder and then reuse the folder itself!

3. Recycle paper for use with your ubiquitous capture tool
I must admit that I print quite a few documents and mails for easy reading and scribbling on them. Some of them are then stored in my reference system, but many of them get tossed in the end. My ubiquitous capture tool is nothing fancy, just a simple pen and some scraps of paper I keep in my pocket or bag at all times. I’ve stopped using expensive notebooks (Moleskine!) or index cards for capturing actions, thoughts and ideas. Instead, I am now recycling all the paper that I used to toss (documents and mails, contents of a recently digitized file folder). I simply rip those papers into 4 or 8 roughly equal scraps to be used as my ubiquitous capture tool!

10 Exercises for Better Focus and Concentration

You can find strong powers of concentration in yourself. When you are decisive and sincerely want to excel in your studies, pass an important exam, or playing one of your favorite games; the power of concentration becomes available to you. This kind of concentration is raised because of some need, or desire. Increasing it in a systematic way, brings it under your control, and grants you the ability to use it easily, with no exertion whenever you need it. Real and good concentration is developed slowly, through daily work, and with special exercises. It has to be approached in a reasonable and practical way.

• When starting to learn to concentrate you have to find a suitable place where you can be alone and undisturbed. You can sit crossed legged on the floor if you can, or on a chair. Sit with spine erect. Take a few calm deep breaths and then relax your body. In your mind go through each muscle and part of the body and relax it.

The following exercises should help you develop concentration skills:

Exercise 1:
Select some thought and see how long you can hold your mind on it. It is nice to have a clock at first and keep track of the time.
Suppose you decide to think about health, think of health as being a great blessing in the world. Do not let any other thought drift in. Just the moment one starts to obtrude, make it go away. Make it a daily habit of concentrating on this thought for, maybe ten minutes. Practice doing this until you can hold it to the exclusion of everything else. You might have to do this exercise regularly for 10 days or more in order to sharpen your concentration skills.

Exercise 2
Take a book and count the words in any paragraph. Count them again to be sure that it was correct. Start with one paragraph and when it becomes easier count all the words on the page. Perform the counting mentally and only with your eyes

Exercise 3
Take a small simple object such as a spoon, a fork or a glass. Concentrate on it and watch the object from all sides without verbalisation, that is, with no words in your mind. Just watch the object without thinking with words about it

Exercise 4
Draw a small geometrical figure, about 3 inches in size, such as a triangle, a rectangle or a circle. Paint it with any colour you wish and concentrate on it. Only see the figure. Do not think any words, only the figure exists. Watch the figure in front of you and try not to strain your eyes.

Exercise 5
Concentrate on the Within. Lie down and thoroughly relax your muscles. Concentrate on the beating of your heart. Do not pay any attention to anything else. Think how this great organ is pumping the blood to every part of the body; try to actually picture the blood leaving the great reservoir and going in one stream right down to the toes. Picture another going down the arms to the tips of the fingers. After a little practice you can actually feel the blood passing through your system.

Exercise 6
Watch Concentration. Sit in a chair and place a clock with a second hand on the table. Follow the second hand with your eyes as it goes around. Keep this up for five minutes, thinking of nothing else but the second hand, This is a very good exercise when you only have a few minutes to spare, if you are able to keep every other thought in the stream of consciousness subordinate to it. As there is little that is particularly interesting about the second hand, it is hard to do this, but in the extra effort of will power required to make it successful lies its value. Always try to keep as still as possible during these exercises.

Exercise 7
Close your eyes and start to visualize the number one in front of you and say “one” in your head when you see it clearly. Allow the one to disappear and start to visualize the number two and say “two” loud in your head when you see it. Repeat this procedure up to 100 if you can.

Exercise 8
Select an object like a half eaten cookie, a coin, a pen - anything - try to relax every muscle in your body and concentrate on the object. Start thinking about its shape, color, material etc and try to memorize its form. Then close your eyes and try to visualize it in front of you. If you can’t, open your eyes again and start over.

Exercise 8
Write a dream log each morning when you remember a dream and every night before you go to sleep, review your day in reverse. This exercise will help you remember your dreams.

Exercise 9
Choose a spot on the wall and look at it - do not focus too much on it though. Erase all thought from your mind and concentrate as hard as you can on your breathing. Hold on as long as you can.

Exercise 10
When You Read. No one can think without first concentrating his thoughts on the subject on hand. Every man and woman should train himself to think clearly. An excellent exercise is to read an article in a newspaper, and see in how few words you can express it. Reading an article to get only the essentials requires the closest concentration. If you are unable to write out what you read, you will know you are weak in concentration. Instead of writing it out you can express it orally if you wish. Go to your room and deliver it as if you were talking to some one. You will
find exercises like this of the greatest value in developing concentration and learning to think.

The Benefits of Developing Concentration:

• Control of thoughts

• Peace of mind

• Self-confidence

• Inner strength

• Will power

• The ability to focus your mind

• Better memory

• The ability to decide and carry on your decisions

• Better functioning in daily life, whether at home or work

• The ability to study and comprehend more quickly

• Stop being carried away with every passing thought

• Freedom from needless and annoying thoughts

• Think when you want to, about what you want to think

• Inner happiness

• Help in developing psychic abilities

• More powerful and efficient creative visualisations and guided imagination

• True meditation

• Spiritual enlightenment

Put your whole attention into the exercises. Do not think about anything else. Be careful not to fall asleep, daydream or think about other matters. The moment you find yourself thinking about something else, stop the exercise and start again. When you become proficient, lengthen the time and, if possible, include another session in the afternoon. Do not attempt too much at the start. You may think the exercises are too simple and easy and try to perform them all at once. Go slowly, do not overdo or tense you brain. Try to reach perfection before you move on to next exercise.

If you find it too difficult, or thoughts distract you and make you think about other matters, do not worry. Everyone encounters difficulties along the way. The successful ones are those who go on and never give up. If you persist in spite of difficulties and disturbances, success will crown your efforts.

6 Dangerous Reasons People Do Not Set Goals and Never Succeed

Goal setting is the framework for personal achievement. It is the backbone of becoming a person you desire to be. Setting and achieving personal goals will guarantee you success. Most people who do set goals have little to no understanding of goal setting and as a result fail to achieve them and never succeed. You would think that if goal setting was the ultimate skill and secret to success that everyone would develop their own personal goals and learn to achieve them. Unfortunately, the world is not that perfect. There are six dangerous reasons people do not set and achieve their goals which act like a road block to their success.

There are several reasons why people do not set goals similarly to why people do not care about communicating effectively. I know with absolute certainty that everyone will experience a more successful and far enjoyable life if they learned to communicate effectively. Arguably the greatest modern day personal development Coach, Anthony Robbins said, “The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.” Effective communication determines the quality of your life with others while self development determines the quality of your inner life.

The first reason I believe why people do not set goals is they do not see its importance. Like people who do not develop their communication and other aspects of themselves, they do not see the importance of setting goals. I have met people who are unbelievably resistant to developing their communication. They have actually found it insulting to think they need to improve how they communicate! Every single person on the face of this Earth can always communicate more effectively and have their life improve as a result. Likewise, with goals there are people who do not see the importance of setting personal goals. Goal setting forms the foundations for personal achievement and it is of the utmost importance.

The second reason why people do not set goals is a fear of others caused from criticism. People criticize because they see faults in others or are brainwashed by society and other beliefs into thinking greatness cannot be achieved. They criticize to hold people back from achieving goals. Average people do not want others to go beyond average. A person can fear setting goals because each time they have set goals in the past, others have criticized and shot down their dreams. Others impose their own self-limiting beliefs through criticism instilling fear within the person. Think of receiving criticism as a poisonous needle injected into your body. It slowly controls and destroys what you want. The destructive thought of fear controls the person from achieving anything remarkable. Put bluntly, screw what people think. Screw allowing people to destroy your life with their beliefs. Society is filled with endless garbage to prevent you from achieving your goals. If you want something, go and get it by setting and achieving personal goals.

The third reason why people do not set goals is a fear of failure. They can think success is derived from not failing. The opposite is true. Success comes from failing a lot and failing fast. Famous inventor Thomas Edison said, “I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Being an inventor, Thomas understand failure was apart of success. Failure was the nuts and bolts that constructed his success. Understand that failure occurs and it shows you are taking action. Learn from failure and enjoy knowing you are moving towards your goals instead of fearing to set out after them in the first place.

The fourth reason why people do not set goals is a fear of success. People who fear success believe it is bad. The fear is common in wealth and wanting an attractive partner because negative results will occur. They believe wealth is evil or a certain type of partner is unfaithful. The fear prevents them achieving what they want by not laying the foundations of their desire with goal setting.

The fifth reason why people do not set goals is they do not know how. This reason relates to fear of failure where the person has set goals in the past, but has not achieved them and becomes discouraged from the failure. These people become disheartened from the failure and think failure is imminent. They do not learn from past mistakes and move towards personal growth. The classic example of this is losing weight as a new year’s resolution. A mere temporary motivation inspires the person who is lucky to lose weight in January but no further progression towards achieving the goal occurs in later months. If you do not set and start working towards a goal now, what makes you think you will be able to achieve it as a new year’s resolution? There are techniques such as SMART goal setting which I have written about but are not covered in this article. Using SMART goals enables you to set and achieve goals then merely wishing a result based on temporary motivation too common around the new years period.

The sixth reason why people do not set goals is they lack the inner desire to want something greater then what they currently have. For them, the ordinary or even sub-ordinary is sufficient. These people do not believe they can reach or deserve success because society has conditioned them into thinking they are ordinary people and therefore must do ordinary things. It can also be caused by failure, criticism, and other reasons as to why people do not set goals.

Did you find yourself relating to one of these six dangerous reasons people do not set goals and as a result never succeed? Do not fret too much because you are now more self-aware and able to doing something about. All that is required for you to do is learn how to set achievable goals. I personally advise people to follow the SMART goal setting technique because its congruency with successful goal setting is spot on. You set specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and tangible goals leading to your success. Master this skill and you will have the most powerful personal development technique in your grasp to achieve success.

Establishing Goals: the 7 Best Qualities of Your Goals

Definitions
Goals — the general statements that describe the desired solution to a problem or issue.


Ask some truly successful people what accounts for their achievements and you’ll often hear this answer: goals. Indeed, clear goals are the fulcrum on which all prioritizing turns. To set goals is worth a good block of your time. Without goals your time will be aimless.

However, what kinds of goals? What must goals be?

1. Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six “W” questions:

*Who: Who is involved?

*What: What do I want to accomplish?

*Where: Identify a location.

*When: Establish a time frame.

*Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

2. Attainable. Successful people set goals that are ambitious yet realistic. Cycles of success mark achievers’ lives.
When such people fail, it isn’t from a lack of planning or effort. Dreamers, on the other hand, set unreachable goals. They ride a rollercoaster of ups and downs, sometimes never making it to the top of the first hill.

3. Measurable. Imagine a football game with no yard lines, end zones, goal posts, scoreboard, clock, or even clear-cut teams—just a bunch of players whose goal is to pass a
football, run around, and collide. It might be fun to watch for a while, but not for long. The chaos would soon drive the fans out of the stadium. Shortly thereafter, the players,unmotivated and confused, would wander off the field.
To work without clear-cut, measurable goals is, in reality, not much more productive or engaging than our imaginary football game. To motivate yourself and others— to know if you have won—you absolutely need goals that can be measured.

4. Written. “I read it, so it must be true!” Something written has a peculiar power to convince. Writing down your objectives and having others read them (if you supervise
them, they may need to read your goals) brings authority, accountability, and permanence to your priorities. The Sheraton Anchorage has printed goal statements all over its service corridors; it’s one of the best-run hotels in the country.

5. Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.
Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

6. Accountable. Without accountability, goals melt away, forgotten. Remain flexible; feedback may prompt you to revise targets you set for yourself or for others. But hold
to your goals.

7. Deadlined. If you set a deadline for your tasks, you’ll have a much better chance of achieving your goal. Better yet, tell someone else that you set that deadline. It will make
you more accountable.

Goals, of course, can be long- or short-term. But for some reason, we often fail to set aside blocks of time for serious longterm goal setting. Each year—perhaps as a New Year’s resolu tion—you should make a list of at least three personal and three professional long-term goals, indicating how each will be measured and a deadline for achievement. Prioritize these goals, deciding which is your A goal, your B goal, and your C goal.
Then put this list in a prominent place—someplace where its presence will motivate you to continued action.

15 Tips to Stay Positive in Negative Situations

There are times when we must go through negative situations. Maybe people say something negative about us, or they show rejection or even resentment against us. In such situations, it may be difficult to stay positive. We may be inclined to react negatively to them. That won’t do us any good though; doing so will just make the situation worse. People may behave even more negatively to us. Our day would be filled with anger and disappointment. At the end, nobody wins.

Though it’s not easy, it’s important to stay positive in negative situations. Beat the negative situations by staying positive. Here are 15 tips on how to do it; pick the ones that work for you:

1. Never respond when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm, don’t respond. Take time to calm yourself down first.
2. Take a deep breath as a first step to calm yourself down.
3. Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation.
4. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”
5. Look at the content of what people say to you for something positive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don’t just reject the whole messages.
6. For the rest of the messages which is negative, simply ignore it.
7. Maintain positive view of the people. Maybe you don’t like their messages or behavior, but that doesn’t mean that you can hate them personally.
8. Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. So there is no reason for you to have any negative feeling.
9. If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.
10. If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
11. If you can, listen to motivational audio program to feed positive thoughts into your mind.
12. Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.
13. Remember your favorite quotes to give you inspiration and motivation. This is one reason why you should have quote of the day.
14. Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you’d better be prepared for them.
15. Realize that you can’t please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.

30 Ways to Increase Your Mental Capacity

If you want to grow in life, increasing your mental capacity is a must. By increasing your mental capacity, you will be able to handle more things and assume larger responsibilities.

It’s just like your physical capability to lift heavier and heavier weight in weight training. People with greater physical capability will be able to lift heavier weight effortlessly while those with less capability will tire themselves out or even not be able to lift it at all. So just like you should train your muscles to increase your physical capability, you should also train your “mental muscles” to increase your mental capacity.

But how should you do that? How should you train your mental muscles to increase your mental capacity? I believe the answer is similar to the way you increase your physical capability in weight training.

To increase your physical capability in weight training, you should train yourself by lifting weight which is just outside your current capability. If your current capability is 100 pounds for example, you can increase your capability by training yourself with 110 pounds. Though it may feel a bit hard in the beginning, you will find it effortless after some days or weeks of training. You can then add a little more weight, and by doing so again and again, after 1 or 2 years you will see your physical capability increase significantly.

The way to increase your mental capacity is similar:

Do things which are just outside your comfort zone.

This - I believe - is the best thing you can do. It introduces some inconvenience in your life, but only in a bearable way. As a result, your mental muscles will grow stronger and your mental capacity will increase.

To help you put it into practice, here are 30 ways to do things which are just outside your comfort zone to increase your mental capacity:

1. When someone asks you to do something, make your default answer “yes” (but don’t forget to say “no” when appropriate).
2. In a gathering (class, conference, etc.), sit next to someone you do not know.
3. Visit a place you normally wouldn’t (museum, monument, national park, etc.).
4. Eat at a new place.
5. Try a new kind of food.
6. Go to a conference or seminar in a topic you are not familiar with.
7. Email or call an old friend you haven’t met for a long time.
8. Initiate conversation with someone you don’t know.
9. Find the most unpleasant task in your to-do list and do it first.
10. Email or message someone you don’t know to initiate a friendship.
11. Learn a new hobby.
12. Learn a foreign language.
13. Join a new club and interact with the people there.
14. Practice an art you normally wouldn’t (painting, music, etc.).
15. Learn a new musical instrument.
16. Be dare to ask. This is to familiarize yourself with rejection.
17. Read fiction if you normally read non-fiction, and vice versa.
18. Read a new author.
19. Read an old book.
20. Visit a new genre of blogs.
21. Find friends from a new country (i.e. a country from which you haven’t had any friend before).
22. Find friends from different professions.
23. Volunteer for activities conducted by your social or business group.
24. Do your groceries at a different store.
25. Take a different route to work.
26. Attend an art festival.
27. Listen to a new genre of music.
28. In a bookstore or library, browse books in a section you wouldn’t normally visit.
29. Watch a new genre of movies.
30. Read history more than news.

Firstly Shri Ganeshay Namah