The Surprising History of the To-Do List and How to Design One That Actually Works The list is the origin of culture. Wherever you look in cultural history, you will find lists. – Umberto Eco When I was a kid, I read a book called The Listmaker. It’s about a young girl who uses lists to organize and make sense of her life. Now, although I don’t remember the book that well, I do see much more significance in the humble list—especially after researching where they come from and why we make lists. As I researched this post I realised how hard it is to pinpoint the origin of something as simple and widespread as the list (to-do or otherwise), but I did find out some interesting stories about how lists have been used in the past and why we find them useful in everyday life. Why do we make lists as humans in the first place? Philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco is a big fan of lists and has some fascinating ideas about why they’re so important to humans: The list is the origin of culture. When we struggle to express ourselves, we use lists. Lists for productivity 1. 2. 3. 4.
How to Establish New Habits the No-Sweat Way “The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” - Samuel Johnson Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen. Have you ever had problems establishing a new habit? Maybe I should ask, have you ever not had problems establishing a new habit? Whether it’s getting up early, going for a daily run, losing weight, writing a journal – let’s face it: most attempts to establish a new habit end in a dismal flop. In her book “This year I will…”, Andy Ryan, an expert in collaborative thinking, spells out why change is difficult: Whenever we initiate change, even a positive one, we activate fear in our emotional brain….If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do. That’s exactly how it is for me. Let’s take a look at how we can affect change without giving ourselves a fright. In a New York Times article based upon the research by Andy Ryan it says: Andy Ryan says:
A Step-by-Step Guide to Having an Incredibly Efficient Day A couple of weeks ago, we shared 7 Highly Productive Habits of Famous People, many of which centered around different activities during certain parts of the day. Taking those valuable pieces of advice into account, we’ve compiled a step-by-step guide on how to have a more efficient day. There are many small changes you can integrate into each 24-hours that will help you become more productive, balanced, healthy and prepared to take on the challenges you face during the morning, afternoon, or evening. For this advice to be truly effective, it’s essential to get between seven and eight hours of sleep each night. Your circadian rhythms have a profound effect on your cognitive abilities, and therefore, your productivity. Before leaving for work: Hold off on the coffee: It may be easier said than done, but you should wait at least 45 minutes after you wake up before you have your first cup of coffee. On your commute: At your desk: Midday: 4:00pm: Before leaving work: Before bed:
Engineer Life: Set Up Habit Changes So It’s Hard to Fail Post written by Leo Babauta. In his excellent ebook about changing habits, blogging friend Scott Young described the process of forming habits as walking home through fresh snow. The first person to go through the snow has to forge a path through the snow, and it’s difficult … but others will follow in that path and it gets easier and easier. Forming a habit is a matter of forging that initial path until it’s harder not to take the path. Who wants to forge a new path through the snow? But let’s take that concept a little further: what if you engineered it so that even the initial person forging through the snow would rather take that path than another, because it would be harder not to take the path. Engineer your habit change so that it’s harder not to form the habit. Why habit changes fail I think I can safely say that all of us have attempted and failed at creating a new habit or changing an old habit at a few points in our lives. 1. Instead, find ways to have instant positive feedback.
Four Steps For Salvaging A Wasted Day | Fast Company Maybe it’s a fire drill, or a plumbing disaster, or a customer service rabbit hole of hold music. In any case, something has seriously distracted you from what you really needed to accomplish today. It’s thrown you off, and you got nothing done. Now it’s 5 p.m., you’re way behind, and you’re already beginning to panic about the horrorscape that tomorrow’s shaping up to be. Now what? First, step away from your computer. 1. As time management expert Allyson Lewis tells Fast Company, it’s essential to find a quiet spot, away from the place where your workday went down in flames. “Then,” Lewis counsels, “set it to seven minutes.” “People don’t have time to create this master plan,” she explains. Before you can do anything else, Lewis says, you need to abandon all hope of a grand strategy for getting back on track. 2. In those seven minutes, lay out up to five things you can accomplish the following day—within 2 seconds to 20 minutes each. 3. . . . 4. But over time, it can become less hard.
Autopilot Achievement: How to Turn Your Goals Into Habits “First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” - Charles C. Noble It’s such a simple concept, yet it’s something we don’t always do. Break your goals into habits, and focus on putting those habits into autopilot. Last week when I wrote my Ultimate Guide to Motivation, there were a number of questions about my belief that having One Goal to focus on is much more powerful than having many goals. These are excellent questions, and my answer takes a little explaining: I try to turn my goals into habits, and in doing so, I put my goals on autopilot. But once you put it on autopilot, once a habit is firmly established, you don’t really have to focus on it much. My Marathon Example Let’s look at my marathon goal as an example. But in order to achieve that goal, I broke it down into two habits: The daily running habit took about a month to form. The accountability habit took a couple months, mainly because I didn’t focus on it too much while I was building the running habit.
Blog – The Time Diet: Digestible Time Management My New Year’s resolution was to eat better. (I know. I pride myself on my originality.) I suppose I’m fortunate in that my problem wasn’t a love of super sized McDonald’s meals or an addiction to Krispy Kreme donuts. My problem was time. Now, before I go any further, I need to emphasize strongly that this is not a blog telling you how to lose weight. Now, where was I… My problem with eating was the same that many people face- I didn’t carve out any time to think about it. My Problem When I caught myself running out the door one morning with a rolled up tortilla for breakfast and 5 frozen chicken nuggets in a baggie for lunch I had to stop myself. I realized at that moment that my bad eating habits didn’t have anything to do with “not eating enough fruits and veggies” and everything to do with “not making time to PLAN my fruits and veggies.” After researching a few different healthy eating plans, I settled on Whole30. I like that there were rules. Healthy Eating Takes Planning Follow Up
How to Change Your Life (dirtSimple.org) Can people really change? We tend to assume that circumstances change easily and often, but that people change rarely, slowly, and with great difficulty. But these assumptions are wrong. The truth is that people can change easily and instantly. The real problem is that they also change back just as easily! Having Trouble Getting Started On Your Goals? In this short video, I explain -- and demonstrate! Meanwhile, the circumstances of our lives change slowly in comparison. Hogwash! So if you want to change your life, you need to do three things: Focus on changing your actions, not your circumstances Accept and plan for your weaknesses, instead of toughing it out Periodically review your results to fine-tune or re-think your approach if needed I could probably write a book on each of these three things, especially the second one. Change Your Actions, Not Your Circumstances Focusing on results is a losing game in two ways. Second, focusing on results makes you want to take rash shortcuts.
29 Ways to Beat Procrastination Once and For All We all procrastinate. Sometimes it’s not a bad thing, but it can turn into something evil and nasty if we aren’t careful. Try these procrastination beating techniques to destroy this deadly foe once and for all. 1. One of the best ways to “change the channel” of procrastination is to change your scenery. 2. Setup a daily (or hourly) reminder that you should be working on something or at least not wasting your time (unless you have time to waste). 3. There is nothing like having someone on your side when it comes to making your goals a reality. 4. You can do this with people around you or even with your motivation buddy above. 5. No matter what it is. 6. The nicest part about waking up early is that it is quiet and still. 7. You can’t wake up early and work if you don’t get to sleep early. 8. Sometimes we see how big a mess is in our lives and rather than do anything about it, we procrastinate. 9. Sitting in front of your TV isn’t a good thing (all the time). 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.
The News. | A life in 5 years January eighth. A tuesday. The day I got the results from my 150 day experiment. It started with me sleeping in a bit longer than normal, two hours of meditation and then my new weekly Qi Gong class, a class where I purposefully opted to stand rather than sit. So I stood as I moved through the positions radiating and intaking healing energies. As the day went on, that feeling never went away, in fact a nervous energy also swept over me, making me feel like I was generating and/or receiving something like stereophonic energy, pumping on multiple channels to the beat of my heart. And with that much energy surging through me, I was a bit more antsy than usual. I guess you could say I was a bit nervous. I had been so sure for 150 days. Even with trying to stay busy, the waiting was quite time consuming. At least I was able to keep my good humor about it, right? Three o’clock rolled by and even though I was being magnetically pulled toward the hospital, I kept looking for an exit strategy.
Top 7 Productivity Tips For Working At Home - Toggl Blog A growing number of us are granted the comfort of working from home by the grace of the almighty Internet. However, as nice as it may seem to skip that rush hour traffic and work in our pajamas, it can be tough to maintain productive work days at home. I’m still honing my at-home work skills but have definitely learned a few techniques that help me stay efficient! Below are my top 7 productivity tips. 1. Get up in time for breakfast. I know, I know. 2. The second most helpful thing I’ve discovered to boost my productivity is getting out of my sweats in the morning. 3. For the health conscious people out there, you may already know that coffee has been proven to have numerous health benefits, including lowering your chances for some types of cancer. 4. This is similar to the pjs psychology. 5. Legit lighting is something I seriously can’t work without. 6. The “work hard; play hard” philosophy is something that was drilled into my head during my youth. 7.
Get Your Big Rocks In First by Celes on Feb 2, 2009 | ShareThis Email This Post For today’s article, I’m going to start off with a timeless story which exemplifies the big idea I’m going to share. I’ve condensed the original story into its key essence, so please read it before continuing on. One day a teacher was speaking to a group of students. Big rocks – these are what’s most important and valuable to you. Big rocks are the same as your Quadrant 2 Tasks. Without getting your big rocks in place first, they will never ever get in. What are your big rocks in your life? Career: Are you pursuing your dream career? If not, are you working to get them in place? If you do not consciously get to your big rocks, you are never going to get to them. Start to consciously take action and get your big rocks in. This is part of the Maximizing Productivity series.