One of the things I always enjoy doing when a project or experiment comes to a close is to take some time to review what worked for me, what didn’t, and what I learned insightfully along the way. While you may not have been making use of the group forum throughout the program, it’s an…
My wife and I love to watch a cooking competition called The Great British Bake Off. There’s always a great bit when they do the final countdown: “Ten, nine, eight…” and everyone is rushing to put the last little bits on their cake and then “…three, two, one, step away! And they have to step…
In Creating the Impossible, I share some research into the psychology of happiness and success by positive psychologist Shawn Achor. In identifying the point at which the brain releases higher than normal amounts of endorphins and dopamine to help us complete a task, he noticed that it inevitably corresponded to the appearance of an apparent…
One of my favorite books to read and re-read is a bit of wisdom fiction called A Rich Man’s Secret by Ken Roberts. In the book, a man goes looking for the secret behind an old gravestone that is marked with the mysterious words: “Take the first step, no more, no less, and the next…
One of the most helpful things I’ve come to see about time and productivity management is that when it seems like we don’t have enough time to get stuff done, we’re missing the point. Putting aside for the moment that there’s no such thing as time in nature (and you can’t put it in a…
A lot of the mini-exercises and experiments I’ve offered up over the course of our time together are in the “little and often” category, where you effectively peck your list to completion – sort of the productivity management equivalent of “death by a thousand paper-cuts”. As we head into our final week, I’d like to…
I’ve always preferred the British term “taking a holiday” to the American idea of “going on a vacation”. When I think of vacations, I think of vacating – literally “to be empty” as in vacuum, vacuous, and vacant. Holidays, on the other hand, were originally “Holy days” – a sacred time to renew, recharge, and…
Chances are that if you’re still engaged with this program on day twenty-four, you’re someone who considers yourself a bit of a procrastinator. But what I’ve seen over the years is that procrastination is not a mental or physical ailment, but simply the label we hang on any situation in which we disapprove of the…
One of the things I’ve learned over the years about getting stuff done is this: The most important choice you ever make is what you choose to make important. So the difference between what gets done and what doesn’t is often more about intention and priorities than possibilities or circumstances. If you want to prioritize…
The very fact that you’re doing this program means that you’ve at least begun prioritizing the things you’d previously been avoiding doing. Here’s a simple exercise you can do to get a better sense of how far up or down the ladder of priorities your list is currently sitting. You can do this exercise for…