Tag: purpose

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Ready…Set…Go

Put a timer on it

The next time you have a mundane task set a timer and make it a game.

I bet that you’ll be done faster.

Why is that?

There is a part of us that leaves energy in the tank, and because of that part, we slow down. Putting stakes on anything tricks the body into releasing energy that makes the hour-long shower into a seven-minute one.

Being deliberate about what you’ll rush will open up time in your schedule, giving you plenty of opportunities to rest.

PS Trying this in 5 minutes 🙂

 

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Maximum Engagement, A Checklist

Time is short, I like checklists

We all have 24 hours in a day.

How does one maximize engagement and get purposeful?

There are plenty of ways to do it, but I promised shorter posts :-).

I’ll focus on what you can’t do.

You can’t do it if:

  • You have distractions
    • Turn your notifications off
    • Don’t check email
    • Single task
  • You have too many things
    • Say no ruthlessly
    • Time is the only resource
    • Prioritize
  • You don’t take care of yourself
    • Stop eating junk
    • Exercise
    • Sleep
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A Few Thoughts On Purpose

[bctt tweet=”Purpose turns things from fluff to stuff.”]

Purpose matters.

It doesn’t hit you when you are knee-deep in a game that you love, or a project that extremely fun. Purpose begins to matter when you hit the slog.

Anyone doing creative work has hit the slog – the time when what you do seems useless. There is very little feedback.

It makes the daily grind becomes unbearable.

When you connect a purpose to a task, it gives the task energy. The more the purpose means to you, the more energy you feed it. A great purpose makes work in the shadows bearable, even for years at a time.

So why is it hard to think of one for the work we do?

It’s difficult because it begins the accountability process. It puts some skin in the game. You aren’t able to sit back and make it an academic exercise – the failure will hurt.

It means a lot. Purpose turns things from fluff to stuff.

So why not give everything purpose?

A purpose filled life is a life that requires great energy. Most people work best when they only have a few to call on. If you find yourself with too much – think about getting rid of a few. There is a ton to gain by subtraction.

 

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Planning and Purpose

[bctt tweet=”Each appointment set on a contract represents a contract with yourself. “]

 

There are two parts to a successful calendar.

  • Planning – A calendar works when the when is correct. Each appointment set represents a contract with yourself.  It is easy to forgive one two or even ten mistakes, but each one represents an eroding of trust in the system. Eventually, this leads to the calendar just becoming noise, something our brains are good at filtering.  Some suggestions to help with planning.
    • Add buffer time – I live in New York City, and it pays not rush anywhere and with that said, people are often late. I am often late, and I build a form of ethics around it. One way to help stave off the tardiness is buffer time.  If you end up at your destination early, you look good. If you plan for it, you won’t stat panicking next time you hear “All train traffic is stopped due to a sick passenger” (or traffic accident, construction, or someone losing it because the Mets blew it).
    • Alarms – Don’t take the defaults. Use the alarms like football teams use the clock. Give yourself a two-minute warning, make it loud when you absolutely have to go, send an email at the beginning of the day. You get unlimited tries on this, so experiment until your heart’s content.
    • Accountability – Research your wins and losses here and adjust. Don’t beat yourself up, but also don’t let yourself off the hook.  Each time you are late, write a handwritten letter to the person. You don’t have to send it, but you will hate writing it, and you won’t forget.
  • Purpose – Each and everything has a purpose. connect yourself with it. What are the targets you want to hit going forward, how does this next thing move the needle? If you can’t think of it, it gets harder to deal with and your bed is going to look and feel a lot more comfortable
    • Write it out – Write out some of the why’s in your life. Put it in a place you will see often. Use your phone’s front screen, the background of your PC, or a white board. Take a few minutes to look at it and think about what you are doing and why its important to that.
    • Accountability – Talk about them to other people. Make sure people know what you are looking to do. Your mind is constantly playing tricks on you – but, someone else mind has no reason to do the same with your ideas.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, however, it serves as a great tripwire and a way to propel you through the day. Planning and purpose give you the chance to see and be honest on where you are in life, and what you want to do.

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Purpose Leap

When do you find purpose?

Superman started saving the world at 33. This stands out because he always had super strength, the ability to leap buildings in a single bound, the heat vision etc. In short, he always had the power to do it.

What he didn’t have was his purpose. The greatest powers in the world mean nothing unless they have direction.

When he did start, he had his share of failures. There was a lot of fear – even for the Man of Steel. Even if he had an indestructible body – his feelings remained.

He had to be ready to take a leap of faith. He had to be ready to trust himself.

Take as long as you need to figure out what you need to do. When you do… commit. Take the leap of faith.

Further Study

[Man of Steel] (http://manofsteel.com)
Seth Godin

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Purposeful

I have to find purpose in my twenties.

At least that is what I think when I sit alone in my room, staring at the corners and dry paint. This is the time in life where you have the ability to screw up completely, and not have it ruin your life.

I am 26 now, and I feel like I am working on making my twenties worth something, both by forging connections, and by creating rituals that will serve me better through life. I don’t know where these things will lead, which is odd considering the reason behind them is to give me purpose, but I do know that I will be a better person for it. It will make my path clear and give me the opportunity to see what I can achieve.

I want that freedom later in life to be able to look back on this and laugh, say I struggled, say it was for a good cause, and say I didn’t have any regrets. I am getting better at making this work, but who knows where the rest of this leads.

I will say this, doing this has opened up a lot of questions about me as a human being. One being do I hate competition. Phil says that I don’t quite make the effort of showing my cards, that I quit. When he says that, it gives me a pain in my stomach, and for me, that usually means that it is rooted in truth.

I think I have to look at myself and really sit with this one for a while. Whatever truth I find out, I am going to tackle it, with both routine and habit, along with whatever knowledge I pick up along the way. I never knew through meeting people and facing fears, that a lot of flaws come to the surface. This makes me happy actually, and it goes back to what I was saying earlier. It helps me find purpose, and helps me become a better person overall.

To that end, I was reading a post by Seth Godin today (http://www.sethgodin.com) about your perfect self. I am not a religious man by any means, but sometimes, it does feel like the fates come together and push knowledge onto you.

The post described exactly what I was talking about above. It starts off talking about setting the bar too high. I know I do that mentally all the time. I have to be amazing, I have to be spectacular, or it was a waste of time. This goes back to my growth mindset post of yesterday. I am at a fixed point, taking every no as concrete evidence in the hypothetical trial of should I do said thing.

I look at this and I begin to hide behind the nos, use that as fuel to help me quit whatever I was doing, and move back to a life where i can say i didn’t get hurt. It allows me to keep my ego intact, look at the world and say, i was better than that, and they just didn’t give me a chance.

I do that a lot in life, so maybe what Phil was saying is right. I must say, when typing this, my stomach did start to hurt a little bit, so I think mentally it is right as well. With that said, I am discovering this now, even as I type, so its interesting to see where me bringing this up to the surface will do, how will this work out.

The growth mindset is the thing that allows you to build yourself into that spectacular being. I read in 99u that you have to use ignorance to fuel you, and that is true. Ignorance plus the growth mindset equals something spectacular in my head. I think hat allows you o learn, get all the no’s out of the way, and then build on turning them into yes, by allowing yourself to receive feedback and show you are determined.

With that said, there is still a part of me that knows my best shot of making all of this work is to give myself some time to learn, and not to face those challenges without the tool kit to slay it. Even so, I have been working on a lot of this for years. I need to work on cashing in, so even failure becomes a step forward.

Manage your Day to Day is fantastic for anyone who wants to become a creative. The short posts by each thought leader is just enough for you to get the gist of what they are talking about, and fo you to want to learn more.

I have become a big fan of Gretchen Rubin lately, based on the book and the stuff on twitter and 99u I have read. I am constantly looking to expand my mind, and hopefully that book can help.

Farnam Street also submitted the summer reading list, making me get 4 more books I should read to expand my mind. They have been on point so far, since i have been following the site, so I don’t need much push to get me on board with following it.

The hard part is reading it, and for that, I still need to get into the habit of reading a bunch of pages a day. I am thinking if it should be something I add to the habit list, and keep track of. I may o it starting in June, especially as the May habits start taking shape, and I get to see where they stand.

I take the CPAP off in my sleep. This worries me, because I would like to use it for it’s intended purpose. I remember putting it on, but i wake up, and it is sitting net to me, properly put off to the side, on the counter, on top of my notebooks.

It is a very odd thing, and I wonder if I can fix it so I keep it on my head throughout the night.

1000 words. We have done it!!!! First time!!!!

Done: CPAP | Push Ups | 16/8 | 3 Things | Wrap Up
Not Done: Water | To-Do | Meditation | Vegetable Juice | Thank You

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