347-878-3837

Life planning

Here are articles on Life planning

There’s such a thing as too much convenience.

, , ,

One of the things that amuses me most about Americans (of which I am one) is how we blather on and on about “freedom” and then voluntarily give it up at every available opportunity. As long as we give it up in the service of commerce, rather than in the service of government, we seem to embrace the steady erosion of our rights, our health, our privacy, and even our minds.

After a decade of brainwashing that I need to have the latest and greatest gadget on my body at all times, I tried an experiment. A few weeks ago, I went to a conference and made the conscious decision to leave my cell phone in my hotel room safe each day. After a couple of days of fidgeting and feeling disconnected, I relaxed and returned to my pre-cell-phone state of attention and being-present. It was a really wonderful feeling. I picked up my messages after the conference each day and was able to be focused in how I returned and responded to those calls.

The moment the conference was over, of course, I went right back to being a cell phone addict.

Last night, I met a friend for dinner. I purposely left my cell phone at home, and surprise!, my attention was on her all throughout dinner. It felt kinda neat.

If you’re up for an experiment, try going 2 days without your cell phone. Pretend it’s a landline, leave it at home, make plans with people before leaving the home, etc. It actually produces a nice, high-quality evening. I’m starting to believe there’s an optimum convenience point. Too little convenience and life is drudgery. But too much and life becomes an endless stream of distractions/interruptions.

Hint: If your immediate response to this is “there’s no way I could ever do that,” stop and think again. You absolutely could. The fact that you’re so defensive about it and eager to justify not even trying has more to do with the symptoms of addiction that cell phones trigger than with reality. Just do it! You’ll survive!

Attitude isn’t everything!

, ,

I recently read an article in which the writer asserted that “attitude is everything.” He was quoting none other than the famous sales guru, Zig Ziglar.

I respectfully disagree. I believe attitude is simply part of the equation. You can succeed with a bad attitude and you can fail with a good one.

In my experience, bad attitudes can crush people. A bad attitude can keep someone from achieving their goals, even if they are superb and skillful in their execution. Their attitude can blind them to opportunity, prevent them from even attempting to find solutions, destroy relationships, and cause them to give up too soon.

A good attitude, however, isn’t enough. It still needs to be backed up with thought, ability, and execution. The good attitude may set the stage for someone to work hard, learn, try, fail, and try again. But the attitude itself isn’t enough. Confidence should follow from competence, not replace competence. Similarly, attitude should partner with aptitude, not replace it.

When you’re sick, ask for … a librarian

I got a mention in the mahslin blog today: http://mahslin.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/the-wind-in-our-sails/

I was a speaker at their annual meeting. They’re medical librarians and they are currently feeling under siege from cost-cutting measures. “Why should we bother having librarians when we have the internet?” is the corporate logic. It’s logic I would have pursued, too, before meeting them in person.

Librarians are information scientists. While doctors may do a little to keep up with current research, they’re primarily educated by pharma companies with a vested interest in presenting research and information that encourages doctors to prescribe drugs. While their intentions are no doubt good, there’s so much research about how unconscious bias controls our behavior that I just don’t believe the pharma reps are presenting unbiased health information to the doctors.

The librarians, however, are trained to seek out the latest information and understand the quality of that information. While doctors are busy seeing patients, librarians are busy learning the latest. In-hospital librarians then serve as a resource to medical teams to make sure they are aware of the latest and best information about treatments and research right when they need it.

Next time you’re in need of emergency medical care, make sure you have a competent, skillful doctor, nurse, EMT, or nurse practitioner helping you out. And so they can do their job better, ask for your medical librarian to lend their expertise.

Turn problems into opportunities

, ,

One of the most important skills you can develop in life is the ability to turn problems into opportunities. Let’s face it, life throws problems at us pretty much all the time. Some philosophies say that problems are the universe’s way of helping us learn to accept reality. Or perhaps they’re tests meant to give us the chance to show our strength and fortitude.

My take is a bit different. A problem is simply an opportunity by another name. Maybe it’s the old “God moves in mysterious ways” philosophy, or maybe it’s just that no matter what happens, if you survive, you’ll find a way to persevere. Either way learning to systematically find the opportunity within a problem is a key skill to going as far as your life circumstances will allow.

This week’s Get-it-Done Guy episode is all about turning problems into opportunities and how to find the opportunity beneath the problem. You can find it at http://getitdone.quickanddirtytips.com/how-to-turn-problems-into-opportunities.aspx

Keeping in Touch with Friends Over the Years

This week’s Get-it-Done Guy episode is on keeping in touch with friends over the years. As someone who moved a lot growing up (living in a traveling New Age commune will do that), I found I deeply wanted to keep what friendships I had over the years. Yet … it isn’t always possible. This week’s podcast on keeping in touch with friends came from my experience of wanting life long friends.

Ignore that software upgrade notice … for now

,

Many programs check to find out if they have an available upgrade when you run them. If so, they have a little upgrade notice that pops up then and there to tell you. Helpfully. This is convenient, courteous, just-in-time behavior, right? Wrong.

When you start up a program, there’s a 99% chance that you’re starting it because you want to use it. You have some task that requires the program in order to accomplish. You’re in work mode, with a specific goal in mind.

That’s exactly the wrong time to distract you with a software upgrade notice that forces you to think about a choice: Not Now, Install, or Cancel (what does cancel even mean in this context?). If you should decide to install now—after all, who’s going to remember later—then you’re treated to six hours of debugging when this minor upgrade from v 5.62 to v5.63 accidentally wipes out your hard drive. Your original task gets lost.

As a user, don’t let upgrades hijack your mind! Adopt a simple, yet effective habit: when a piece of software offers to upgrade, immediately jot down at the very end of your to-do list, “Upgrade silly program” and choose Not Now. Then treat the upgrade as you would any other to-do item: do it only when it fits into your schedule. If it’s an urgent upgrade, fine, put it on your calendar for a free time block today or tomorrow. But keep your focus on the task and hand and don’t let upgrades hijack your mind!

(Author’s note: This blog post was inspired by an offer for me to upgrade that interrupted my train of thought for a blog post I was going to write. Sadly, I don’t recall what the original post was going to be. See how those offers can knock us off course?)

Are you overwhelmed?

,

There are two kinds of being overwhelmed. There’s the chaos that comes from having no systems, so everything is an emergency. That’s relatively easy to deal with. The more pernicious type of overwhelm happens when you actually commit to more than you can possibly do. Then, no matter what you try, you can never catch up.

My current Yahoo! HotJobs column discusses how to make sure you’re not fundamentally overcommitted. You can read my HotJobs column on how to stop overcommitting by clicking here.

How did younger-you become present-day-you?

It’s my birthday today! I thought up a rather fun way to spend some time celebrating. Here’s my game:

Think of your age 10 years ago, 20 years ago, etc. and write down all the things you appreciate about the younger “you.” Spend some time pondering what’s been constant, what’s changed, and how that younger “you” contributed to who you are now. This is an exercise I’m designing for a speech on Living Your Life for younger people. If you’re willing to share, please chime in. What did you like about younger-you?  What’s been constant? What’s changed? (What, that you thought would be constant at the time, changed?)